Argentine television began its transmissions in 1951 through channel 7, during the presidency of Juan Domigo Perón. Jaime Yankelevitch, a pioneer of the medium in the country, was a local radio entrepreneur who traveled to the United States to buy the equipment needed for television broadcasting. Initially, the transmitters were operated by the Ministry of Public Works, and the legal framework established the state as the owner of the broadcasting service. During this time, the government had absolute control over television, even though advertising spots were sold to commercial advertisers from its inception.

The military government of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu that overthrew Perón instituted private television in 1957 through the enactment of the decree 15,460. With the intention of controlling the dissemination of messages, this decree-law also prohibited the existence of broadcasting networks in the country. The stations in Buenos Aires could not send signals to the rest of the country, and as a result many independent stations with limited coverage emerged throughout the country. The first pay-TV systems were founded in 1962–63. They used community antenna television (CATV) technology, coaxial cables, and inexpensive equipment and bought most of their programming from the broadcast stations in Buenos Aires. Ironically, the pay-TV stations that resulted from the 1957 prohibition stand at the root of the high cable penetration and the economic boom in the Argentine cable business today.

The first private channels in the capital city of Buenos Aires started operating in 1960—channels 9, 13, and 11. Though Argentine law prohibited foreign ownership of TV channels, at first the American networks managed to make “backdoor” deals with the local stations by creating parallel production companies. Foreign investment could flow to these companies because they were not limited in terms of ownership. Thus the American television corporation NBC invested in channel 9 through the production company Telecenter, ABC invested in channel 11 through Telerama, and CBS and Time-Life invested in channel 13 through Proartel. In this way the American networks became partners of the private Argentine channels.

The founder of channel 13 was Goar Mestre, a famous Cuban broadcasting entrepreneur who left Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and emigrated to Argentina. Because Mestre was married to an Argentine, his wife was able to become the owner of the license for channel 13. At the same time, Mestre established a financial arrangement with CBS and Time-Life in which he owned 60 percent of Proartel (Producciones Argentinas de Televisión), channel 13’s production company. As Elizabeth Fox argues in Media and Politics in Latin America (1988), the entrance of foreign capital had a strong impact on national broadcasting, by exposing Argentina to large investments in advertising and driving the development of mass consumption markets.

In the mid-1960s national entrepreneurs invested in the majority stocks of the three private channels, and the American networks withdrew from the market. In 1965, Alejandro Romay bought channel 9. In the early 1970s, the Vigil family, owner of the publisher Editorial Atlántida, invested in channel 13, and Héctor Ricardo García, from the publisher Editorial Sarmiento, invested in channel 11. In Quien te ha visto y quién TV (1988), Argentine television expert Pablo Sirvén considers the 1960s the best years of private television, a period characterized by the high competition between the stations and the success of their programming.

Yet this golden period came to an end in 1974 when the third Peronist government decided that the private licenses should return to the state and expropriated the major television stations. Silvio Waisbord indicates that the rationale for deciding not to renew their commercial licenses was based on the defense of the national interest, the elimination of commercialism, and the advancement of cultural goals. However, the state’s appropriation of private channels brought no major changes because the stations continued to be supported by advertising and the programming was produced by the same production companies as before. The government did not fulfill its promise to support the national industry and no cultural programming was produced. As reruns of old programs and movies became commonplace, both audiences and advertising declined and the stations needed additional state support to continue operating.

The fact that all television channels were state owned played directly into the hands of the military dictatorship during the period from 1976 to 1983. The military exercised tight ideological control over the content of all programming, and there were “black lists” with the names of prestigious producers, scriptwriters, and actors who could not work in television. The 22,285 broadcasting law enacted during this period dealt extensively with the content of the programming. Any appeal to violence, eroticism, vice, or crime was prohibited as well as any content that challenged the ethical, social, or political norms of the country. During this period, in 1980, the first color transmissions began for the national market.

