About Canal 9 Televida

Canal 9 Televida

Canal 9 Televida, also known on air as El Nueve Televida, is an Argentine free-to-air television station broadcasting from the city of Mendoza. Its call sign is LV 83 TV, it broadcasts on analogue VHF channel 9 with a digital channel listed as 33, and it is an affiliate of Telefe, headed by Canal 11 in Buenos Aires. It is operated by Cuyo Televisión S.A. and majority-owned by the Alonso family, which holds 91 percent, with Diario Los Andes holding the remaining 9 percent. Broadcasting in Spanish from Garibaldi 186 in Mendoza, it combines Telefe programming with locally produced news, magazine and entertainment made in and for Mendoza.

It began regular broadcasts on 27 May 1965, making it one of the long-standing television services of Argentina's Cuyo region. Over the decades that followed it kept the same channel 9 frequency, the same LV 83 TV call sign and, unusually for Argentine television, a broadly continuous local ownership structure centred on Cuyo Televisión and the Alonso family. It adopted its current Canal 9 Televida name in February 1995, according to its Spanish-language reference history, and it later used the slogan Somos familia, meaning we are family.

Origins and Launch

The licence for channel 9 in Mendoza was granted on 9 December 1963, when, by Decree 1337, the National Executive Branch awarded Cuyo Televisión S.A. a licence to operate the VHF channel 9 frequency in the city of Mendoza, the provincial capital, at a time when television outside Buenos Aires was still developing.

The licence began its regular broadcasts on 27 May 1965 as LV 83 TV Canal 9 de Mendoza. That date is recorded as the station's first air date, and on 29 May 2015 the Honourable Chamber of Deputies of the Province of Mendoza recognised Canal 9 Televida for its 50 years of trajectory, underlining how closely its lifespan is tied to the history of television in Mendoza itself.

Ownership and Cuyo Televisión

The licensee throughout the station's history has been Cuyo Televisión S.A., based in Mendoza, owned by the Alonso family with 91 percent and Diario Los Andes with 9 percent. That gives the station a character distinct from Telefe's owned stations: it carries the network's programming, but its licence and controlling shareholding remain in local hands.

On 12 November 1982, by Decree 1205, the National Executive Branch authorised the entry into Cuyo Televisión of Laura Costoya de Sansi and Sigifredo Alonso, while the licence was renewed. The Los Andes stake was built in two steps. On 5 June 1992, Diario Los Andes acquired 1.52 percent of Cuyo Televisión, shares formerly held by Fernando Álvarez Herrero. On 29 July 1998, Los Andes increased its participation to 9 percent after acquiring a further 7.48 percent of the capital. The resulting 91 and 9 percent division is the division still listed for the station today.

The Telefe Connection

Canal 9 Televida's relationship with Telefe is older than the Telefe name itself. Cuyo Televisión was a shareholder in Televisoras Provinciales S.A., which was in turn one of the principal shareholders of Televisión Federal S.A., the company known as Telefe, at the time of the privatisation of Canal 11 in Buenos Aires. President Carlos Menem ordered the privatisation of Buenos Aires channels 11 and 13 on 21 September 1989, Televisión Federal took part in that process, and the licence for Canal 11 became effective for it on 15 January 1990.

The decisive test of independence came in April 1998, when Televisoras Provinciales sold its stake in Televisión Federal to Atlántida Comunicaciones and seven of its ten member companies accepted Atlántida's offer to acquire their respective licences. The owners of Canal 9 Televida and of two other stations did not accept the offer. The stations that did accept joined Grupo Telefe as owned stations in September 1998. Mendoza's channel 9 stayed with its local owners and continued as a Telefe affiliate rather than becoming a Telefe-owned station, a status it retains. Telefe, headed by Canal 11 in Buenos Aires, also commercially represents the Mendoza station.

The Media Law Years

The minority Los Andes stake drew Canal 9 into the application of the Audiovisual Communication Services Law to Grupo Clarín, the group behind Diario Los Andes. On 4 November 2013, Clarín presented its voluntary adequation plan to AFSCA, proposing among other things the sale of the stake it held, through Los Andes, in Canal 9's licensee. The plan was approved on 17 February 2014, and on 11 July 2014 Clarín's shareholders approved the sale of their 9 percent in Cuyo Televisión to members of the Alonso family for 22 million Argentine pesos.

That sale never took effect. In October 2014 AFSCA reversed the approval and decided to proceed with a compulsory adequation instead, citing supposed irregularities. A federal judge issued a precautionary measure suspending that process on 31 October 2014; it was granted for six months in December and renewed in June 2015. Then, on 29 December 2015, Decree 267 of 2015 expanded the number of free-to-air licences a company could hold from ten to fifteen, so Clarín was no longer obliged to sell its Canal 9 stake. In January 2016 Clarín suspended its plan, and on 2 February 2016 ENACOM, the successor to AFSCA, archived all such plans. As of June 2017, Diario Los Andes continued to be recorded as a shareholder.

