Certv Channel 4

CERTV (State Radio and Television Corporation) is an open Dominican television channel launched in 1952 as the first television channel in the country. It is owned by the Dominican Government.

History

It was founded in 1952 under the name of La Voz Dominicana and aired on August 1 of the same year, becoming the first television channel to be installed in the Dominican Republic and the third in Latin America. Its original owner was José Arismendy Trujillo (Petán), brother of President Rafael Trujillo Molina. The station worked as a combination of radio and television that broadcast live programming for 6 hours. Romances campesinos was one of the first series produced by the channel.

The station was used as a propaganda tool to the Trujillo regime until its fall in 1961. From then on, the station was renamed Radio Santo Domingo Television; then, it was relaunched as Palacio Televisor. By the 1970s, it was renamed again as Radio Televisión Dominicana (RTVD), a name that was maintained for several decades.

Between 1983 and 1984, the station was directed by the filmmaker Agliberto Meléndez, recognized as the first Dominican to make a full-length film, Un passage de ida (1988).

In 2003, it was relaunched as the State Radio and Television Corporation through a decree which makes it an autonomous company that can be supported by both the Government and the private sector. In 2016, it is renamed 4RD, but the institution in charge of maintaining the channel still bears the name of CERTV.