Television in Argentina

Argentine television broadcasting began in 1951 with the inaugural of then state-owned Canal 7, developed by Radio Belgrano executive Jaime Yankelevich. Color television broadcasting, however, was not widely available until after 1978, when the government launched Argentina Televisora Color (ATC), now Televisión Pública Argentina (Argentina's principal public television station). Argentina is one of only five Latin American countries to use the PAL broadcast television system and is also one of the only three Spanish-speaking countries to use PAL (the others being Uruguay and Spain). The prevalence of cable television, increasing steadily since the first CATV transmitter opened in the city of Junín in 1965, is now the third-widest in the world, reaching at least 78% of households.

Argentina has adopted the Japanese standard ISDB-T, with modifications performed by Brazil. Initially Argentina had selected ATSC standard in 1998 (Res. 2387/98) which was backed by Grupo Clarin over DVB-T promoted by the biggest incumbent telcos and European cellphone manufacturers like Nokia. There had been experimental ATSC broadcasts since 1999 before the government overruled the decision.

There is an agreement between Brazil and Argentina, signed in the light of the Mercosur trade bloc, where both countries agree to share information, studies and efforts to select the same Digital TV standard.

By August 27, 2009, the Argentine government officially announced that the Japanese standard was adopted, along with Chile and Perú at the same time. The goal behind this political decision is to achieve a wide, free, high quality regional TV.

Major TV broadcasters, namely El Trece and Telefe had been showing off sample digital broadcasts at electronics and media sector shows like the CAPER exhibition, but Canal 13 still hasn't started to broadcast in the now official Argentine standard.

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