Programming

The schedule of Canal 9 Televida is built from two sources. Part of the programming consists of retransmitting content from Canal 11 in Buenos Aires, the head station of the Telefe network. Alongside that network feed, the station maintains its own local production, made in Mendoza for a Mendoza audience. The best-known local titles recorded in reference sources are Noticiero 9, the station's news service, Cada Día, a magazine programme, and A las brasas, a cooking programme. The station's own video playlists also present titles including Viva la Mañana, No Culpes a la Noche and Replay alongside Noticiero 9, Cada Día and A las brasas.

One episode illustrates that local judgement in practice. Unlike other Telefe affiliates, Canal 9 was the only affiliate that did not stop transmitting the series Fanny la fan. It began on the Mendoza channel on 3 July 2017, one week after its original premiere, and the station kept it because of its high ratings, with the final episode broadcast on 26 September 2017.

Noticiero 9

Noticiero 9 is the station's news service, with its principal focus on the province of Mendoza. It is broadcast in four editions from Monday to Friday, at 6:45, at 13:00, at 21:00 and at midnight, giving the station a local news presence across the whole day.

Its reference history describes Noticiero 9 as the most-watched newscast in Mendoza and its central edition as the most-watched programme in the region. Those descriptions are reported here as the service's documented reputation, not as independently audited figures. Its professional recognition is a matter of award record: Noticiero 9 has won the Martín Fierro Federal award on six occasions as Best News Programme, the federal edition of Argentina's principal television awards.

Election coverage is a recurring part of that role. For the provincial primaries of June 2023, the station promoted a day of special editions of Noticiero 9 on its own website, from the morning through the close of voting to results and analysis in the evening, with coverage also reflected on elnueve.com.

Local Productions and Recognition

Beyond news, local production is represented most prominently by Cada Día, described as a magazine programme, and A las brasas, its cooking programme. A las brasas has won the Martín Fierro Federal award four times as Best Culinary Programme, according to its reference history, placing a Mendoza-made food programme among the repeatedly honoured productions of Argentine federal television.

The station has also been associated with accessibility work. The National University of Cuyo has reported that members of a research team from its Faculty of Elementary and Special Education provide Argentine Sign Language interpretation in the programming of Canal 9 in Mendoza, an example of the channel functioning as a provincial service and not only as an entertainment outlet.

Community Service

The station's best-documented community activity is the annual solidarity marathon 24 Horas De Todo Corazón, held with the Fundación De Todo Corazón since 1987 to raise funds for public-benefit institutions in Mendoza — a fixture of well over three decades. Associations wishing to take part have been invited to submit documentation at the station's own address, Garibaldi 186, confirming both the marathon's link to the channel and its headquarters address.

The City of Mendoza's reporting on a recent edition described donations collected by telephone and through a QR code shown on screen during the Canal 9 Televida transmission, with collection points in Parque Central and elsewhere, and musical shows and children's activities around the event. The marathon therefore works on two levels characteristic of the station: as a television programme, and as a physical, city-wide collection in Mendoza's public spaces.

Coverage, Repeaters and Digital Transition

Canal 9 is seen across much of the province through repeaters. Its Spanish-language listing records five: channel 13 at Cerro Diamante, channel 4 at Potrerillos, channel 13 at Uspallata, channel 5 in the Valle de Uco and channel 6 at Villavicencio. An English-language listing also includes channel 12 at La Paz, so published listings differ slightly in how many relays they count. Two earlier repeaters in the far south, channel 5 at Ranquil Norte and channel 9 at Sierras de Palauco, were taken out of service in 1998. Earlier, on 10 November 1986, COMFER had authorised Cuyo Televisión by Resolution 877 to install relays at Cerro La Horqueta and Cerro Bayo de la Esperanza, on channels 5 and 9 respectively.

In February 1999, by Resolution 3460, the Secretariat of Communications authorised Canal 9 to conduct digital terrestrial tests on channel 13 in the ATSC format, Argentina's first choice of standard. After Argentina changed its standard, AFSCA, by Resolution 113 on 1 June 2010, authorised tests in the ISDB-T format on physical channel 33, the digital channel still listed for the station. On 26 February 2015, by Resolution 35, AFSCA assigned channel 28.1 for its regular HD signal on digital terrestrial television. Its picture format is listed as 1080i high definition, downscaled to 16:9 576i for the standard-definition feed, and its licensing authority is ENACOM. On 23 October 2018 its signal, together with Canal 7, was added for DirecTV subscribers in Mendoza after years of dispute in the Argentine courts.

Place in Mendoza

Canal 9 Televida occupies a particular place in Argentine television because so much about it has stayed local while the industry around it consolidated. Its licence, granted in 1963 and first broadcast in 1965, is still held by Cuyo Televisión, its controlling owners are still the Alonso family, with Diario Los Andes as minority partner, and it refused the 1998 offer that turned most of its Televisoras Provinciales partners into Telefe-owned stations.

For viewers, that identity is expressed in practice: in a news service with four weekday editions focused on the province, in locally made magazine and cooking programmes honoured repeatedly at the Martín Fierro Federal awards, in a solidarity marathon held since 1987, and in a website at elnueve.com carrying its news beyond the broadcast area. On that record, Canal 9 Televida is one of Argentina's clearest surviving examples of a genuinely provincial television station: network-affiliated, but locally owned, locally programmed and rooted in a single city and province since 1965.