About El Seis Bariloche

El Seis Bariloche

El Seis Bariloche is the free-to-air television station of San Carlos de Bariloche in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, broadcasting as LU 93 TV Canal 6 and currently styled on air as elseis TV. It is the only free-to-air television station based in Bariloche, an Andean tourist city whose permanent population and large seasonal visitor influx have long depended on this single local signal for city news, weather, road and mountain information and national programming. The station is an affiliate of El Trece of Buenos Aires and is operated by Bariloche TV S.A., owned since 2021 by Grupo Televisión Litoral, the Rosario-based group best known for Canal 3 of Rosario. Its history is distinctive even by Argentine interior standards, because it began a full twelve years before its open licence, as a closed-circuit cable channel.

Origins as Canal 3 closed circuit

The origins of the station date to June 1966, when Canal 3, a closed-circuit cable television service, was created in San Carlos de Bariloche. Sources differ by a few days on the exact starting date in that month, with the station's history giving 1 June 1966 and logo and reference works giving 4 June 1966 for the start of Canal 3; this profile records June 1966 as the verified point and flags the day as unsettled. What is clear is that Canal 3 was the first television service the city had, delivered by cable at a time when no open signal reached Bariloche. For more than a decade that closed system was how Bariloche watched television, which meant the future Canal 6 inherited an audience, a production habit and a local identity long before it had an over-the-air frequency. The batch record for this profile gives the same starting point, dating the closed-circuit Canal 3 to 1 June 1966, and the station's corporate foundation is likewise dated to 1966.

From cable to open television in 1978

The move to open television was driven by national politics and sport. In 1978 the de facto government of the self-styled National Reorganization Process considered it necessary that the 1978 Football World Cup, hosted by Argentina, be shown on open television. The licence therefore began regular transmissions on 1 May 1978 as LU 93 TV Canal 6 of San Carlos de Bariloche. The businessmen Alfredo Sauter, Juan Carlos Ramón Antonio Rossetti and Francisco José Caló founded the open signal as the successor to the cable Canal 3. On 23 August 1979, by Decree 2063, the National Executive empowered the Federal Broadcasting Committee to call a competition for the award and exploitation of the Canal 6 licence. On 5 May 1981, by Resolution 269, that call was made, and on 23 August 1982, by Decree 414, the national state awarded the licence to the company Bariloche TV, formed by Sauter, Rossetti and Caló. The station thus passed through the common Argentine pattern of a de facto launch followed by a later formal adjudication.

Fire, relocation and the early licence years

In the early hours of 5 January 1981 the station's then studios, in Calle Elflein, were destroyed by fire. By shortly after midday the same day the channel was back on air from the house of Francisco Caló, premises it used for fifteen years, with equipment lent by Canal 13 of Buenos Aires. That rapid return, preserved in the station's own documentary history, became a founding story of resilience for the channel. On 2 October 1984 the Federal Broadcasting Committee, by Resolution 780, authorised the provincial government to install a repeater of the channel at Fitalancao on UHF channel 57, although on 17 July 2012 AFSCA, by Resolution 933, declared that construction permit lapsed. On 27 July 1987, by Resolution 412, the committee authorised an internal repeater transmitting from the summit of Cerro Otto on VHF channel 8, to reach parts of the primary area where the main signal arrived poorly, a practical response to Bariloche's mountainous terrain, where line of sight is frequently broken by hills inside the city itself. On 19 October 1990, by Decree 2224, the National Executive authorised the transfer of Bariloche TV S.A. to Eduardo Metzger, Enrique Taboada and Néstor Vidal, a transfer that had been requested in 1988.

The Artear and Clarín period

The next ownership chapter tied Bariloche to Argentina's largest media group. Logopedia records that in 2003 Canal 6 was bought by Artear, while the fuller regulatory account states that on 4 July 2007 Artear, a subsidiary of Grupo Clarín, acquired Bariloche TV, licensee of Canal 6 and Radio Seis, for approximately 1.1 million United States dollars, ceding 0.1 percent of the shares the following day to GC Minor, another Clarín subsidiary; the transfer was approved only on 5 April 2016, almost nine years later. The difference between the 2003 and 2007 dates appears to reflect an earlier commercial arrangement and the later formal share acquisition, and this profile flags it rather than choosing one silently. During the Clarín years the station carried the El Trece schedule and was renamed in stages, first presenting itself as Canal Seis from 2008 and then as El Seis from 2011. It was also caught up in the group's long dispute over the Audiovisual Communication Services Law: Clarín's voluntary adaptation plan of 4 November 2013 assigned Canal 6 to its Group 1, the plan was approved on 17 February 2014, the regulator then moved to forced adaptation, court injunctions suspended that process, and after Decree 267 of 2015 changed the law, ENACOM archived all adaptation plans in February 2016, leaving Clarín under no obligation to divest the station.

