Telecanal

Background

Originally, channel 2 in Santiago was used by the high-power repeater station of Televisión Nacional de Chile operating from Cerro El Roble (border between the Metropolitan Region and the Valparaíso Region) to relay its signal to other localities. This had to be technically modified to give frequencies to the broadcasts of a new channel in Santiago.

The eventual winner became Compañía Chilena de Comunicaciones, who, by associating itself with Estudio Visión (as CCC had no resources to produce content for television), began Canal 2 Rock & Pop, based on the existing radio station of the same name. However, the channel started facing a series of financial crises and lack of ratings, as well as the sale of the license in 1998 to Canal 2, S.A., which in 1999, began broadcasting VidaVisión, an evangelical channel, during daytime hours. On the early hours of December 1, 1999, Rock & Pop's programming on the station closed, facing moments of tension between employees and staff, and a replacement service (Canal 2) took over with a minimal eight-hour schedule and slots from the VidaVisión network.

VidaVisión was an evangelical channel created by Christian media professionals led by Alejandro Martínez (born Santiago in 1965 and became a born-again Christian in 1984),^[5] who created two local Christian stations, Gospel TV (first Christian television station in Chile), RTV (La Roka TV) and a kids channel on VTR, Rainbow Club (first Chilean kids channel, later renamed The Fun Channel). Around early 2001, VidaVisión rented over 100 hours per month on Canal 2's frequencies.^[6]

In August 2001, the station was renting from 5pm to midnight. Alejandro Martínez said that the station was "not an evangelical channel" but a general profile station. Due to its beliefs, it had to omit the promotion of gambling from its programming. It initially did not aim to have a newscast in a first phase, but would offer one by 2002. The channel also aired safe, violent-free cartoons and planned a children's program similar to Cachureos but avoiding all acts of violence. There were also programs dedicated to the evangelical music scene, and Grupo Cooperativa went to the United States on purpose to obtain know-how from Christian television stations there.^[7] VidaVisión started to rent studios from Edu Comunicaciones (now Televisión Interactiva), who at the time controlled Vía X, Zona Latina, and ARTV to remain on the air for at least 8 hours per day by law to avoid forfeiture of its signal. As a result, religious programming ended up coping with the full extent of daily transmissions.

On February 17, 2004, VidaVisión lost its studios at Alameda 2520 under the grounds that it lacked the technical conditions to operate as a television station. Work evaluated at CL$100 million to continue operating from its extant facilities was made, but its staff was unaware that its operations were on the verge of closing. As consequence, the staff had to start producing its programming from the streets.^[8]

Launch (2005–2010)

In July 2005, Compañía Chilena de Comunicaciones, the owner of the frequency, announced that it would sell the channel 2 concession to Inversiones Alfa Tres SA, led by Jaime Cuadrado (former commercial manager of Canal 13 and personal friend of Don Francisco) for CLP 2.7 million.^[9] The VidaVisión programming had left Canal 2's signal and was replaced by color bars.^[10]

The sale became final in September of that year. That same month, Telecanal began its test phase, in which it only aired corporate promotions for the channel, as well as revealing the channel's logo and slogan for eight hours a day (especially overnight), to comply with the Chilean regulations. In that video, the faces of the channel and the planned programming were revealed, which was different than the one that was planned. On October 27, Alfa Tres acquired the frequencies formerly used by the Telenorte network which operated between Arica and La Serena.^[11]

The channel began its official broadcasts on Monday, December 5, 2005, but only on terrestrial television. Negotiations with VTR were underway in order to enable the channel to be seen by its subscriber base of 750,000.^[11] Its broadcasts through cable television began on January 1, 2006, through the networks of VTR and on January 10 on Coltrahue TV, in June, the channel began broadcasting on satellite through Telefónica TV Digital and in December through Gtd, on 23 March 2010, it reached Claro TV's cable network.

Initially, the channel had small live slots of no more than 30 minutes in length, while the bulk of its programming was based on foreign series, cartoons (Telemonitos), films, and telenovelas, mainly from Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. Launch titles included Soy Gitano, La Mentira and Privilegio de amar. Its limited local programming consisted of Casi a las 12 (women's interest program), Canal abierto (discussion program) and a youth co-production called NFK2 (pronounced "enfocados") presented by Paloma Aliaga and Daniel Valenzuela. The Telemonitos strand included foreign animated series such as Sinbad, Sitting Ducks and Timon and Pumbaa, interspersed by local studio segments with Lidia Gutiérrez.^[11] With just one year on air, new programs came to light such as the sports program Como en la radio, the magazine Cocinados, and the talk show Canal Abierto. Among their main faces were Daniel Valenzuela, Carolina Correa, Milton Millas, and Carla Ballero.

