Rede Gazeta (), also known as TV Gazeta or only Gazeta (in English, Gazette Network), is a Brazilian television network based in São Paulo.
History The history of TV Gazeta is intertwined with the history of television in Brazil. Planned since the 1950s, its facilities were oversized. On January 15, 1952, by decree signed by President Getúlio Vargas, channel 2 in São Paulo was granted to the Fundação Cásper Libero (Cásper Líbero Foundation). Due to delays in the inauguration due to technical issues, the Cásper Líbero Foundation lost the concession for channel 2, which was passed on to Assis Chateaubriand, who inaugurated TV Cultura a year later. The concession for channel 11 was given to TV Gazeta. In 1961, the last act of the Juscelino Kubitschek administration was to take the channel away from the Foundation and give it to TV Continental in Rio de Janeiro. One day later, with the inauguration of Jânio Quadros and pressure from the Foundation, the concession returned to its rightful owner.
June 23, 1969, was the deadline for installing São Paulo's seventh and final VHF channel. At 5:45 p.m., the 116-meter tower at the end of Paulista Avenue transmitted its first signals, and TV Gazeta went on the air experimentally. The first image was of Paulista Avenue, accompanied by the song Sá Marina, by Antônio Adolfo and Tibério Gaspar, sung by Wilson Simonal.
TV Gazeta was inaugurated on January 25, 1970, the 416th anniversary of the city of São Paulo, with live images of Paulista Avenue and a commemorative text evoking Cásper Líbero, the station's patron. The first station set up with equipment for color broadcasting, it had the first unit for external color broadcasting in the country.
It was the first station to work with chroma key equipment and introduced slow motion to Brazil, anticipating trends by producing and broadcasting the country's first Formula 1 race (rebroadcast in partnership with Rede Globo).
Gazeta nurtured the dream of becoming a network in the mid-1970s, when the market began to change. Tupi and Record were in decline, Rede Bandeirantes was considering the possibility of becoming a network, while Globo was always competing for audience share.
There was the possibility of the emergence of Rede Jornal do Brasil, but this did not worry Gazeta much, which even put programming on stations in the northern region of the country, in much of the state of São Paulo, and took for granted the concession of channel 11 in Rio de Janeiro. But that's not how the story unfolded. In 1976, broadcaster and presenter Silvio Santos won the concession for the Rio de Janeiro channel that belonged to TVS (TV Studios Silvio Santos de Cinema e Televisão Ltda), (which later became the cornerstone of the future SBT), and Bandeirantes made better offers and took the stations that Gazeta had affiliated in the Amazon region to its network. Over time, the station's equipment began to be scrapped, there was not enough money to replace it, many professionals began to change stations, the audience began to watch less and less programming, and Gazeta entered a phase of ostracism that would last until the mid-1980s. Many people were even unaware that channel 11 in São Paulo was on the air.
But it is important to remember an unforgettable event involving TV Gazeta in 1973: an agreement had been reached between the Argentine Federal Government, under Perón, and the Brazilian Government, establishing that Brazilian television technicians would implement color television in Argentina, meaning that the first color broadcast would be under their care. It was the OTI party (at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires). The Brazilian government assigned the team from TV Gazeta, channel 11 in São Paulo, to this task. Rede Tupi simultaneously broadcast the event—even though it was entirely organized by Gazeta—with special flashes of the rehearsals and the show during the live broadcast from Argentina to Brazil via satellite. An emotional moment of the day was when the Gazeta team gave permission for the local professionals to end that first broadcast in Argentine style. Many Argentines hugged the Argentine and Brazilian technicians, and there was constant crying among all the operators, moved by emotion.
In 1978, Gazeta debuted the Japanese-Brazilian program Programa Nelson Matsuda, an paid presentation program by Japan Pop Show Empreendimentos or N.Matsuda TV Produções Ltda. It was broadcast live from the Cásper Líbero Theater on the third floor of the Gazeta building. It was hosted by Nelson Matsuda himself. It was the first Japanese-Brazilian variety show with an audience, thus inaugurating Gazeta's line of shows, which were broadcast in the morning, afternoon, or evening. It was hosted by Rosa Miyake, Mário Okuhara, Ênio Santos, Humberto Marçal, and Alberto Murata. The program mixed information, culture, and entertainment. It featured events from Japan, Miss Nikkei, talent contests, musicals with Brazilians and Japanese, etc.
In 1978, the network even began filming a novela called Zulmira, in an attempt to capitalize on the genre. However, the novela was censored before it premiered due to the appearance of a toilet in one scene.
On September 22, 1980, Clarisse Amaral em Desfile became Mulheres. Initially, the program was hosted by Ângela Rodrigues Alves and Ione Borges. Then, the whole of Brazil began to get to know the duo of “partners,” Ione Borges and Claudete Troiano.
In 1982, reporter and columnist Amaury Jr. made his debut on the network, interviewing famous people and celebrities in São Paulo and other Brazilian cities on the program Flash. The program was so successful that other networks competed for Gazeta's new revelation, until Rede Bandeirantes negotiated a higher salary than Amaury was earning at Gazeta and he left the station in 1986.
