Caracol Televisión (Acronym: Cadena Radial Colombiana - Televisión) is a Colombian private national television network, owned by Julio Mario Santo Domingo.

History

Caracol Televisión started in 1954 when Organización de Radiodifusora Caracol offered to afford national television costs, then state-run, through commercial spots. At that time its board (Fernando Londoño Henao, Cayetano Betancourt, Carlos Sanz de Santamaría, Pedro Navas, and Germán Montoya) started to suggest the possibility of establishing the first television station in Colombia. One year later that idea was accepted and they decided to share the rights with Radiodifusora Nacional, the state-run company operating Colombian television, creating TVC (Televisión Comercial Ltda.), a company which lasted two years.

In 1967, Inravisión awarded through a public bidding the then production/programming company 45 hours a week; because of this, the then Caracol Radio became Caracol Televisión S.A., having TV shows' marketing and production as its main goal. In 1987 Valores Bavaria group became the main stockholder and prompted a technical and administrative modernization to the company.

On November 24, 1997 Caracol Televisión was granted a licence as a "private-operated national channel" for 10 years from Colombia's National Television Commission (CNTV). The other licence went to RCN Televisión. This implied a plan in order to make the infrastructure which was used to produce 10.5 hours a week would have to work to have on air 18 hours a day of general programming since 10 July 1998.

In 2000 Caracol TV strengthened a deal with marketing television company TEPUY, and next year signed a telenovela co-production deal with RTI and Telemundo and a short lived deal with Buena Vista International. In 2004 Caracol TV Internacional was launched.

gentv

In December 2005, Caracol TV bought a 25% stake of Miami, Florida television station WGEN-TV. Programming on WGEN includes Colombian and Brazilian telenovelas, a news program produced in Colombia, an original US-produced variety comedy series entitled La Boca Loca de Paul, hosted by Paul Bouche. The show was cancelled after three months on the air. The station also produced and a local version of Desafío 20.06, a reality show similar to Survivor. Some of Caracol TV's telenovelas were remade for MyNetworkTV in the US, such as Desire, based on Mesa Para Tres (Table for Three).

Shows produced and/or broadcast by Caracol TV

Telenovelas

• La Baby Sister
• La Saga, Negocio de Familia
• Pasión de gavilanes
• Pedro el escamoso
• Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso
• Zorro: La Espada y la Rosa
• La Sucursal del Cielo
• Nuevo Rico Nuevo Pobre
• ¿Quién amará a María?
• ''El Cartel de los Sapos (also known simply as "El cartel")
• La Venganza
• La quiero a morir
• Vecinos

News / journalism

• Noticias Caracol
• Séptimo día
• El radar

Reality shows / Game shows

• Beauty and the Geek (La bella y el nerdo)
• Big Brother (TV series) (Gran hermano, one season)
• The Singing Bee (Dígalo cantando)
• The Apprentice (El aprendiz, one season)
• Sábados Felices, comedy show (on air since 1972)

Series

• Inspector Rex

Animation

• Captain Tsubasa (Supercampeones)
• Card Captor Sakura (Sakura Card Captors)
• Dragon Ball
• Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics (Cuentos de los hermanos Grimm)
• Neon Genesis Evangelion

Primetime schedule

• As for the week of 6 to 12 October 2008. Broadcasting times, all in UTC-5, may vary, except for Noticias Caracol and El Radar.

See also

• Television in Colombia

References

External links

• Caracol TV Official Site
• and Caracol TV International
• GOL Caracol
• and gentv Official Site
• and Caracol TV is available online