About Televisión Pública Pampeana

Televisión Pública Pampeana

Televisión Pública Pampeana, stylised as TVPP, is the public television channel of the province of La Pampa, Argentina. It broadcasts free-to-air from Santa Rosa, the provincial capital, on channel 3 under the call sign LU 89 TV, and is operated by the Government of the Province of La Pampa. For most of its life the station was known simply as Canal 3 La Pampa; it adopted the name Televisión Pública Pampeana on 17 June 2022 as part of an image change that accompanied its digital era. Its signal reaches most of La Pampa through a network of repeaters, and also the north-west of Buenos Aires Province.

The channel began regular transmissions on 30 November 1972 and celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2022, an occasion that prompted a full historical reconstruction of the station by researchers of the National University of La Pampa, published as a book on the history and memories of Canal 3. With its slogan "Un canal donde mirarnos" — a channel in which to see ourselves — TVPP presents itself as the screen of the Pampean community, combining provincial news, agriculture, culture, education and sport with content from the national public channels Encuentro and Pakapaka.

Overview

Televisión Pública Pampeana is a public, generalist channel owned by the provincial state. Unlike the commercial affiliates of the Buenos Aires networks that dominate Argentine regional television, TVPP is a state broadcaster whose mandate is provincial: to inform the population of La Pampa, to reflect its culture and productive life, and to carry public and educational content into a province of low population density spread over a large territory. Its schedule mixes its own productions made in Santa Rosa with retransmissions of the national public signals Encuentro and Pakapaka.

The station broadcasts in Spanish, in high definition in the 1080i format with a standard-definition downscale, from studios located beside National Route 35 in Santa Rosa. It is available over the air, on digital terrestrial television, on the grids of the province's local cooperatives, by satellite streaming, and since November 2022 on DirecTV at channel 139.

History

The creation of the channel was a project of the provincial state from the beginning. On 3 April 1967, the de facto governor Helvio Guozden announced a communications plan that foresaw a television station in Santa Rosa, General Pico or an intermediate location, with a repeater. Private interests also aspired to the licence, but the decision of the provincial state prevailed: on 8 September 1969, through Decree 5068, the National Executive awarded the Government of La Pampa a licence to operate the channel 3 frequency in Santa Rosa, assigning it the call sign LU 89. In 1971, through Provincial Decree 2239, approval of the station's regulations was requested, and the governor entrusted Abel Cuenya with setting the project in motion; Cuenya became the channel's first director.

The licence began regular transmissions on 30 November 1972 as LU 89 TV Canal 3 of Santa Rosa. The early operation was artisanal in character: the material to be broadcast arrived by air, and the channel's workers had to collect it when the Aerolíneas Argentinas plane landed, so the information transmitted was deferred, dealing with the events of the previous day. Various companies supplied the videotapes — films, newscasts and telenovelas bought for the enjoyment of the local public. The channel's mascot was represented as a little puma, the "pumita", and its slogan was "El canal de la familia pampeana", the channel of the Pampean family. At the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, the traditional kite-flying festival, the "barrileteada", was celebrated on the station's grounds, a community ritual that returned for the channel's fiftieth anniversary celebrations.

Growth and technological change

In 1978 the provincial government and the national state installed a chain of repeaters from Bahía Blanca, in the south-west of Buenos Aires Province, to Santa Rosa so that the football World Cup played in Argentina that year could be transmitted live. The link had around six repeaters, and no hop could be cut without interrupting the transmission to all localities, which obliged the channel to keep an employee at each repeater to start the generator and set the equipment running — an almost artisanal operation, according to the possibilities of the time. By then Canal 3 already had updated technology and was prepared to receive the colour signal, although Argentine television still broadcast in black and white; that situation changed only in May 1979. Under the broadcasting law of the period, the Pampean signal also had the power to transmit the matches of the Argentine national football team and other events of magnitude.

