Early years

Initially television in Colombia was public, with emphasis on education and cultural topics until, in 1955, the government developed a system of concessions, in which the State was in charge of the television infrastructure and gave programming slots in the channels to private companies known as programadoras. These companies bid for timeslots on the national channel to show their programs. The first of these companies to be founded was Producciones PUNCH, followed quickly by RTI Colombia. In 1963 Inravisión, the public broadcaster, was created. Before that, it was operated by the Televisora Nacional, part of the Radiodifusora Nacional de Colombia. In 1966 the government then tried to privatize the sector, opening bidding for a private license in Bogotá. Caracol, RTI and Punch would bid on the license, but the winner was Consuelo Salgar de Montejo and her Teletigre. Teletigre was a huge success. Mrs. Montejo made an alliance with ABC and brought many of the US shows translated into Spanish to the local viewers. The government did not renew the broadcast license for Teletigre. Teletigre, which would return to state hands and become Tele 9 Corazón and, in 1972 Segunda Cadena, with national coverage. Mrs. Montejo attempted on many occasions to get back in broadcasting TV, but the government refused to give her slots.

Color broadcasts

On 11 December 1979, regular color television broadcasts started in Colombia^[3] using the NTSC standard. Color television had already been introduced in October 1973, when programadora Cenpro Televisión made a color broadcast during an education seminar with Japanese-made equipment. The inauguration and the first match of the 1974 FIFA World Cup were broadcast live in color, but they could be seen in color only on big screens in Bogotá and Cali.^[4]

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Colombian national television system had three national channels: Cadena Uno, Cadena Dos and Cadena Tres. The first two worked under the concessions system while the Cadena Tres (later renamed to Señal Colombia) remained under complete government control and focused on cultural and educational programming, and was the producer of major national holiday coverage for the Inravision system.

In 1984, the first of the regional networks in the country was created, Teleantioquia which signed on the next year. Other regional networks, such as Telecaribe and Telepacífico, were created by the then-Minister of Communications Noemí Sanín. In the 1990s Teveandina, Telecafé, and Teleislas would join them.

1987 saw the introduction of cable television to the country after bidding in 1985. TV Cable, the country's first cable system, began operations at the end of December 1987.

The 1991 bid (for the 1992-1997 period) triggered competitiveness as a first step toward privatization. Cadena Dos became Canal A, and the programming companies, which numbered 24 at the time, received from that point slots on one channel to compete among each other for ratings. Cadena Uno would be rebranded Canal Uno in January 1998.

The Colombian Constitution of 1991 and a law in 1995 created the Comisión Nacional de Television (CNTV, National Television Commission), an autonomous entity in charge of policies for public television and regulation of television contents. The CNTV started working in 1995. In March 1993, more ratings information came to Colombian screens. A court decision forced Inravisión to ban sexual and violent scenes from the franja familiar (family block). Programadoras were now required to state if the program was appropriate for minors to view.^[5] In addition, programadoras had to submit their material to Inravisión 72 hours in advance to determine its suitability; television was classified in two types of franjas, including the franja infantil and franja familiar (which determined the content rating of the programs to be aired in that block) as well as ratings for the profitability and value of the timeslots, ranging from AAA (prime time) to D (overnight hours).

In 1997, the government through the CNTV gave away licences to set up privately owned television networks. These licences were granted to Cadena radial colombiana (Caracol TV) and Radio Cadena Nacional (RCN TV), which had started as radio networks and were in the hands of the main economic groups of Colombia. Both private stations began functioning as TV networks on 10 July 1998.

The recession of the Colombian economy during the late 1990s weakened the state-run networks and the programadoras. But the companies that produced the networks' shows also had to face a new landscape of Colombian television, as Caracol and RCN now dominated. Ratings fell steadily as the programadoras became merely production companies for Caracol or RCN or disappeared outright. Names famous in Colombian television, like PUNCH, Cenpro, Producciones JES (named for its founder Julio E. Sánchez Venegas), the famous Noticiero 24 Horas, and TeVecine, left the public airwaves. Others required financial intervention to stay afloat. The programadoras had continued working independently and never collaborated to establish a better program service against the newly organized privately owned networks.

By 2003, Canal A was almost entirely filled with cultural and educational programs produced by the government-run programadora (Audiovisuales).^[6] In 2003, the only production company left on Canal A was transferred to Canal Uno, which left four programadoras there to receive an equal share of the channel's program slots. Canal A then was turned into the Canal Institucional and became under total control of the government. Later in 2004, Inravisión would be liquidated and Radio Televisión Nacional de Colombia was created.

In 2009 a licence for a third national private television network was to be granted by the Colombian government. Spanish groups PRISA and Planeta, and Venezuelan tycoon Gustavo Cisneros were bidding, each of them allied with Colombian shareholders, for the licence. As of July 2020, there is still no third private channel in Colombia.