It was the most technologically advanced television station in Chile at the time of its launch. Jaime Cuadrado was appointed as its director in order to avoid La Red from controlling the station, which was a violation of CNTV laws. The channel did, however, gain access to La Red's back catalog of imported series. A similar arrangement existed between La Red and Canal 13, in which Canal 13 acquired titles and it and La Red shared revenues. The scheme used to set up its operations was similar to the planned buying of Red Global in Peru.^[11]

In mid-October 2008, as a result of the worldwide financial crisis, the television company decided to remove a large part of its national programming, which was mostly carried out by external producers, leaving its most emblematic program "Cocinados" on the screen, together with Conspiración Copano, Hiperconectados, Pago x ver, Pura noche and Mundo Motor. Its newscast, En Línea, was transferred to 11pm with a half-hour edition, while the films that occupied the primetime slots in "Cine de Estrellas", were moved to 8pm.

2009 started with the return of Pura Noche but with Alfredo Alonso as its host, who joins the station, as well as Krishna Navas, who later would have her talk show with female themes ("Only them"), along with Pamela Díaz, Liliana Ross and Matilda Svensson. "Jugados" and "Actualidad central" were also created.

As of April 2009, the network's reach increased its coverage towards the Chilean Antarctic.

On 16 November 2009, the station's first late show debuted, "Influencia Humana" (with Jorge Castro de la Barra), which incorporated Pablo Zúñiga into the channel. The slot was well received by the public, and key national personalities were interviewed, such as presenters Felipe Camiroaga and Vivi Kreutzberger.^[12]

Early 2010s

In early January 2010, Telecanal dispatched a journalist, Sergio Molleda, for Anatel's presidential debate. A few days after the debate, the news service "En Línea" stopped broadcasting. In late February, "Influencia Humana" was canceled and weeks later, the same thing happened with "Only They", and again, the programming focused on canned foreign content.

In September 2010 it began to build a sports area for the transmission of the UEFA Europa League,^[13] replacing La Red that broadcast it in the previous season, and Monday through Friday at midnight Hello sports, covering other disciplines issued other than football, like basketball, volleyball and rugby.

In November of that same year, businessman Jaime Cuadrado, then owner of the sign, closed an agreement to sell Telecanal the Mexican, a former executive of Grupo Televisa and former director of Mega Guillermo Canedo White.

In 2011, Telecanal broadcast the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, which was held in Denmark, for the first time on Chilean over-the-air television.

In June-July 2012, Telecanal aired that year's European Championships, held in Poland and Ukraine, shared with Chilevisión. The live broadcast of the match between England and Ukraine on June 19 caused at least five Twitter trending topics and had better ratings than Chilevisión, who preferred to use the airtime to air content for women (La Jueza and Maid in Manhattan) and air the match on delay.^[14]

Mid 2010s

In 2013, Telecanal ended with an annual rating of 0.43 rating points, even being surpassed by UCV (which reached 1.3 annual viewing points), the channel less seen in Chilean television. The poor results are explained only in issuing nullspaces packaged programming and live.

In December 2013 a new slot of Mexican telenovelas opened at 21:00, with the premiere of A Family Lucky. With this decision, Telecanal decided to take NCIS, which is issued only on weekends.

Since 1 January 2014, José Manuel Larraín assumed the new executive director of the station.

During May of that year, every Saturday the "Specials of Telecanal" transmitted the national series Picaflor Effect.

Since January, Telecanal began broadcasting "A3D" infomercials from Monday to Sunday, occupying the block from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Following the departure of its programs "A las 11" and "Teletiempo", Telecanal is dedicated only to its "Entertainers" program.

ADN TV

At the beginning of March 2016, national media reported on the project being developed for an open news television channel under the name of the informative radio signal of Ibero Americana Radio Chile - a subsidiary of the Spanish multimedia conglomerate Prisa -, in conjunction with Telecanal and La Red. To the first, I would rent 12 hours of airtime; to the second, a studio and physical, technical and human resources in its television center in Quilín. The channel would operate under the threshold of the company Multimedios GLP, controlled by the radio consortium and Albavisión, which then served only as a joint-venture for the sale of advertising in the media that both companies operated in the country.^[15]

The new channel would have information as its forte, with central and current newscasts; in addition to spaces for investigative journalism, interviews, and some for entertainment and culture, all independent of ADN Radio's radio programming, which would not see its programming modified. It would be editorially led by Gerson del Río, and the anchor news conduction would be in charge of Mauricio Hofmann and Mirna Schindler; Its executive director would be the person who held the same position at La Red, Javier Urrutia. Despite this, Telecanal would not disappear completely, since it would transmit the remaining 12 hours (until noon) giving way to ADN TV broadcasts from that hour onwards.

