4.14.2006
6.1. The Colombian Film Industry: Traces of the Twentieth Century
The early 90’s were also the starting point of the new Colombian Constitution, a democratic attempt to create the new political blueprint for the country. The process gathered representatives from many social and political groups. The written result was plural and positive and hopeful but the practical enforcement would be as evasive as it has been for every other law in Latin-American history. Nevertheless it opened new perspectives and set up the creation of the new Ministry of Culture. It meant “culture” would be present at a more executive level within the government. However, it would take some years until concrete cultural policies were applied. In 1997 the General Culture Law (Law 397) was approved and with it the creation of the Ministry of Culture and several entities and norms to support cultural sectors like the National film industry.
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It took Colombia 90 years since 1897 to actually put together the basic film institutional facilities. The first serious magazines about Cinema, which included analyses of Colombian cinema, appeared in the 50s and 60s, with the wave of cine-clubs. The first books about the history of Colombian cinema were printed in 1978 – Hernando Martinez Pardo’s History of Colombian Cinema – and in 1981 – Hernando Salcedo Silva’s Chronicles of Colombian Cinema 1897-1950. By 1981 the National Cinematheque, founded in the 50s, started publishing (although irregularly) the series Cuadernos de Cine Colombiano (the Colombian Cahiers du Cinema). In 1986 FOCINE would create the National Film Archive in order to protect and retrieve past and present films and video. Finally, by the end of the 80s the National University would open its Film and Television faculty and less formal schools would open technical film programms too. Entering the 90s with these basic conditions in place, conditions that still have to be expanded and multiplied, and not forgetting all the experience of film policy attempts and mistakes, it might be possible to develop a long term progressive policy to finally create a local, dynamic and self-sustaining film production sector, although it’s not going to be an easy task.
Since the 1950s the three traditional open TV channels were controlled by the State in a mixed private/public model until 1998, when two more frequencies were offered to private players. Originally one channel was used for State information and programming. The other two were licensed every 5 years to up to 20 companies, each one receiving a relatively balanced amount of hours (around 12 per week) of morning, afternoon and evening time slots. Some companies provided a portfolio of news, soaps and entertainment, and others specialized in certain genres. Privatization arrived in 1997. The two new frequencies were bought by the two biggest Colombian conglomerates and former TV licensees (Ardila Group’s RCN with additional key interests in non-alcoholic drinks, textiles, radio and TV; and the already mentioned Santodomingo group’s CARACOL TV, which was linked to beer production, airlines, radio and magazines). The old state channel was renamed Señal Colombia. The other two old frequencies were supposed to stay functioning as in the past. Licenses and time slots has been assigned to start operations in 1997, as usual, to diverse traditional and new programmers. The open TV market, already in competition with paid TV services, was supposed to hold, now including the two new giant players. The new private channels, RCN and CARACOL, started transmission in June 1998. Two years later all but four of the small programmers had gone bankrupt and the two old frequencies were basically empty electronic lots. The few surviving companies were hanging tough from specific low budget programs that still kept some audience to sell. Content and ownership diversity were undeniably reduced and the conglomerates got a good TV deal, their private advertising channels and two very good cash flow sources.
The last decade of the century also saw the decay of the traditional 2000 or more seats theaters, located across busy urban centers, and their transformation into, for example, Christian churches first and gay clubs latter, or, otherwise, straight forward demolition. The emergence of the multiplex inside shopping centers also obeyed security reasons since traditional downtown streets were not as safe as before. The first cineplexes had between 2 and 4 screens. By the late nineties, with shopping centers entering less upscale neighborhoods, multiplexes with up to 12-14 screens appeared in the 3 biggest cities.
VCRs were available since the early 80s, especially in the Betamax version, since Sony and others used the Andean countries as scrap territories for its “loser” standard and all its un-sellable machines. The VHS format started to pick up by the late 80’s and legal video started distribution in 1986 when copyright laws for video products were enforced. Up till today, piracy has always taken a big share of the video market, nevertheless, it is an important window for legal audiovisual products. Viacom’s Blockbuster entered the market in the mid 90’s opening stores in the top five cities. DVD players and films appeared at the turn of the century, with a fast format change across households, from VHS to DVD to Home Theaters, encouraged by cheap Korean and Chinese hardware and Wal-Mart type stores.
