Rede Excelsior


Rede Excelsior was a Brazilian television network founded by Mário Wallace Simonsen on July 9, 1960 in São Paulo, São Paulo. Its last broadcast happened on September 30, 1970, when the Brazilian military dictatorship put an abrupt end to it.

History

In 1959, the Victor Costa Organization, owner of TV Paulista, channel 5 of São Paulo, was awarded by the federal government with a second television channel in the city, channel 9. Possession of more than one TV channel by a single group was not prohibited by the broadcasting laws of that time.
The Victor Costa Organization already owned the Radio Excelsior and therefore, it was determined that the name of the future TV station would be Excelsior. "Excelso" is Portuguese for sublime. However, even before the launch of the channel, it was bought by a group of businessmen led by the Simonsen family, owner of over 40 companies, the most famous of them being Panair do Brasil, then the country's largest airline company. The group featured entrepreneurs like José Luis Moura, a coffee exporter from Santos, Congressman Ortiz Monteiro, founder of TV Paulista, and John Scantimburgo, owner of the newspaper Correio Paulistano.
TV Excelsior was acquired for 80 million cruzeiros, a sum extremely high for the time. In addition to the station's license, the purchase also included some equipments, among them cameras, a tower and a transmitter. The transmission system was installed at the corner of Consolação street with Avenida Paulista, the studios were set on Avenida Adolfo Pinheiro, and the station's commercial and administrative center in downtown.