Tomorrow, Sunday, we will be celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of our TV on my planet. We came after the United States of America, the first country to have this technology.
One of the pioneers of this new communication medium was Gaspar Pumarejo, who introduced it into our country and into the family home, turning it into a large studio for the presentation of programs. He was undoubtedly the pioneer and the one who most contributed to its development along with the Mestre brothers.
In the fifties, our TV had reached a high level and had the most advanced technology of the time. There were many programs which established the standard. The subsequent increase in advertising and design are inextricably linked to television. They pulled off some stunts, like broadcasting major league baseball live and direct (using a plane flying over our skies to catch the signal), to the delight of a people who, for the most part, love this sport.
Today, the television in our planet is not even a shadow of what it once was. Tedious, boring, vulgar, politicized to the maximum. Messages and slogans abound between program and program, which causes many like me to use it primarily to watch rented movies. When you manage to an interesting, well executed program they repeat it over and over because of a lack of financial resources to constantly come up with new things to show us.
As José Saramago used to say, “It’s time to howl, because if we get let ourselves be carried away by the powers that govern us, and we do nothing to counter them, we can say we deserve what we get.”
Congratulations to the pioneers of our television, and all those who delivered it to is with much love, wherever they are now.
October 23, 2010