It was made public that, thanks to its alliance with La Red, the new channel would own the rights to broadcast Chilean soccer goals, and given the presence of Telecanal on pay TV, ADN TV would be available on most of the operators. .

ADN TV debuted on 10 June 2016 with the broadcast of Euro 2016 by the radio's sports team: Víctor Cruces or Ignacio Salcedo hosting; stories by Alberto Jesús López "El Trovador del Gol", Patricio Barrera "El Grillo del Gol" and Manuel "Manolo" Fernández; and comments by Danilo Díaz and Sergio Vargas. The matches significantly improved Telecanal's audience, which hovered between 0 and 1 point, finally consolidating by achieving a historic index with peaks of 16 points and an average of 13 points on July 10, during the final match between France and Portugal, surpassing all the competition, even the leading channel of the moment, Mega.^[16]

In addition, it broadcast the Chile - Colombia series on 16 and 17 July in the American Zone of the 2016 Davis Cup, again in charge of the channel's sports team, thus achieving a peak of 4 audience points, surpassing at certain times to Channel 13 that showed a weekly summary of the Turkish television series Selin.^[17][18]

The ADN TV project was canceled without further explanation in December 2016.^[19]

High-definition signal and entrance to digital terrestrial television

The channel began transmitting in high definition in 2016 through channel 7 of the cable operator Coltrahue Digital of Santa Cruz, stretching its 4:3 signal to this format. On 6 September of that year, Telecanal carried out a broadcast test in 16:9 aspect and 720p resolution – unlike the rest of the Chilean open channels, which broadcast in 1080i – through the Amazonas 4A satellite that covers all of South America. South; Along with the HD signal, a 4:3 SD signal was added and the "1seg" that is used for reception on mobile devices.^[20]

It was not until 28 September 2021 that Telecanal officially began broadcasting on TVD through virtual channel 2.1, on the UHF 31 multiplex in Santiago.^[21][22] That same month, the channel began broadcasting the competitions of WWE Raw and SmackDown, after its previous stint on La Red.^[23] It also broadcasts International Boxing.

In September 2023, the National Television Council began the administrative sanctioning procedure against Canal Dos S.A, the channel's operating company, due to non-compliance for not starting broadcasts on open digital television of the Telecanal signal in the cities of: Arica (11.1 - 26 UHF), Iquique (12.1 - 41 UHF), Antofagasta (4.1 - 21 UHF), Chuquicamata (8.1 - 23 UHF), Copiapó (5.1 - 41 UHF), San Pedro de Atacama (12.1 - 26 UHF), La Serena and Coquimbo (5.1 - 35 UHF), San José de Maipo (2.1 - 21 UHF), Panguipulli (4.1 - 32 UHF) and Los Muermos (12.1 - 26 UHF).^[24]

On 1 November 2023, it arrived to Copiapó on TVD, (5.1 - 41 UHF), being the first region to receive the digital signal from Santiago.

In the first three months of 2025 alone, the channel obtained an operational increase of CL$621,2 million, reversing its 2024 losses of nearly CL$2 billion.^[25]

Relaying RT en Español

On 16 June 2025, Telecanal started relaying RT en Español permanently, although the channel is still obliged to continue airing CNTV-mandated cultural programming (airing El Conciertazo and Reino Animal) and electoral campaigns.^[26] The RT en Español website also mentioned its coverage on channel 2.1.^[27]

On June 17, UDI representatives Natalia Romero and Gustavo Benavente sent a letter to regulator CNTV showing their concern for the RT relays, as well as its ban in European countries at the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and possible ideological issues. Additionally, there is a lack of publicly-accessible information concerning the relays, especially with Telecanal being an Anatel member. The letter also suggests that RT does not respect the Chilean laws regarding journalistic independence.^[28] The Russian Embassy in Chile defended its stance under supposed claims of "diversity of expression and opinions", and being comparable to networks such as the BBC, France TV, Deutsche Welle, ABC, NHK, CBC and others.^[29] An investigation by Radio Bio-Bio noted that the network was investing US$3 million in expanding the terrestrial relays of its Spanish-language channel in Chile, Argentina and Costa Rica, while Chilean legislators criticized its presence for infringing the law.^[30]

On June 18, 2025, the National Television Council convened in an extraordinary session citing Telecanal's director Rodrigo Álvarez to provide more transparency about the details of the contract with RT, while Subtel required information about the channel's license. CNTV said that foreign broadcasts on over-the-air television must be subject to editorial criteria from the licensing station, and that content from a country at war like Russia could lead to debates On the status of pluralism and democracy.^[31]

