The Tv in Mexico by Victor

THE TV IN MEXICO

The first experimental television transmission in Mexico-- from Cuernavaca to Mexico City--was arranged by Francisco Javier Stavoli in 1931. Stavoli purchased a Nipkow system from Western Television in Chicago with funding from the ruling party, which was then called Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (Mexican Revolutionary Party) and became the current Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party). In 1934 Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena built his own monochromatic camera; by 1939, Gonzalez Camarena had developed a Trichromatic system, and in 1940 he obtained the first patent for color television in the world. In 1942, after Lee deForest traveled to meet with him in order to buy the rights, he secured the U.S. patent under description of the Chromoscopic Adaptors for Television Equipment. In 1946 Gonzalez Camarena also created XE1GGC-Channel 5, Mexico's first experimental television station, and started weekly transmissions to a couple of receivers, built by Gonzalez Camarena himself, installed at the radio stations XEW and XEQ, and at the Liga Mexicana de Radioexperimentadores (Mexican League of Radioexperimentors). The first on-air presenter was Luis M. Farias and the group of actors and actresses performing in those transmissions were Rita Rey, Emma Telmo, Amparo Guerra Margain and Carlos Ortiz Sanchez. Gonzalez Camarena also built the studio Gon-Cam in 1948, which was considered the best television system in the world in a survey done by Columbia College of Chicago.



In 1949 another broadcasting pioneer Romulo O'Farrill obtained the concession for XHTV-Chanel 4, the first commercial station in Mexico, which was equipped with an RCA system. XHTV made the first remote control transmission in July of 1950 from the Auditorium of the National Lottery--a program televising a raffle for the subscribers of O'Farrill's newspaper, Novedades. The first televised sports event, a bullfight, was transmitted the following day. In September of 1950, with the firm Omega and the automobile tire manufacturer Goodrich Euzkadi as the first advertisers, XHTV made the first commercial broadcast, the State of the Union Address of President Miguel Aleman Valdes.



By the late 1980s, the entire telecommunications infrastructure in Mexico consisted of 10,000 miles of microwaves with 224 retransmitting stations and 110 terminal stations; the Morelos Satellite System with two satellites and 232 terrestrial links; 665 AM radio stations and 200 FM radio stations; 192 television stations and 72 cable systems.

Even within the structure of these regulations, television in Mexico has been dominated by a handful of powerful individuals and family groups. The most significant of these is the Azcarraga family. Television station XEW began operations in 1951 under the direction of Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta, who already owned the radio station with the same call letters, one of thirteen radio stations under his ownership in the Northern part of the country. Azcarraga had strong links with the U.S. conglomerate RCA, and had been the founding President of the Chamber of the Radiobroadcast Industry in 1941. He was also influential in the creation of the Interamerican Radiobroadcasting Association and, with Goar Mestre of Cuba, was considered one of the two most powerful media barons in Latin America. XHGC was founded in 1952 by Gonzalez Camarena, who was considered a protégé of Azcarraga and had worked as a studio engineer in his radio stations. Telesistema Mexicano was born in 1954 with the integration of XEW-TV, XHGC-TV and, a year later, XHTV.



In 1973, 23 years after having committed to this model of commercial support, Televisa (Television Via Satellite, S. A.) was created as a result of the fusion of Telesistema Mexicano and Television Independiente de Mexico (TIM). TIM was the media outlet of the Monterrey Group, the most powerful industrial group in the country, and consisted of XHTM-TV, which started in 1968, two more stations in the interior, and the additional fifteen television stations of Telecadena Mexicana, S. A. This network was founded by film producer Manuel Barbachano Ponce in 1965 and was purchased by TIM in 1970. The fusion of Telesistema and TIM was preceded by strong criticisms of programming and advertising by several public officials, including President Luis Echeverria, in 1972.



After being dominated by Televisa for 23 years, however, and despite the giant company's financial successes, Mexican television is in a stage of transition. A duopoly is emerging in which TV Azteca is the competitor. The quasi-monopoly of Televisa in the Mexican television industry was broken in 1994, when the Salinas administration privatized a media package that included Channels 7 and 13, as well as a chain of film theaters. The winning bid was presented by Ricardo Salinas Pliego, President of the electronics manufacturer Elektra and the furniture chain Salinas y Rocha. Salinas Pliego won the bid despite having no experience in the broadcast industry, a qualification required by rules issued by the federal government.



Much of Televisa's dominance in Mexican television comes from its role as a production and distribution company. It provides over 12,000 hours of television programming each year, of which only 13% are imports. Media scholar Florence Toussaint says that the soul of the Televisa resides in its programming. She points out that the organization offers an apparent diversity through the four channels (channels 2, 4, 5, and 9 in Mexico City), with 118 titles in 455 hours each week. Toussaint argues, however, that among and within all these programs, a singular discourse is being elaborated, a discourse which propagates a determinate view of the world. Plurality, she suggests, is not its goal, and all the different shows in the various genres are, in fact, similar. This is especially true of the soap operas (telenovelas), the main programming form of Mexican television. (The production and distribution of melodramatic telenovelas places Televisa among the top five exporters of television programming in the world; the programs are exported not only to the Americas, but to countries that include China and Russia.) This particular genre can be seen to prescribe the gender roles and the aspirations that the social classes should have. Bourgeois values and symbols are the ideal, the goal, and the measure of failure or success.



These historical developments and the complex structures of the Mexican television system have been the subject of considerable critical analysis. Most examinations of the Mexican television industry adopt a liberal pluralist approach. They claim that the relation between the authorities and the television monopoly has been fruitful for both parties, especially so for the latter. They also stress that in this relation, the interests of the masses have been overlooked. Few critics have taken the simple view that the government and broadcasting have identical objectives, but most do argue that the different administrations have been tolerant and weak, allowing the monopoly greater benefits than its contributions to Mexican society. These analyses focus on several central themes. They cite ownership of media industries and management of news and information, criticizing the historical quasi-monopoly and the pro-government bias of Televisa's newscasts lead by Jacobo Zabludovsky for over a quarter of a century.