For its NATPE Miami Issue, VideoAge traveled to the South Cone to visit one of Latin America’s — and possibly, one of the world’s — most beloved TV pioneers, Pedro Simoncini. The Italian-born and Argentina-raised Simoncini is now 94 year-old, yet still goes to his office each day. As the founder, he isn’t just illustrative of the history of Argentina’s Telefe, but of the history of the television industry as a whole in that country.
Simoncini (pictured above with VideoAge’s Dom Serafini) has had quite the television career. He’s been involved for years with Canal 11 in Buenos Aires, which started in 1957, and which he developed into Telefe in 1989.
The Simoncini story that will unfold in the pages of VideoAge at NATPE Miami will be rich in drama (the military taking over Buenos Aires’ TV stations), financial intrigue (making 120 different investors agree on a unified strategy), international diplomacy (getting the American ABC-TV involved), religious harmony (a Jesuit-owned TV station competing with Jewish-owned TV stations), historical decisions (like the selection of the color-TV standard), and politics (dealing with Argentina strongman Juan Peron’s lover and eventual wife, Evita Peron).
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