During the dictatorship, all state units, including all television stations, were allocated one-third to the army, one-third to the navy, and one-third to the air force. Channel 9 went to the army, channel 11 to the air force, channel 13 to the navy, and channel 7 to the presidency. While the military government managed to keep an intense ideological control over the content of the programs, their poor administration of the stations indebted them to the point of bankruptcy. For instance, in order to compete with each other, each of the three branches of the armed forces paid enormous sums of money to hire famous stars. Yet the revenues generated by advertising were not enough to cover these expenses.

The military regime was in principle against any kind of state intervention in the economy. Unlike previous governments that had tried to promote the national industry, the last military government eliminated all tariffs and protectionistic measures impeding the free flow of goods in the marketplace. However, in the area of communication their free-market policies were not so clear. Oscar Landi writes in Devórame Otra Vez (1988) that the military intended to privatize the channels while keeping them under their ideological control at the same time. Given this ambivalence, the process of privatization undertaken during this period with the enactment of the 1980 Broadcasting Law was intentionally slow and started with the smaller stations in the provinces. Only in 1984, during the democratically elected government of Raúl Alfonsón, did the wave of privatization reach Buenos Aires. It was at this point that channel 9 returned to its previous owner, Alejandro Romay.

Notwithstanding the elimination of all censorship and “black lists,” the communication sector inherited by Alfonsón still operated under the legal legacy of the military regime and was highly inefficient. As a result, cable television, particularly in the interior of the country, developed without regulation, and television channels continued to violate the legal limit of advertising time. Despite many attempts, the Alfonsón administration did not succeed in reforming the broadcast sector. This failure is generally attributed to the gridlock resulting from the strong economic and political pressures that operated during the transition to democracy.

President Menem learned his lesson from Alfonsón’s experience, and early in his administration implemented by decree the “Law of State Reform” that included, among other state enterprises, the privatization of channel 11 and channel 13 in December 1989. At this point the deregulation of broadcasting acquired full force. Today there are five superstations in Buenos Aires; four of them are privately owned (channels 2, 9, 11, and 13) and one remains public (channel 7/ Argentina Televisora Color).

The loosening of cross-media ownership allowed for the emergence of national media conglomerates. Publishers had extensively lobbied for this measure. Channel 13 was licensed to the conglomerate Clarón, the owner of the largest circulation newspaper in the country; ARTEAR, a film and television production company; two radio stations, Radio Mitre and FM100; a publishing company, Editorial Aguilar; an expanding multiple service operator (MSO), Multicanal (400,000 subscribers); three satellite-delivered channels; and one of the partners of a newsprint factory, Papel Prensa, and the national news agency, Diarios y Noticias (DyN). Channel 11 was licensed to Telefé, a consortium integrated by the publisher Editorial Atlántida that also owns Produfé, a program production and distribution company, and at present controls 15 cable systems (200,000 subscribers). ARTEAR and Telefé are the channels that dominate the broadcast landscape and fiercely compete for top ratings.

Toward the end of the 1980s, the number of cable operators in the country reached about 2000. The main players were Video Cable Comunicación (VCC) and CableVisión. In the early 1990s new operators linked to Clar’n and Telefé entered the market and gradually began to buy up cable franchises from smaller operators across the country. At present cable ownership is concentrated in the following four groups: VCC, CableVisión, Clarón, and Telefé. These companies are also investing in fiber optic cable and are implementing Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Services (MMDS) to distribute their signals across areas that cannot be reached by cable. Another player in the cable business is Imagen Satelital, a company that supplies Argentine cable systems with five in-house channels (Space, I-Sat, Infinito, Universo, and Jupiter) and distributes nine additional signals, among them Televisa’s Eco Noticias, Bandeirantes from Brazil, and Much Music from Canada. Argentine signal distributors and programmers have grown rapidly since the launching of the domestic satellite Nahuel in 1992. This satellite’s footprint covers the northern part of Argentina, the western part of Brazil, and most of the territory of Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

During the years following the privatization of television channels, advertising expenditures have more than quadrupled. Television and cable operators pay an 8-percent tax on advertising revenues to the National Broadcasting Committee (COMFER), which supports the government channel 7/Argentina Televisora Color. Currently the COMFER also directs 25 percent of this income to the National Film Institute for the subsidy of local film production.

