Record TV

Record TV is part of Record Group’s communication conglomerate, owned by Edir Macedo, the leader of the church Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD), and competes with SBT for the second highest ratings as measured by Kantar Ibope. Founded in 1953 by the sports executive Paulo Machado de Carvalho, half of its assets were sold to Sílvio Santos (the current owner of SBT) in 1973 and, in 1989, once again sold to its current proprietor. Under Macedo’s direction, the station kept most part of its comercial programming, but inserted religious programming mainly early in the morning and late in the evening; on the other hand, IURD kept the existing practice adopted since the 1980s of renting grid slots to other stations, like Rede TV! and Band.

When inaugurated, the TV had a studio and modern equipment and hired several renowned Brazilian artists such as Dorival Caymmi and Inesita Barroso, Elis Regina and Jair Rodrigues (O fino da Bossa - ‘Bossa’s finest’, 1964), Roberto Carlos (Jovem Guarda, 1964), Elisete Cardoso and Ciro Monteiro (Bossaudade, 1964), besides producing musical shows like Festival da Música Popular Brasileira (‘Brazilian Popular Music Festival’), where names like Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo and Geraldo Vandré first appeared. It also brought to TV important names of Brazilian Drama, gathered in the Teatro Cacilda Becker Show (1955). The artists who worked at the TV station also performed at Radio Stations owned by the Machado de Carvalho Family, helping consolidate the ratings of vehicles like Jovem Pan. Joining its founder’s two areas of interest, musical media and football, Record produced the first live external broadcast of a football match, Palmeiras versus Santos, in 1955, being sponsored by record labels RCA Victor and Atlantic, produced by the marketing agency J.W. Thompson. The station started to become a profitable enterprise and, in 1956, the TV’s advertisement revenues would exceed the Radio’s for the first time.

Record TV was Brazil’s top rating station when a series of fires destroyed its studio, theaters and its TV antenna located on Avenida Paulista. Indebted and losing ratings, many of its artists migrated to the competing Globo TV, and that was when the Machado de Carvalho Family sold 50% of the TV’s shares to Sílvio Santos. The commercial transaction was only publicly confirmed years later, beacause Sílvio Santos, a Globo Network’s TV host, was under a contract with the stations that forbade him to share control of other media outlets. By the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, the station’s ratings started to increase once again thanks to shows like Raul Gil’s (currently at SBT) and Fausto Silva’s (currently at Globo Network), but the financial situation of the station was not resolved, what lead to its sale to Edir Macedo, four around 45 million reais.

Nowadays, RecordTV’s programming grid includes newcasts, soap operas, auditorium and variety shows, reality shows and religious shows, in a very similar structure to the other free TV stations. The programming consists of almost 10 hours of journalistic content during weekdays. The main newscasts of the national network are: Balanço Geral Manhã, Cidade Alerta, Fala Brasil and Jornal da Record. On weekends, there is also Domingo Espetacular, Esporte Fantástico and Câmera Record. Some of its anchors worked for many years in other stations, like Marcos Hummel (21 years at Globo), Celso Freitas (over 30 years at Globo Network), the sports journalist Mylena Ciribelli (18 years at Globo) and Paulo Henrique Amorim, who previously worked at Globo, Band TV and also in other printed outlets like Realidade, Veja and Jornal do Brasil, he also keeps a blog, Conversa Afiada (‘Sharp Conversation’), with emphasis on media criticism. The Cidade Alerta show was accused several times of human rights violations, like in the denunciation of violence incitement done by the Federal Public Ministery, encouraged by Intervozes, in 2016.

The regional programming of its affiliate stations has local news shows besides regional versions of shows like Balanço Geral and Cidade Alerta.

Recently, the station started to invest in mini-series and soap operas and also hired several artists formerly emplyed by Globo Network. Currently, six soap operas are broadcasted daily in almost five hours of programming. The subjects addressed by its dramaturgy are diverse, however, their highest rating soap operas are based on biblical passages like Dez Mandamentos (‘Ten Commandments’), broadcasted in 2015, that increased the station’s ratings by 83%, according to journalist Ricardo Feltrin, and even exceeded Globo’s ratings with some of its episodes.

The auditorium and varieties shows are hosted by names that became famous in other stations or in other artistic activities before being hired by Record, like Fábio Porchat (who gained notoriety with the independent humorous show Porta dos Fundos), Marcos Mion (who worked for Globo, MTV and Band, Rodrigo Faro (former Band host and former Globo actor), Gugu Liberato (who worked for more than 20 years at SBT) and Xuxa Meneguel (who worked for Globo from 1986 to 2010).

The station has three reality shows: A Fazenda (‘The Farm’), A Casa (‘The House’) and Dancing Brasil. In the A Casa show, 100 participants "are put in a 120 square meters house, with space and infrastructure for a four-people family and must survive under degrading and humiliating conditions, lacking a place to sleep, with scarce food and minimum hygiene conditions”, as Iara Moura explains on Carta Capital. In its nineth edition, A Fazenda has a similar infrastructure of that enjoyed by Globo Network’s Big Brother Brasil. Sixteen former participants of other shows in the segment are gathered in a farm for three months and participate in contests that test their abilities of dealing with animals and rural chores, aiming for a R$ 1,5 million prize.

The Network’s religious programming grid consists of the show The Love School - A escola do amor, hosted by Renato and Cristiane Cardoso, Edir Macedo’s son-in-law and daughter, and broadcasted on Saturdays, from 12pm to 1pm and on Sundays (Escola do Amor Responde), from 8am to 9am in the morning. Other slots dedicated to religious shows are IURD’s Fala que eu te escuto and Programação Universal, from Mondays to Saturdays from 1:15pm to 6am. On weekends, the religious programming also counts with Santo Culto em Seu Lar, Milagres de Jesus and Programa do Templo (on Sundays, from 6am to 8am). IURD pays the stations for the transmission of its shows, in a practice known as leasing and also present in Stations like RedeTV! and Band.