Canal Trece (stylized as ''Trece.'') is a

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

television network with regional coverage, specialized in cultural programming. Being a public television station, it is owned by the Colombian Government and its operations are managed by the RTVC Public Media System. The headquarters of the channel are located in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

. Conceived originally as part of a project to assign a departmental public television channel to the

Boyacá department Boyacá () is one of the thirty-two departments of Colombia, and the remnant of Boyacá State, one of the original nine states of the "United States of Colombia". Boyacá is centrally located within Colombia, almost entirely within the mount ...

, the channel was officially launched on September 1, 1998, under the name of Teveandina. It was available in

and 14 other Colombian departments: Amazonas, Arauca, Boyacá, Caquetá, Casanare, Cundinamarca, Guainía, Guaviare, Huila,

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, Putumayo, Tolima, Vaupés and Vichada. At first, the channel was limited to the broadcasting of programming blocks acquired by third-party companies on their own signal, who rented space to sell their productions. After the inauguration of the first private channels in the country in 1998, the channel went through a great economic crisis due to the fall in the audience that brought the opening of signals. Due to this, several production companies migrated to

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and RCN as main clients, so Teveandina started issuing infomercials to keep their signal on air. However, in 2000 the channel declared bankruptcy. But

Telecom Colombia Telecom may refer to: * Telecommunications ** A telecommunications company ** The telecommunications industry * Telecom Animation Film, a Japanese studio See also * Telcom (disambiguation) * Telekom (disambiguation) * List of telecommunications ...

(currently Movistar Colombia), the majority shareholder of the channel, contributed 700 million pesos to maintain the company, and the National Television Authority (ANTV) contributed 200 million pesos more to pay the salaries of employees. In 2001 the channel administration was changed, and a new direction was sought for the business, identifying a market niche that until then was neglected by both public and private channels: Young people. With this new approach, the name of Teveandina was changed to Canal Trece, the image was redesigned and a new stage began. In this way, the structure of the canal was redesigned, creating programming for young people, which implied starting to produce in the channel's facilities, something that had not been conceived in its beginnings. In 2004, the management assumed a new administration that has sought to position and consolidate the image through various strategies, among which are adopting the color orange as a distinctive, reducing the percentage of videos and increasing the programming of other types. Special emphasis was given to the commercialization of the channel's programs, so that it became the channel's most important item and together with the production services, it has made the channel sustainable and profitable. With the liquidation of Telecom, Canal Trece became the property of RTVC and the Colombian ministry of telecommunications, since it owns 91% of the shares of the entity and the remaining 9% to the Governments of Boyacá, Caquetá, Casanare, Cundinamarca, Guaviare, Huila,

, Putumayo and Tolima.

References

External links

Official website
(in Spanish) {{colombian television stations Television networks in Colombia Television channels and stations established in 1998 Television stations in Colombia Spanish-language television stations