Digital transition and high definition

In December 1998, by Resolution 2610, the Secretariat of Communications authorised Canal 6 to test digital terrestrial television under the ATSC standard on VHF channel 5. After Argentina adopted ISDB-T, AFSCA Resolution 1038 of 30 August 2011 authorised tests under that standard on UHF channel 38. On 4 June 2015, by Resolution 381, AFSCA assigned the channel digital channel 27.1 to broadcast regularly in HD on digital terrestrial television, and by May 2018 it was transmitting on the TDA system. On 1 May 2018, its fortieth anniversary as an open channel, Canal 6 began broadcasting all of its programming in HD. On 31 March 2024 the channel ceased analogue broadcasting on channel 6 and completed the transition to digital terrestrial television on 27.1 in southern Argentina, in compliance with ENACOM Decree 156 of 2022. It now broadcasts in 1080i high definition, downscaled for its standard-definition signal.

Sale to Televisión Litoral and the elseis TV identity

On 22 July 2021 Grupo Clarín sold 99 percent of the shares of Bariloche TV and its media assets, comprising Canal 6, Radio Seis and three news portals, to Televisión Litoral S.A., owner of Canal 3 of Rosario, with the remaining 1 percent to Margarita Scaglione, for a total of 600,000 United States dollars. The operation formed part of Televisión Litoral's expansion from Rosario into the interior, a strategy the group later extended to stations in Tucumán, Bahía Blanca and Salta. On 31 October 2021 the station closed its stage with Artear and Clarín, and the following day it renewed its image and took the name elseis TV, adapting the logo of Canal 3 of Rosario. Its current public name is elseis TV, its slogan is Estamos con vos, and its recorded ownership is Grupo Televisión Litoral with 99 percent and Margarita Scaglione with 1 percent, operated by Bariloche TV S.A. Its website is associated with the group's Bariloche news portal, bariloche2000.com.

Programming and Noticiero Seis

Part of the present schedule consists of retransmitting the content of Canal 13 of Buenos Aires, head of the Artear and El Trece network, so the affiliation survived the change of ownership even though the owner changed. Alongside it the station keeps local production, headed by Noticiero Seis, its news service focused on local, regional and national news. Noticiero Seis currently has a single edition, broadcast Monday to Friday at 14:00. That reduced news footprint is documented rather than assumed: on 29 October 2018 it was reported that, as part of an adjustment plan involving dismissals and voluntary retirements, Canal 6 decided to remove the second and third editions of the newscast, leaving only the first edition, along with the Saturday weekly summary, which in the end was not removed, and the programme De la A a la Z. The changes took effect from the week of 5 November 2018, with the dropped editions replaced by the network programmes Telenoche and Síntesis. Since 6 July 2020 the station has also carried some programmes of Canal 10 of General Roca, including the midday edition of Noticias 10, under an agreement between the state company Radio Televisión Río Negro, operator of the Roca station, and Canal 6, an unusual example of a private affiliate carrying a neighbouring provincial public channel's news.

Coverage and local role

The station is received across the city of San Carlos de Bariloche and surrounding areas, and no more than that should be claimed for it: unlike the large provincial stations of the Argentine north, El Seis has a compact, urban and tourist coverage area shaped by mountains and the Nahuel Huapi lake. Within that area its role is outsized, because it is the only locally based free-to-air station. Local viewers rely on it for Bariloche municipal news, winter road and ski conditions, provincial politics from Río Negro and the El Trece national schedule in a single signal, while the group's linked radio station, Radio Seis, and its news portals extend the same newsroom across media. The channel's various names trace that history plainly: Canal 3 on cable from 1966, Canal 6 from 1978, Canal Seis from 2008, El Seis from 2014 in the station's own dating, and elseis TV from 2021.

Assessment and limits of the record

The verified record for El Seis Bariloche is strong on corporate and regulatory history, with decrees, resolutions, sale prices and dates documented in detail, and thinner on programme history beyond its news service and on audience figures, for which no reliable verified data was found and none is invented here. Two date discrepancies have been flagged openly in this profile, the June 1966 day for the start of Canal 3 and the 2003 against 2007 dating of the Artear acquisition. Subject to those flags, the station stands as a clear example of the Argentine interior pattern in a tourist city: a locally founded signal, absorbed by a Buenos Aires group, then resold to a growing interior group, while retaining the same network affiliation and the same essential function as Bariloche's only home television channel.