In 1985 the first closed television circuits began to appear in the province, but Canal 3 remained the open provincial signal. In May 1998 the channel began transmitting by satellite. Its digital path began in June 1999, when the Secretariat of Communications authorised digital terrestrial tests under the ATSC standard on channel 4, and continued under the ISDB-T standard adopted by Argentina: in 2011 the Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communication Services authorised tests on UHF channel 30, and in August 2012 Canal 3 began broadcasting on channel 30.1 of the digital terrestrial system in Santa Rosa. The station began broadcasting in high definition on 2 July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic period, and in September 2021 it joined the grids of the province's eight local cooperatives.

From Canal 3 to Televisión Pública Pampeana

On 17 June 2022, Canal 3 became Televisión Pública Pampeana as part of an image change. The new name and logo formed part of the channel's digitalisation process, replacing the number 3 that had accompanied the analogue era of the station, and coinciding with the announced digital switch-on carried forward by Argentina's public channels. In the year of its fiftieth anniversary, the renamed TVPP was also incorporated into DirecTV, where from 17 November 2022 it has been available on channel 139. In August 2022 a fire broke out on land in front of the channel's studios beside National Route 35; it caused no major material damage and was quickly controlled.

Ownership and public role

Televisión Pública Pampeana is owned and operated by the Government of the Province of La Pampa. The station was a state initiative from its origin: in a province with a limited advertising market and low population density, it was the provincial state that drove the creation of television in La Pampa, and the channel has remained in public hands throughout its history. Its fiftieth-anniversary history was researched under an agreement between the General Secretariat of the provincial government and the Faculty of Human Sciences of the National University of La Pampa, whose researchers reconstructed the station's trajectory from public and private archives and interviews with its workers — an indication of the channel's place as a public institution of the province rather than a purely commercial enterprise.

Programming

The programming of TVPP combines local production with the content of the national public channels Encuentro and Pakapaka. Among its own programmes are De frente al campo, a morning agricultural programme reflecting the rural economy of La Pampa; Punto de encuentro, a morning magazine; UNLPam TV, the news programme of the National University of La Pampa; Encuentro de tarde, an afternoon magazine; and Tribuna, a sports programme. The mix of agriculture, university life, general interest and sport reflects the channel's provincial remit: to show La Pampa to itself, in line with its slogan.

News operation

The channel's news service is Noticiero 3, focused principally on the province of La Pampa, with three editions from Monday to Friday, at 12:00, at 21:00 and at midnight. Since 17 September 2016 the channel has also broadcast a weekly news panorama, the Resumen Patagónico de Noticias, produced with the news services of the channels that form the Red Patagónica de la Televisión Pública, the network of Patagonian public channels created in August 2016, of which TVPP is a member, to offer viewers a regional Patagonian newscast covering political, economic, sporting, cultural and tourist news.

Distribution and reach

TVPP reaches most of La Pampa through its repeater network: of the 22 repeaters authorised for the channel, 21 are recognised as in operation, retransmitting the signal sent from the channel's own teleport and emitted via the ARSAT-1 satellite. The repeaters serve localities across the province, including 25 de Mayo, Alpachiri, Eduardo Castex, General Acha, Guatraché, Ingeniero Luiggi, La Adela, Quemú Quemú, Realicó and Santa Isabel, among others. The transmission area covers La Pampa and the north-west of Buenos Aires Province. Beyond the air signal, the channel can be followed by streaming from anywhere in the world, is carried by the province's cooperatives and, since 2022, by DirecTV.

Digital presence

The channel's official site is hosted on the provincial government portal, and its signal is available by streaming, extending the reach of a station that for decades depended on videotapes flown in by plane and on repeater keepers starting generators by hand. The transition to digital terrestrial television, high definition and satellite distribution forms the technical backdrop of its 2022 rebranding as Televisión Pública Pampeana.

Audience and significance

Televisión Pública Pampeana is the screen on which La Pampa has seen itself for more than fifty years. Created by the provincial state in 1972 because the commercial market alone would not have brought television to a sparsely populated province, it carried deferred news in its beginnings, brought the 1978 World Cup live to Pampean homes through a hand-tended repeater chain, and accompanied the province through colour, satellite, digital and high-definition television. Its fiftieth anniversary in 2022, marked by a university-researched history, a revived kite festival and a new public name, confirmed its status as one of the enduring public institutions of La Pampa and the dean of Pampean media.