RCN TV
Encyclopedia
RCN Televisión is a Colombia
n private television
network. It started as a production company (programadora) in 1967. Since 1998 it became a network by acquiring one of the two licenses granted by the Colombian government (the other Colombian private TV network is Caracol TV
).
RCN reaches 97% of the Colombian population through 13 stations. Its main shareholder is Carlos Ardila Lülle
. It produced Betty la fea
, one of the most successful Colombian telenovela
s.
. In 1973 RCN radio and so its subsidiary RCN Television were purchased by Carlos Ardila Lülle, who three years later relaunched RCN as a television production company with several spaces into the official channels schedule. RCN was the first company that broadcast a television program live and in color: the 1980 Miss Colombia
beauty contest, since that year RCN has held the rights to broadcast this event.
filmed in exterior locations. In August, 1988, RCN becomes part of OTI
Colombia, so it gains the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games
and the FIFA World Cup
.
and RTI
, RCN becomes one of the major television production companies in Colombia, producing not only telenovelas, game shows, but also sports events and news. Nevertheless the telenovelas gave to RCN an outstanding recognition, first in Latin America and in places so distant as Vietnam and Hungary. Among this productions were La Potra Zaina, Las Juanas and the international hit Café, con aroma de mujer, which not only have been broadcasted in several countries across the globe but it has been remade several times, being Destilando Amor the newest version. Within the lot of stuff produced in the 90s there was productions like La Otra Raya del Tigre, La Vorágine, La Casa de las dos Palmas, Azucar, Momposina and Hombres
, all of them raising parts of the Colombian culture and showing it to the world.
. In 1997 started the construction of the infrastructure to launch the television channel. On 10 July 1998, RCN aired for the first time as private channel. In this first stage, RCN launched two telenovelas -La Madre and Carolina Barrantes- and improved the news bulletins, nevertheless the first year RCN -and also Caracol- just got a little part of the television viewers in Colombia, because the broadcasting infrastructure was not complete and because the production companies which remained in the official channels launched a solid strategy to keep the viewers.
Just in the second semester of 1999 and the first one of 2000, RCN and Caracol got to beat the public channels taking more of the 90 percent of the viewers. RCN first hits were Francisco El Matemático ("Francisco, the math teacher"), a teenagers-oriented series, aired on Saturday nights, but thanks to its success was moved to prime time Mondays to Fridays, and El Fiscal (The Attorney) an action oriented series.
Since the success of Francisco El Matemático and El Fiscal, RCN launched successful telenovelas which let it take the first place in the Colombian most watched networks: Me Llaman Lolita ("My Name is Lolita"), and Yo soy Betty, la Fea
, that became the most successful telenovela ever in Colombia, topping Café con aroma de mujer. Betty la fea
has since had its format and storyline licensed by RCN to multiple broadcasters worldwide in several languages.
Following the international trend, RCN launched in 2003 its first reality show: Protagonistas de Novela, which became the most watched show that year in Colombia, its second season despite not getting the amount of viewers that the first season got, kept the first place in the most watched shows in Colombia. Following Protagonistas de Novelas, RCN launched La Isla de los Famosos (a Colombian version of Survivor
), which became the most watched show in RCN in 2004, and the second season named Una Aventura Pirata (A pirate adventure) got again the place of most watched show in Colombia. The RCN's telenovelas those years were kind of middle quality, not until with the launching of Los Reyes
(a Colombian version of Argentinian series Los Roldán
) and Fernando Gaitan
's Hasta que la plata nos separe (Until money do us apart) that a telenovela from RCN got high ratings to become the most watched show in Colombia. But despite those years the telenovelas did not put the network in the first place, the Colombian version of X Factor
did it, becoming the show number one in Colombia in 2006, with two seasons, and a third and a fourth named Factor XS, where the competitors are kids instead of adults. RCN gained some criticism against the fact the network was getting ratings from the use of kids in a reality show, but the parents of the kids dismissed this affirmation.
RCN got a hit with 2007 telenovelas Pura Sangre and La Hija del Mariachi, success followed by the 2008 telenovelas, El Último Matrimonio Feliz
and Los Protegidos
.
