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The Brazilian Way
Television started to develop in Brazil in the 1950's. TV Tupi
was the pioneer, funded by Assis Chateaubriand in São Paulo,
on September 18, 1950. In 1951, TV Tupi Rio was born. Chateaubriand
was a Brazilian entrepreneur, head of a successful publishing business
called "Diários Associados". It all began when
he brought into Brazil around 300 TV sets to sell to the local elite.
Apparently, he wanted to be known as the television pioneer, and
went on with this new venture against the opinion of US consultants
that he had hired for a feasibility study (Fox, 1997; Vink, 1988).
At that time, telenovelas were not a daily affair; they were broadcast
twice a week, for twenty minutes. The first televised soap aired
was "Sua vida me pertence” (Your life belongs to me),
in December of 1951. It was on the air twice a week for fifteen
minutes and lasted for three months (Vink, 1988).
There were many operational difficulties in producing the soaps,
including the challenges of live broadcast, small studios, and lack
of expertise. A common problem was to get the actors, usually coming
from the radio, to memorize their texts, because they were used
to reading the scripts. The interpretation would also lack the necessary
body language; even though the verbal inflection was usually perfect
(Porto & Silva, 1995). The economic and commercial aspect of
the television business also played a role in the development of
this new media. During the 50's, television advertisements were
mostly from small, local stores. Television broadcasting was limited
to some large cities such as São Paulo (1950), Rio de Janeiro
(1951), and Belo Horizonte (1955). However, geographical limitation
was not the only reason television attracted a restricted audience
during that time. The combination of the high cost of TV sets, along
with the limitations of the signal reach, and the type of programming,
constricted television’s early appeal to the upper-middle
class (Straubhaar, 1982). Therefore, multinational firms would prefer
to spend their money advertizing in newspapers or radio, which had
a far greater audience (Ortiz et al., 1991).
During this period, the most popular program was a televised theater,
called "teleteatro". This was a weekly two-hour program
that broadcasted live plays and had the greatest names of Brazilian
theater in the line up. Universally recognized theater plays such
as Shakespeare's Othello, Hamlet and Macbeth, among others were
part of the production repertoire (Ortiz et al., 1991). "TV
de Vanguarda" was the prototype for this kind of program, it
was offered by TV Tupi in 1952, and it was on the air until 1967
(Távola, 1996). The preoccupation with this form of high
art program gave teleteatro the honor of being one of the most prestigious
programs in Brazilian television during the 1950's. However, this
generated a dichotomy between the directors and actors that came
to television from the theater and cinema and the ones that came
from the radio. Most producers and actors looked down on radio,
which was not believed to be as sophisticated or prestigious as
the theater. Therefore, the telenovela, by past association and
origins on the radio, was considered a lesser form of entertainment
(Távola, 1996).
During the 1960's, the number of TV sets in Brazil rose dramatically.
Between 1960-1965 there was a 333% increase in the number of sets,
and in 1966, 408 thousand units were sold, which was almost the
same number sold during the last decade. Another contributor to
the expansion of television was the introduction of new technologies
such as the videotape, which allowed the stations to have greater
geographical area coverage, including medium sized cities (Ortiz
et al., 1991). The increase in advertising money coming in, in contrast
to earlier years, was definitely a sign of the consolidation of
the television as a mass medium. In 1958, only 8% of the total advertising
money went to television, against 22% to radio and 42% to newspapers.
In 1967, television had 42% of the publicity money, against 16%
to radio and 15% to newspapers (Caparelli, 1982). The growing number
of television audience translated the appeal of television to different
social groups, as opposed to its elitist beginning.
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