RecordTV

TV Record started its transmissions on September 27, 1952. It was founded by Paulo Machado de Carvalho in São Paulo, as a competitor for then-dominant Rede Tupi from Diários Associados. It broke the three-year-old monopoly the station had in the city. It originally broadcast entertainment shows, sports, journalism, comedies and plays. In the 1950s, TV Record became recognized for their sports broadcasts. In 1959, it started airing shows featuring international entertainment figures, such as Charles Aznavour, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Marlene Dietrich.

TV Record with circle 7 logo from 1965 to 1970.

The 1960s were considered Record's "Golden Age". The peak of Record's ratings were in the 1965–1970 period, when it became well known for its musical programs showcasing Bossa Nova and Jovem Guarda artists, and its MPB Music Festivals, which opened the doors to Tropicália. It was also during the 1960s that it aired its comedic series Família Trapo, created in 1967. That year, it started to lead the newly founded Rede de Emissoras Independentes (Independent Broadcasting Networks), whose stations aired Record programs and were its first affiliates. In 1968 Record's fortune started to change, because of a series of fires that handicapped its production capability. Brazilian public tastes began to be attracted to the telenovelas of Rede Globo.

The station sold 50% of its shares to Silvio Santos in 1971, but Record did not regain its higher ratings. It was the first television to broadcast in color in 1966, during the Festa da Uva (Grape Festival) in Caxias do Sul, together with TV Rio and TV Difusora. It would later be broadcast in full-color in 1970. Before this, transmissions in color since 1962 were experimental. TV Record had programming based on TV series, movies and cartoons, and TV shows, as well as its news programming.

The formation of SBT in 1981 marked more competition and the deepening of Record's decline. In most of the 1980s, Record suffered from very low ratings, no stars in its casts, and a lack of compelling programming, aside for it being the official station for Programa Silvio Santos (which would last until 1987) and other SBT programs. However, the channel scored a victory in 1984 with Jornal da Record's 2-hour telecast (the first station to do so), broadcast in select Brazilian cities, as well as in the promotion of Brazilian country music (música sertaneja) though Marcelo Costa's Especial Sertanejo. Record also began its transition into a national network with the 1982 opening of its Rio station.

In 1989, Sílvio Santos and Paulo Machado de Carvalho's family sold Record to Edir Macedo and his Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus. The following year Record became a national channel, in conjunction with their 37th anniversary of broadcasting, debuting its current logo, and later that year began satellite broadcasts, returning to Rio in 1993. Given the Pentecostal connections of the new leadership it's no surprise that Record's long line of religious programming would be traced to its relaunch.

On October 12, 1995, the network became infamous throughout the country because of the "Kicking of the saint" episode, aired during the church's late night program.

RecordTV's center of operations in São Paulo.

Under Macedo, the new owners started to rebuild Record's public image, identifying as Rede Record and signing broadcasting affiliates throughout Brazil. Through most of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s, Record invested in popular programming, signing stars such as Ana Maria Braga (who left to go to Globo in 1999 and had a long career in other networks) and Carlos "Ratinho" Massa (in SBT since 1998). It changed its programming in several ways, adding more sports coverage (for instance, broadcast the World Cup 1998); investigative journalism (with Câmera Record) and many others. It added several United States series, such as Star Trek, The X-Files, Millennium and The Three Stooges (also including, in later years, House, M.D., Monk, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its spin-offs). It also added educational children's shows, and cartoons from world markets, such as Dexter's Laboratory and the anime Pokémon.

In 2000 Adriane Galisteu joined the network, one of so many to join its ranks as the 21st century started.

In 2003, TV Record celebrated its 50th anniversary of its launch in São Paulo, thus with this achievement Record is today the longest-running and oldest existing Brazilian television network. In 2004, it began using a new slogan, A Caminho da Liderança ("On the way to leadership"), and released new programming (among them was Domingo Espetacular, which would soon pose as serious competition to the long-dominant Fantastico of Rede Globo). Despite the critics, the channel has taken a page from Globo's success and started to invest heavily in telenovelas, like Essas Mulheres and Ribeirão do Tempo. It has also tried to make its announcers and journalists look more like its main competitor. It did not renew the contract of its anchor, Boris Casoy, who moved to Rede Bandeirantes as a result.

In 2007, Record, for the first time, occupied 2nd place in São Paulo's ratings.[17] Its goal was to take over leadership in the 2010s.[8] Two years later, in 2009, Record's audience in Rio surpassed that of Globo after airing the blockbuster Brazilian action film The Elite Squad. At the same time, the network soon debuted its very own news channel, Record News, and began its international service as well.

Headquarters of RecordTV in São Paulo.

Casablanca Estúdios, television complex in Rio de Janeiro.

In a first for the network, Record signed with the International Olympic Committee for the exclusive rights for the free-to-air television to the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics.[18][19] The network also holds, until 2019, the Pan-American Games broadcasts rights.

IBOPE surveys confirmed that Record enjoyed a 101% increase in its audience in São Paulo, (from 2003) and an astonishing 270% increase in its audience in Rio de Janeiro (from 2002). In the same survey, in São Paulo, Globo suffered a 26% decline in its audience, while SBT lost 37% of its audience, while in Rio de Janeiro, Globo's audience dropped by 30%, whereas SBT lost 17%. It was different in 2014 when SBT regained its 2nd place in the national ratings, while Record was pulled down to 3rd place overall.

2014 marked the first time both Rede Record and Record News broadcast the 2014 Winter Olympics together.

It was indeed in recent years that Record's long line of locally produced and imported programs, including new US programs (Chicago P.D. and Spartacus for example) had made it one of the best stations in Brazil today, reinforced by program hosts in the variety and reality programs and newsreaders in the local and national levels, several of them with long years of service in other stations. By 2015, it has become the pioneer Latin American TV network to produce programs in 4K and the first ever to produce a Bible-based telenovela, beating others in the process. It can be noted that since 2004 Bible-themed miniseries have been also a part of Record's programming.

On November 24, 2016, the network changed its name to RecordTV and unveiled a modified version of its logo which dropped the RGB colors.

RecordTV Internacional is the international service of RecordTV. It is available in North America, Europe, Africa—including Uganda, and (since 2008) Asia.[21]