The National Television Council convened on June 30, 2025, with one of the topics being the Telecanal affair.^[25] The council applied two sanctions for the channel regarding two documentaries that violated CNTV guidelines. Both documentaries were related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine: El acento Nazi del Ejército Ucraniano (about Russia's claims that the Ukrainian army during the war had elements of Nazism, which CNTV considered to be partial) and Sin margen de error. Both documentaries also featured high-risk footage of soldiers during the war. Telecanal could face the risk of being sanctioned due to the lack of transparent information about the terms of its lease.^[32]

Political and civil society reactions

Representatives of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) — of the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos — and the Republican Party (far right)^[33] They expressed their rejection, arguing that RT is a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin, and its presence on Chilean free-to-air television represents a risk of disinformation and foreign interference. Parliamentarians from both parties even requested that the Chilean National Television Council (CNTV) review whether the rebroadcast complies with current regulations regarding media pluralism and freedom of expression.

On the other hand, figures from the academic and media fields have warned about the lack of transparency in the agreement between Telecanal and RT, pointing out that citizens have the right to know the terms of the agreement, especially if it is a channel financed by a foreign government.^[33][34][35]

Human rights organizations have expressed concern about the possible dissemination of content that downplays international conflicts or human rights violations committed by the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin. From the left, former mayor of Recoleta and former presidential candidate Daniel Jadue Communist Party of Chile criticized in a column in El Ciudadano the reactions to the rebroadcast of the RT channel on Chilean open television, calling them "hysterical" and coming from both the right and the center, pointing out that the real fear lies not in Russia, but in the possibility that the ideological control of the dominant discourse in the national media will be fractured.

Following the switch, the CNTV has observed an increase in complaints against Telecanal regarding the editorial line of the new content broadcast by RT, particularly concerning an alleged lack of balance in the coverage of topics related to the war in Ukraine, the role of NATO, and relations between Russia and Latin America. The Russian Embassy in Chile celebrated the channel's arrival, arguing that it offers Chileans "a different perspective" and narrative universes comparable to media outlets such as the BBC, France TV, or Deutsche Welle;;^{[36][37][38][39]} el embajador ruso en Chile, Vladimir G. Belinsky, declaró a Radio Bío-Bío que se enteró del arribo de RT “como muchos chilenos”, y negó cualquier intervención de la embajada en su llegada.^[40] The Russian ambassador to Chile, Vladimir G. Belinsky, told Radio Bío-Bío that he learned of RT's arrival "like many Chileans," and denied any embassy involvement in their arrival.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian ambassador to Chile, Yurii Diudin, expressed his concern in a letter published in El Mercurio regarding RT's rebroadcast on Telecanal, warning that the channel operates as a Kremlin propaganda tool, spreading disinformation and justifying Russian military aggression, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine. He also called for reflection on the compatibility of this type of content with Chile's democratic values and warned of the dangers of information manipulation in hybrid warfare scenarios.^[41]

Reactions from the CNTV and complaint from Canal 13

In response to the public outcry, on June 20, 2025, the National Television Council (CNTV) issued a statement reminding everyone that it does not exercise prior censorship, but does exercise subsequent oversight, and that the broadcasting of foreign content is not prohibited as long as it complies with Chilean legislation and editorial responsibility is guaranteed.

In an extraordinary session, the CNTV requested information from the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications regarding Telecanal's current concessions and summoned its executive director, Rodrigo Álvarez Aravena — a lawyer and partner in the Chilean office of DLA Piper. ^[42]– to explain the agreement with RT. He also noted that he had received citizen complaints and parliamentary letters, pledging to act in accordance with the law and to safeguard pluralism and democracy.^[43]

By the end of June 2025, Canal 13 He filed a formal complaint with the CNTV accusing Telecanal of illegally ceding its signal to RT, marking the first time in the history of Chilean television that one network has directly denounced another for alleged violation of the law.^[44] Canal 13's complaint argues that Telecanal replaced almost all of its regular programming with content produced by the Russian government in Moscow, without national intervention or authorization from the CNTV; this, in the channel's opinion, seriously violates Chilean laws on television concessions, editorial responsibility and national ownership of the signals, which would represent a structural transfer—and not a "temporary agreement"—that violates article 16 of Law No. 18,838 on television concessions.^[45] The complaint also highlights that RT is currently sanctioned by the European Union, which considers it a propaganda tool of the Moscow Kremlin. Furthermore, Canal 13 alleges that Telecanal changed its editorial line without notice, while maintaining minimum airtime stipulated by law, such as the broadcast of the election campaign. 2025 Chilean presidential primaries; At the time of the complaint, the program had already ceased broadcasting after the end of the campaign period. The station, owned by the Luksic Group, also warns that this practice jeopardizes media sovereignty and the institutional integrity of the Chilean television system, and urges the CNTV to act urgently, filing charges and imposing exemplary sanctions.^[45]