In July 2008, RCN became the first TV network in Colombia to offer online domestic English-language news updates under the brand, "RCN News" and RCN News in English. The full news updates would air on RCN's international network, "TV Colombia" in the mornings. Near the end of 2010, "RCN News in English" was phased out and began to offer only English-language international news updates for RCN's sister network, "Nuestra Tele Noticias 24" under the brand "news.NTN24.com". Plans for the format change began to surface in July 2010 after the main producer Brian Andrews involuntarily left the country in May after doing a report in El Cerrito, Valle del Cauca. National press coverage followed the incident. By this time he had become nationally well-known not only for producing national English-language news updates but for having done voice-overs for on-air advertisements for RCN's coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as a lemur known as "Monocuco". He was known for saying "Monocuco, su avena y su pitillo, compadre" in broken Spanish. Teasers for the latest news update air during the midday "Noticias RCN" newscast during segment transitions. The teaser introduction is always in Spanish, while the teaser itself is in English. Even with the brand name and format changes, teasers continue to air during the "Noticias RCN" midday newscasts in an attempt to continue to compete in the Colombian TV market. Teasers do however include "Noticias RCN" graphics but use a "news.NTN24.com" end card. Although "Nuestra Tele Noticias 24" is an international news channel, "news.NTN24.com" focuses more on headlines from the "Americas" with the motto of "Latin America’s News In English" Morning, afternoon and evening news updates are posted daily. News updates are recorded in Bogotá and Miami with occasional updates from Berlin and New York City. It is produced by veteran Miami TV personality Brian Andrews. Along with posting news updates on their website, "news.NTN24.com" relies heavily on their Facebook and Twitter pages to notify viewers on new updates. In February 2011, the brand name changed to "NTN24News.com" and the website layout changed to accommodate a larger video display showcasing the latest news update.
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n private television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
network. It started as a production company (programadora) in 1967. Since 1998 it became a network by acquiring one of the two licenses granted by the Colombian government (the other Colombian private TV network is Caracol TV
Caracol TV
Caracol 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...
).
RCN reaches 97% of the Colombian population through 13 stations. Its main shareholder is Carlos Ardila Lülle
Carlos Ardila Lülle
Carlos Arturo Ardila Lülle is a Colombian entrepreneur and the founder and head of the Organización Ardila Lülle, a major Colombian conglomerate which controls companies such as RCN TV, the Postobon soft drink, and the Atlético Nacional soccer team. His net worth is estimated at over one billion U.S...
. It produced Betty la fea
Betty la fea
Yo soy Betty, la fea is a popular soap opera filmed in Colombia, written by Fernando Gaitán and produced between 1999 through 2001 by the Colombian network RCN . More than a dozen versions of the telenovela have been made in other countries...
, one of the most successful Colombian telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
s.
History
RCN Television was created as a part of RCN Radio. In 1967 RCN Radio took part in the bidding for spaces in the official television network, getting one hour a day which was distributed into two series: one made in Colombia named El Hogar (The Home) and the American television series BewitchedBewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
. In 1973 RCN radio and so its subsidiary RCN Television were purchased by Carlos Ardila Lülle, who three years later relaunched RCN as a television production company with several spaces into the official channels schedule. RCN was the first company that broadcast a television program live and in color: the 1980 Miss Colombia
Miss Colombia
Señorita Colombia is an annual national beauty contest in Colombia that selects representatives to Miss Universe and Miss International...
beauty contest, since that year RCN has held the rights to broadcast this event.
The 80s
RCN produced television series with high remembrance within the viewers like Cusumbo and El Taita in 1984, which was the first Colombian telenovelaTelenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
filmed in exterior locations. In August, 1988, RCN becomes part of OTI
OTI
As a three-letter acronym, OTI may refer to:* Office of Transition Initiatives, an office of United States Agency for International Development founded in 1994...
Colombia, so it gains the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
and the FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
.
The 90s
Along with Caracol TVCaracol TV
Caracol 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...
and RTI
RTI
- Broadcasters :* Radiodiffusion Television Ivoirienne - The state broadcaster of Ivory Coast* Radio Taiwan International* Reti Televisive Italiane, Mediaset group * RTI Colombia, a TV production company- Other companies :...
