Aracaju
The PT (Workers’ Party) now officially has an open TV station. This Thursday (10), the transmission signal of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s party was added to the digital satellite dishes on channel 1313. For now, the programming is experimental and shows institutional videos and productions already made for the channel of Party YouTube.
“For the time being, we are in the testing phase. Now, we are going to set up the schedule. We already have a morning newspaper. We intend to show old speeches by President Lula, documentaries and other content”, says federal deputy Jilmar Tatto (PT-SP), PT’s communication secretary, in an interview with F5. “I wanted channel 13, but Band is already on this frequency”, she explained.
In order for the signal to start delivering the satellite dishes, the PT rented space on satellites, something done by communication companies, such as the news channels Jovem Pan and CNN Brasil, which entered the satellite dishes in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The fact is an alternative to reach more public.
This operation on satellite dishes does not require authorization from the Ministry of Communications, which only grants open terrestrial signals, captured by common antennas. In the advertising market, the alternative is called TV RO, an acronym for the English term television receive-only, or television only for reception.
To convince the PT leadership of the operation, Tatto talked and negotiated for a month that the action was viable and not illegal. Currently, according to Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency), there are 3 million active digital satellite dishes in this system, which already reach 20 million individuals.
“It is a market that is going to grow a lot in the coming years”, commented Tatto. It is estimated that, by the end of the decade, at least 60 million people will be reached throughout Brazil, with the greatest diffusion of the digital satellite dish in the interior of Brazil.
Parallel to the entry into the satellite dish, the PT is also trying to get authorization to enter into conventional open TV from the Ministry of Communications. The order was placed in early June. There is a lot of optimism behind the scenes that the order will be authorized soon.
