The Portuguese Channel

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The Portuguese Channel is a cable channel targeting Portuguese immigrants in New Bedford and Fall River, in the south of New England, an area with a high amount of Portuguese immigrants and their descendants. The channel is available in much of the Providence and Boston DMAs, on both Cox and Xfinity cable systems.^[1]

The Portuguese Channel was founded in 1976 by Colony Communications, by initiative of its president Bruce Clark. The primary goal of the service was to increase penetration of cable services in New Bedford, an area where 60% of its population was of Portuguese descent; 30% of Colony's subscribers were from this group.^[2] Initially a pilot service starting August 2, 1976^[3] named Panorama de Portugal,^[4] aired once a week on Colony channel 13,^[5] its success led to the channel becoming permanent in 1978. The playout of the channel in its early years was done at Colony's facilities in New Bedford, but by the late 1980s, was now entirely owned by The Portuguese Times, a local newspaper for the diaspora.^[6] Colony's team also produced music videos of Portuguese artists for them to be shown on the channel, shot on location in Portugal, and lip-synced to the track.^[6]

Early on, there was also a plan to telecast Luso American Soccer Association matches, which was achieved by initiative of Adelino Ferreira, at the time president of LASA (and later president of The Portuguese Times). During these broadcasts, Portuguese immigrants headed to Café Portugal in Acushnet and other establishments that were connected to Colony's cable system.^[7]

The channel earned a CableACE Award in 1980^[8] for specialized programming.^[9]

The growth of the channel's viewer base was thanks to TV Globo's telenovelas. Eduardo Lima had a contact working for Globo and recommended A Escrava Isaura, which was one of the first Brazilian telenovelas to air in the United States. The channel continues to broadcast titles from Globo's catalog even though TV Globo Internacional is available nationwide. With the success of A Escrava Isaura, Lucélia Santos and Rubens de Falco visited New Bedford at the initiative of the channel, and also received other Globo stars later on.^[7]

Another successful initiative started by Lima was the broadcast of the Sunday mass to reach out to viewers who were unable to attend the service in person due to health reasons.^[7]

In January 1983, the group that owned the channel planned to beam its programs by satellite to Portugal and the Portuguese diaspora in Europe.^[10]

As of 1984, the channel broadcast nine hours a day. The American technical crew went to mainland Portugal and the Azores to film footage of sporting events to later rebroadcast them on the channel.^[11] In May 1988 it took part in the first Encontro de Televisões de Língua Portuguesa.^[12]

On November 13, 1994, house painter Manuel Bonifácio from Somerville started a hunger strike (limiting to juice and water) with the aim of adding a permanent local channel. Time Warner Cable issued a compromise stating that it would add Portuguese programming on a public access channel, while Bonifácio claimed that smaller cable companies had free access to such a service.^[13]

The Portuguese Times sold the channel to Semba Studio LLC in May 2016, a decision also approved by Comcast,^[7] a company with links to Semba Comunicação, an Angolan company that had links to the Angolan presidential family, for a sum of US$350,000. The channel underwent a massive renovation process costing US$300,000.^[14]

In March 2022, the channel increased its penetration in 21 additional cities in the greater Boston area and moved its location on all Comcast head-ends in the region to channel 93.^[15]

On weekdays, the channel broadcasts from 6pm to 12am with a variety of in-house productions, including a daily news bulletin (Telejornal, only on weekdays) and talk-shows for the community, as well as a local program from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God near the end of the schedule. Telenovelas from TVI and TV Globo are also broadcast. The channel also broadcasts two masses, one on Sundays at 7pm and one on Wednesdays at 9:30pm. On weekends the schedule is geared more towards entertainment. The evening schedule is later repeated overnight and in the following morning.^[16]

In 2018, Hora Quente, which was formerly produced in Angola and aired on TPA 2 and TPA Internacional before the end of Semba's contract with TPA in 2017, was revived on The Portuguese Channel, produced by Semba's CEO Coréon Dú. A pilot program was broadcast in December 2017.^[17]