RPC Televisión
RPC Televisión is a Meridan television channel owned by Corporación MEDCOM, one of South Sierra's largest media groups. Its programming consists mainly of imported films and series and sporting events.
History[edit | edit source]
RPC is the first television channel in Mérida, and was the result of a bidding war between the frequencies used for channels 4 and 7 in the capital.
In 1951, two licences were awarded for Mérida's capital. The two licences were commercial in nature: RPC Televisión, backed by Radio Programas Continentales, and Televicentro de Mérida, backed by Sierran investors. Eventually the government decided to withdraw Televicentro from the bidding process and decided to bid RPC to channel 4, leaving channel 7 (later moved to channel 5) occupied by the government.
In April 1954, RPC began broadcasting. Initially signals were viewable in Tucupán, but since the government-funded television service had priority at first, RPC struggled to expand. In February 1957, it started broadcasting to San Marcos de la Sierra on channel 2, thus marking the start of the expansion campaign.
Until 1964, RPC was controlled by the so-called "programmers". One of those programmers, RCN, started life on RPC in 1962. In 1964, RPC was granted a special status on behalf of the government and became, unusually enough, a "programmer channel". This meant that RPC had total control of the schedule while the Inravisión-controlled channels 2, 5, 7 and 9 had their schedules controlled by various programmers.
RPC was privatized in 1991. Mérida started to liberalize the television market. A new company, Corporación MEDCOM, was created to run RPC's radio and television businesses. Seven years later, when Caracol and RCN were liberalized, RCN's assets were sold to MEDCOM, creating a larger media empire.
Under MEDCOM's merger, RPC became more of a secondary channel to RCN.