In 1983, to make matters worse for TV Gazeta, a major competitor entered the fray: Rede Manchete, channel 9, which, despite not being as big as the others, had plenty of resources, unlike Gazeta. Therefore, it seemed doomed to fall into oblivion once again. TV Gazeta, together with TV Globo, built and inaugurated the Cásper Líbero Tower on April 21, at Avenida Paulista, 900, 13th floor, Bela Vista, in São Paulo.
Also in 1983, TV Gazeta designed a program that could bring the Brazilian circus world to television. Thus, Wandeko Pipoka created, presented, hosted, and conceived the children's program A Turma da Pipoca.
Also in 1983, the future clown duo Atchim & Espirro, played by artists Eduardo dos Reis and Carlos Alberto de Oliveira, appeared in the comedy sketches of the children's program A Turma da Pipoca, created, presented, directed, and conceived by Wandeko Pipoka. Eduardo dos Reis already had a stage name: the clown Atchim. Carlos Alberto de Oliveira, the clown Espirro, with his son, Carlos Júnior, had another name: Janela and Janelinha. Later, only Atchim and Janela remained. Janela, Carlos' character, was renamed Espirro. The duo became known as Atchim & Espirro. However, Wandeko Pipoka had a falling out with Gazeta's management and left the station. Later, in 1985, management handed the duo the continuation of the program A Turma do Pipoca, and thus Brincando na Paulista was born. The duo Atchim & Espirro debuted on the network hosting the children's show Brincando na Paulista. The program aired from 1985 to 1988. The program mixed Hanna-Barbera cartoons, music, raffles, games, musicals, comedy sketches, and attractions for children.
Between 1984 and 1985, the station partnered with Grupo Abril, which had decided to enter the television market. Since the government did not grant a concession to the publisher, Abril Vídeo emerged, buying practically all of Gazeta's nighttime programming, which, presenting quality programs, began to be watched again. Even after Abril left, Gazeta continued to have a reasonable audience, but maintaining truly competitive programming, in line with other networks, was risky and unfeasible. Fausto Silva debuted his Perdidos na Noite (Lost in the Night).
With the debut of Imagens do Japão (Images of Japan) in 1978 or 1979, Nelson's show lost some of its importance at Gazeta and ended up going off the air in 1984.
In 1988, Gazeta debuted the new format of the Nelson Matsuda Program, now under the name Japan Pop Show. Japan Pop Show was modeled after Imagens do Japão. It was a live studio audience program in the format of variety and musical shows, broadcast live from the Cásper Líbero Theater on the 3rd floor of the Gazeta building. Japan Pop Show was an independent production by Japan Pop Show Empreendimentos or N.Matsuda TV Produções Ltda. It was hosted by Nelson Matsuda and Suzana Matsuda until 1992 or 1994, when the program returned to Rede Bandeirantes.
In 1990, due to internal changes, the “televisão desindexada (deindexed television)” project, as it was called, ended up being deactivated, and TV Gazeta began to decline, with a more lackluster programming schedule based mainly on films that were repurchased directly from Rede Globo and shown on Cine Gazeta from Monday to Saturday at 9:30 p.m., and cartoons on the Gazetinha program from Monday to Saturday from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., with some cartoons repurchased from SBT and Globo itself, when it no longer had room to show them. The station seemed doomed to continue broadcasting only to São Paulo, with little prospect for growth.
In the early 1990s, a new phase of change began for the station, with the start of a partnership between Rede OM Brasil (Organizações Martinez) and TV Gazeta de São Paulo. The turnaround occurred precisely at the beginning of 1992, when TV Paraná (in Curitiba) and TV Tropical (in Londrina) decided to break their contract with Rede Bandeirantes, which was in a phase of rapid expansion, and thus Rede OM was founded. Gaining affiliates across the country (thanks to then-President Collor, with whom the network owner was a political ally), OM soon began to convince Gazeta of the possibility of affiliation, which was very well received at first.
These were times of rapid growth; the new network had Galvão Bueno on its staff and was the great promise for the decade, with films, studio shows, journalism, and sports, such as the broadcast of the 1992 Copa Libertadores de América, when the channel was the audience leader in broadcasting the final between São Paulo and Newell's Old Boys. In the middle of the year, everyone was betting that TV Gazeta would be to the 1990s what SBT had been to the 1980s. However, Collor was accused of corruption and impeached.
In 1993, Rede OM Brasil became CNT and never grew as before, as Rede Record began to grow again and ended up taking a large part of its affiliates. This was followed by a period of joint operation with CNT. During the decade, it was recognized that most of the programs that were made at the São Paulo station and broadcast on the network were responsible for the largest audiences and, consequently, the highest revenues. TV Gazeta realized that it could stand on its own two feet and start growing again.
The Japan Pop Show program went off the air on TV Gazeta and returned to Rede Bandeirantes.
TV Gazeta suffered another setback, losing the concession for channel 12 in Santos, a station on the coast of São Paulo that it had tried to operate twice. The concession, dating from the 1970s, had expired.
In 1996, TV Gazeta changed its name to CNT Gazeta.
During that decade, CNT and Gazeta broadcast foreign soap operas, audience-oriented programs—such as the popular police shows Cadeia and 190 Urgente, the children's programs Hugo Game, Tudo por Brinquedo, with Mariane Dombrova, and TV Fofão, with Orival Pessini, as well as Hanna-Barbera cartoons, the sports program Mesa Redonda, the variety show Mulheres, with a strong presence in journalism and sports.