, RCN becomes one of the major television production companies in Colombia, producing not only telenovelas, game shows, but also sports events and news. Nevertheless the telenovelas gave to RCN an outstanding recognition, first in Latin America and in places so distant as Vietnam and Hungary. Among this productions were La Potra Zaina, Las Juanas and the international hit Café, con aroma de mujer, which not only have been broadcasted in several countries across the globe but it has been remade several times, being Destilando Amor the newest version. Within the lot of stuff produced in the 90s there was productions like La Otra Raya del Tigre, La Vorágine, La Casa de las dos Palmas, Azucar, Momposina and Hombres
Hombres
Hombres was a Norwegian-Swedish drama series that aired on TVNorge during the winter of 2007 and on Kanal 5 the autumn of 2006.-Plot:The criminal Pål Skogland has been sitting in prison, where he got information on 354 million he could get his hands on. Skogland puts together a team. He gets Manne...
, all of them raising parts of the Colombian culture and showing it to the world.
Private Television Network
In 1995 the Colombian government opened a bidding for two private television networks, each one operating with one channel. RCN took part of this bidding, getting one of the two licenses, the other one was for Caracol TVCaracol TV
Caracol 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...
. In 1997 started the construction of the infrastructure to launch the television channel. On 10 July 1998, RCN aired for the first time as private channel. In this first stage, RCN launched two telenovelas -La Madre and Carolina Barrantes- and improved the news bulletins, nevertheless the first year RCN -and also Caracol- just got a little part of the television viewers in Colombia, because the broadcasting infrastructure was not complete and because the production companies which remained in the official channels launched a solid strategy to keep the viewers.
Just in the second semester of 1999 and the first one of 2000, RCN and Caracol got to beat the public channels taking more of the 90 percent of the viewers. RCN first hits were Francisco El Matemático ("Francisco, the math teacher"), a teenagers-oriented series, aired on Saturday nights, but thanks to its success was moved to prime time Mondays to Fridays, and El Fiscal (The Attorney) an action oriented series.
Since the success of Francisco El Matemático and El Fiscal, RCN launched successful telenovelas which let it take the first place in the Colombian most watched networks: Me Llaman Lolita ("My Name is Lolita"), and Yo soy Betty, la Fea
Betty la fea
Yo soy Betty, la fea is a popular soap opera filmed in Colombia, written by Fernando Gaitán and produced between 1999 through 2001 by the Colombian network RCN . More than a dozen versions of the telenovela have been made in other countries...
, that became the most successful telenovela ever in Colombia, topping Café con aroma de mujer. Betty la fea
Betty la fea
Yo soy Betty, la fea is a popular soap opera filmed in Colombia, written by Fernando Gaitán and produced between 1999 through 2001 by the Colombian network RCN . More than a dozen versions of the telenovela have been made in other countries...
has since had its format and storyline licensed by RCN to multiple broadcasters worldwide in several languages.
Following the international trend, RCN launched in 2003 its first reality show: Protagonistas de Novela, which became the most watched show that year in Colombia, its second season despite not getting the amount of viewers that the first season got, kept the first place in the most watched shows in Colombia. Following Protagonistas de Novelas, RCN launched La Isla de los Famosos (a Colombian version of Survivor
Survivor (TV series)
Survivor is a reality television game show format produced in many countries throughout the world. In the show, contestants are isolated in the wilderness and compete for cash and other prizes. The show uses a system of progressive elimination, allowing the contestants to vote off other tribe...
), which became the most watched show in RCN in 2004, and the second season named Una Aventura Pirata (A pirate adventure) got again the place of most watched show in Colombia. The RCN's telenovelas those years were kind of middle quality, not until with the launching of Los Reyes
Los Reyes
Los Reyes may mean:*Los Reyes *Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Edomex, Mexico*Los Reyes, Michoacán , Mexico*Los Reyes, Veracruz, Mexico...
(a Colombian version of Argentinian series Los Roldán
Los Roldán
Los Roldán was a highly successful Spanish language telenovela , produced from 2004 to 2005 by Argentina's Telefe. The drama, which is also described by many as a comedy, actually ended up winning an award in 2004 as Argentina's Comedy of the Year...
) and Fernando Gaitan
Fernando Gaitán
Fernando Gaitán Salom is a Colombian TV series and telenovelas screenwriter as well as a producer.-Career highlights:Fernando Gaitán is known for weaving different histories into diverse social contexts...