Further trends toward deregulation of communications resulted in the signing of a bilateral accord between Argentina and the United States in September 1994 that allows for American investment in Argentine broadcast and cable operations. American capital entered the market soon afterward, when TCI Inc. and Continental Cable invested in the two largest cable system operators in Argentina, CableVisión and VCC, respectively.

For about $35 a month, cable subscribers in Argentina receive a varied menu of about 65 channels, which includes (in addition to the domestic superstations): European channels (e.g., RAI from Italy, TV5 from France, TVE from Spain, and Deutsche Welle from Germany); Latin American channels (e.g., Globo TV, Manchete, and Bandeirantes from Brazil, Inravisión from Colombia, ECO from Mexico, and Venevisión from Venezuela); and American channels (FOX, USA, CNN, ESPN, the Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, MTV, Nickelodeon, HBO Olé, etc.). At present no premium cable channels are offered in Argentina, and all the services are included in the basic subscription package.

Variety shows are among the most popular programs. They are scheduled at different times throughout the day, often in the early afternoon (1:00 to 2:00 P.M.) or during the peak of prime time (8:00 to 9:00 p.m.). The Argentine version of a variety show features a combination of musicals, interviews, comic skits, and games in which the audience participates by calling the host of the program, who frequently is a famous national actor. An example of a daily variety show that has reached top ratings since 1984 is Hola Susana, hosted by actor Susana Giménez. Another popular variety show is Videomatch, hosted by Marcelo Tinelli. His program starts at midnight, targets a young, 15- to 30-year-old audience, and includes video clips, bloopers, and sports.

In general, telenovelas are shown from Monday through Fridays in the afternoon (1:00 to 4:00 p.m., depending on the channel) and early prime time (6:00 to 8:00 p.m.). The former are targeted at women, while the latter are targeted at a young adult audience. Weekly drama series broadcast after 10:00 p.m. are also popular. These attempt to reach an adult audience by dealing with socially controversial themes such as corruption, drugs, homosexuality, and so on.

A typical TV prime-time evening starts at 6:00 p.m. with light telenovelas, variety shows, or game shows. These programs precede the one-hour newscasts that are scheduled in different time slots in each channel. Channel 11 and ATC/channel 7 broadcast their evening news programs at 7:00 p.m., channel 2 at 9:00 p.m., and channel 9 and channel 13 compete on the news front at 8:00 p.m. From 10:00 p.m. to midnight viewers may opt for movies (which are usually imported), weekly drama series, or public affairs programs led by well-known national journalists and political pundits.

Sports programs are generally scheduled during weekends. They cover different matches and report on the result of national, regional, or world championships. Soccer is the sport followed by the largest audience; the broadcast of a soccer cup final never fails to reach top ratings. But popular sports programs also include tennis, boxing, motoring, and rugby.

Unfortunately, there is no recent data on the proportion of imported programs available in this country. Early studies on the world flow of television programs conducted by Tapio Varis (1974) show that in 1971 channel 9 and channel 11 respectively imported 10 percent and 30 percent of their programming. A decade later, Varis (1984) found that channel 9 imported 49 percent of its programming. Considering the changes in the Argentine television landscape since 1989 (i.e., privatization, liberalization, the growth of cable, etc.), those partial figures cannot be considered a reliable estimate of the proportion of the current imported/domestic programming. Nevertheless, rating figures show that in general the Argentine audience prefers domestic productions. For instance, in August 1994, according to data from the market research company IBOPE (TV International, 1994), the five programs with the highest ratings were: soccer championship Copa Libertadores (13.0 of rating); variety show Hola Susana (12.6); family sitcom ¡Grande Pá! (12.6); movie cycle Cine ATP (11.3); and The Simpsons (11.2).