Videoage International January 2018

24 January 2018 V I D E O A G E P edro Simoncini is known internationally — especially in the U.S. and Argentina — as a broadcasting pioneer. However, his initial ambition was simply to produce and distribute educational TV programs, which he started doing in 1978 in Buenos Aires with Programas Santa Clara. That was around the same time that he started attending MIP-TV, bringing along his little daughter, Karin. Earlier, in 1964, Simoncini was among the first broadcasters to attend what are now called the L.A. Screenings. In those years, 1974-1980 specifically, Simoncini also served as president of the Asociación de Teleradiodifusoras Argentinas, representing the interests of his own TV station, Canal 5, in the city of Rosario (even though his “magic” number has always been 11, as in Teleonce ), and later, Telefe. But let’s first proceed with a prequel. When “Pietro” Simoncini left his native Naples, Italy, for Argentina in 1924, he was just one year old. His parents decided to return to Naples the following year, but later went back to Argentina, permanently settling in Buenos Aires in 1927. Yet Pietro didn’t become an Argentine citizen until 1940 because, as he said, “My parents insisted on remaining Italian. They returned to Naples in 1925 so that they could give birth tomy brother in Italy.” At first, it seemed unlikely that fate would lead him to become a pioneer of Argentine TV, succeeding in bringing local TV stations together and creating Telefe — one of the two main TV networks in Argentina — in 1989. But that’s exactly what happened. Let’s now jump forward a few years to 1943, to find Pietro, now known as Pedro, employed by Banco Italiano in Buenos Aires and tasked with paying a salary to actress and radio personality Eva Duarte (the future Evita Perón) on behalf of Bulgarian immigrant Jaime Yankelevich (1896- 1952), owner of Radio Belgrano. “She would come to my office and I’d authenticate her signature in order for her to collect her salary,” Simoncini remembered of Evita. VideoAge met Simoncini last September at his office, which is located on Avenida Belgrano. “Nowadays, I come to the office just in the mornings, and am always accompanied because I feel unwell, and since last year, I can no longer drive. I never imagined that being old was so hard,” he confessed. Now Simoncini is solely dedicated to the development of educational content, “which has always been my passion,” he said. He retired from the commercial TV sector in 1993 to focus on the production of educational programs, and is still an active member of the Academia Nacional de Educación. In the 1940s, Simoncini also took care of the finances and investments of the Order of the Jesuits ( Companía de Jesus ), which in 1957 decided to apply for a government license to operate a television station. The Jesuit leader, Héctor N. Grandinetti of Colegio del Salvador, gathered 120 investors to form the Difusora Contemporánea (DiCon) company, and requested authorization for Canal 11 (one of the seven frequencies made available for the then-nascent private TV sector set up to compete with the state national network, Canal 7) to start up three channels in Buenos Aires and two in Córdoba and Mendoza. Regular TV broadcast in Argentina had begun in 1951 with Canal 7, which was developed by Radio Belgrano’s Yankelevich (and sponsored by the then de facto-ruling Evita Perón). After the 1955 military coup ( Revolución Libertadora ) that sent President Juan Perón into exile, Canal 7 became (and is to this day) a government TV station. Canal 7 was renamed Argentina Televisora Color (ATC) in 1979 after it provided the international TV feed in color for the 1978 football (soccer) World Cup held in Argentina. However, ATC broadcast only one match in color. Regular color broadcasts didn’t begin until 1980, and used a modified PAL standard. A debate was held to select the color-television standard, but against the advice of technicians, a hybrid German-made PAL system was chosen over the American NTSC. A modified PAL standard was selected because of pressure from the Cámara de Industria de Artículos Electrónicos en la Argentina (CADIE), which didn’t want color TV sets imported from Germany or the U.S. All TV stations later adopted the same standard. Following the 1958 democratic elections, President Arturo Frondizi opened to private TV channels, a process that was begun two years earlier by then-president Pedro Aramburu of Revolución Libertadora . Simoncini was tasked with maintaining harmony among all the Canal 11 investors, who, he remembered, “saw the channel mainly as the call to fame for their wives and children.” In effect, Simoncini became the first general manager of the station, but, due to internal bickering, Canal 11 was the last of the three Buenos Aires stations to go on the air. It did so in 1961 andwas branded as Teleonce . Short on funds, Canal 11 had to find other investors to finance programming, and knowing that the U.S. TV networks were looking for investments in South America, Simoncini approached the only American TV network left withoutalocalp artnership:ABC.CBSwasalready allied with Canal 13 and Ricardo Pueyrredón, who partnered with Goar Mestre, (the channel was later rebranded as Artear and became part of the Clarin Publishing Group). NBC was partnered with Canal 9 and Ildefonso Recalde, who took it over from German immigrant Kurt Lowe. “It was the only way to compete with the TV station of the Cuban transplanted in Argentina, Goar Mestre [1912-1994],” said Simoncini of his rival and fellow pioneer of Argentine TV. However, because theArgentine government did not allow foreign companies to enter as TV station shareholders, DiCon and ABC created Telerama, an external company for programming and advertising. Similar gimmicks were undertaken by Canal 13 and CBS with Proartel, and Canal 9 and NBC with Telecenter. For example, in the case of Proartel, when ad agencies were billed for airtime, they received two invoices: one from Proartel, the other from Rio de la Plata, which was the licensee of Canal 13. Mestre was still a Cuban citizen, so he could only control Proartel. Similarly, Michael J. Solomon, at the time a content sales executive at MCA-Universal, remembered that all billings for content acquisitions for Canal 11 would go to Telerama, which, confirmed Simoncini, was 90 percent owned by ABC. At this point a social factor contributed to Simoncini’s career path. The Jesuits felt intimidated by the fact that both Canal 9 and Canal 13, owned by Argentinean Jews, partnered with the U.S. TV networks, which were started by American Jews, and that the only partner left was PedroSimoncini:ABroadcastingPioneerWho LovedDistributingEducational TVPrograms By Dom Serafini Int’l TV Distribution Hall of Fame (Continued on Page 26) Simoncini, second from the left, at Teleonce in 1962 Simoncini,ontheright,atanAsociacióndePublicidad luncheon (Continued from Cover) Pedro Simoncini with daughter Karin in 1996