's Hasta que la plata nos separe (Until money do us apart) that a telenovela from RCN got high ratings to become the most watched show in Colombia. But despite those years the telenovelas did not put the network in the first place, the Colombian version of X Factor
El Factor X (Colombia)
El factor X is the Colombian television music competition to find new singing talent. It is the based on the original British competition The X Factor, created by Simon Cowell. It is the first version produced in Latin America. The show started screening in September 2005 and ended in December...
did it, becoming the show number one in Colombia in 2006, with two seasons, and a third and a fourth named Factor XS, where the competitors are kids instead of adults. RCN gained some criticism against the fact the network was getting ratings from the use of kids in a reality show, but the parents of the kids dismissed this affirmation.
RCN got a hit with 2007 telenovelas Pura Sangre and La Hija del Mariachi, success followed by the 2008 telenovelas, El Último Matrimonio Feliz
El Último Matrimonio Feliz
El Ultimo Matrimonio Feliz is a Colombian telenovela aired since January 21, 2008 on Colombian network RCN. It has a unique format among the current aired telenovelas in Colombia because of its ensemble cast...
and Los Protegidos
Los Protegidos
Los Protegidos is a Colombian telenovela aired since May 6, 2008 on Colombian tv network RCN. This telenovela is produced by Teleset and it was created as a counterweight for Caracol Televisión's new production El Cartel , but it was premiered before this last one in order to get a higher impact...
.
In July 2008, RCN became the first TV network in Colombia to offer online domestic English-language news updates under the brand, "RCN News" and RCN News in English. The full news updates would air on RCN's international network, "TV Colombia" in the mornings. Near the end of 2010, "RCN News in English" was phased out and began to offer only English-language international news updates for RCN's sister network, "Nuestra Tele Noticias 24" under the brand "news.NTN24.com". Plans for the format change began to surface in July 2010 after the main producer Brian Andrews involuntarily left the country in May after doing a report in El Cerrito, Valle del Cauca. National press coverage followed the incident. By this time he had become nationally well-known not only for producing national English-language news updates but for having done voice-overs for on-air advertisements for RCN's coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as a lemur known as "Monocuco". He was known for saying "Monocuco, su avena y su pitillo, compadre" in broken Spanish. Teasers for the latest news update air during the midday "Noticias RCN" newscast during segment transitions. The teaser introduction is always in Spanish, while the teaser itself is in English. Even with the brand name and format changes, teasers continue to air during the "Noticias RCN" midday newscasts in an attempt to continue to compete in the Colombian TV market. Teasers do however include "Noticias RCN" graphics but use a "news.NTN24.com" end card. Although "Nuestra Tele Noticias 24" is an international news channel, "news.NTN24.com" focuses more on headlines from the "Americas" with the motto of "Latin America’s News In English" Morning, afternoon and evening news updates are posted daily. News updates are recorded in Bogotá and Miami with occasional updates from Berlin and New York City. It is produced by veteran Miami TV personality Brian Andrews. Along with posting news updates on their website, "news.NTN24.com" relies heavily on their Facebook and Twitter pages to notify viewers on new updates. In February 2011, the brand name changed to "NTN24News.com" and the website layout changed to accommodate a larger video display showcasing the latest news update.
Programming
RCN presently operates on a 22-hour regular network programming per day, and its signal is the same all over the country, with no changes in the schedule, which starts in the early morning (4:00 am) with reruns of previously aired telenovelas, the morning is covered with breakfast television (Muy Buenos Días), with a break for news, and then religious programming (Cura Para el Alma), the news returns at 12:30 pm and the rest of the afternoon is taken by national and foreign telenovelas until 7:00 pm with the news bulletin, and at 8:00 pm the prime time starts with national telenovelas until 10:30 pm, the night is taken by news and editorial TV shows (i.e. La Noche).Prime Time
The channel's schedule is divided as follows News; Telenovelas; entertainment shows ; series-Comedias; Movies; Sports.| RCN TV | 7:00 p.m. | 7:30 p.m. | 8:00 p.m. | 8:30 p.m. | 9:00 p.m. | 9:59 p.m. | 10:00 p.m. | 11:00 p.m. | 11:45 p.m. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Noticias RCN | Nuestro Cine | Especiales Pirry | ||||||
| Monday | Noticias RCN | El Joe | Factor Xs | 3 Milagros | Correo de Inocentes | NOTICIAS RCN | |||
| Tuesday | |||||||||
| Wednesday | |||||||||
| Thursday | |||||||||
| Friday | |||||||||
| Saturday | Futbolmanía RCN | Noticias RCN | Futbolmanía RCN | 1 Vs. 100 | Duro Contra El Mundo | ||||