Cable television entered the scene in 1987 with 4 channels in the capital city and growing steadily through the nineties, with cable TV licensees in every major city offering 30 to 40 channels and expanding their services with less upscale prices. By the late nineties, riding on the second wave of telecommunications deregulation and football rights ownership, Hughes Corporation’s Direct TV and Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV satellites arrived to compete with national cable TV concerns and to split the upscale market with their limitless channels offers. Of course, both Cable TV and Satellite services offer a good part of their Films and Football as premium content, accessible to subscribers only by paying an extra fee. The Internet appeared in universities in 1994 and expanded steadily into mid-size or big private companies. Broadband services emerged in 1999 in certain cities and are still only accessible to upper classes.
Films released for theatrical exhibition have dropped in Colombia from 206 in 2000 to 175 in 2003. Total audience dropped from a peak in 1994 of 26.4 Million to a 16 Million low in 2005 (Innovarum, 2004, p. 99; Eskpe, 2005). The period 1994 – 2005 has been the Multiplex period for the country, copying the model from the US and Europe. In 1993 Cine Colombia (the biggest Exhibitor) and other exhibitors started building the multi-screen complexes in shopping centers. In 2000, Cinemark, a US company in partnership with CEET – a privately owned Colombian media conglomerate with concerns in press, TV, magazines and shopping centers – started building new multiplexes on the logic that the Colombian exhibition market was underdeveloped, that is, the number of screens per thousand inhabitants was too low compared with international standards. The new complexes are focused on middle and upper class segments, for the obvious reason that lower classes (40% of the country or 20 Million people) cannot afford going to the cinema. As in the rest of the world, the Cineplex process was a reaction of the exhibition industry to fight dwindling audiences (in Colombia the Multiplex effect was felt in 1997 with a brief recovery of audiences to 22 Million). Unfortunately for exhibitors cinema audiences are on the way out again to other modes of consumption of the audiovisual product. But the low-income market is there, waiting to experience entertainment as their fellow nationals have. They are not in the search of a new laptop, or a new PDA. The low-income population in urban and rural areas would receive Cinema as a new experience.
It took Colombia 90 years since 1897 to actually put together the basic film institutional facilities. The first serious magazines about Cinema, which included analyses of Colombian cinema, appeared in the 50s and 60s, with the wave of cine-clubs. The first books about the history of Colombian cinema were printed in 1978 – Hernando Martinez Pardo’s History of Colombian Cinema – and in 1981 – Hernando Salcedo Silva’s Chronicles of Colombian Cinema 1897-1950. By 1981 the National Cinematheque, founded in the 50s, started publishing (although irregularly) the series Cuadernos de Cine Colombiano (the Colombian Cahiers du Cinema). In 1986 FOCINE would create the National Film Archive in order to protect and retrieve past and present films and video. Finally, by the end of the 80s the National University would open its Film and Television faculty and less formal schools would open technical film programms too. Entering the 90s with these basic conditions in place, conditions that still have to be expanded and multiplied, and not forgetting all the experience of film policy attempts and mistakes, it might be possible to develop a long term progressive policy to finally create a local, dynamic and self-sustaining film production sector, although it’s not going to be an easy task.
Since the 1950s the three traditional open TV channels were controlled by the State in a mixed private/public model until 1998, when two more frequencies were offered to private players. Originally one channel was used for State information and programming. The other two were licensed every 5 years to up to 20 companies, each one receiving a relatively balanced amount of hours (around 12 per week) of morning, afternoon and evening time slots. Some companies provided a portfolio of news, soaps and entertainment, and others specialized in certain genres. Privatization arrived in 1997. The two new frequencies were bought by the two biggest Colombian conglomerates and former TV licensees (Ardila Group’s RCN with additional key interests in non-alcoholic drinks, textiles, radio and TV; and the already mentioned Santodomingo group’s CARACOL TV, which was linked to beer production, airlines, radio and magazines). The old state channel was renamed Señal Colombia. The other two old frequencies were supposed to stay functioning as in the past. Licenses and time slots has been assigned to start operations in 1997, as usual, to diverse traditional and new programmers. The open TV market, already in competition with paid TV services, was supposed to hold, now including the two new giant players. The new private channels, RCN and CARACOL, started transmission in June 1998. Two years later all but four of the small programmers had gone bankrupt and the two old frequencies were basically empty electronic lots. The few surviving companies were hanging tough from specific low budget programs that still kept some audience to sell. Content and ownership diversity were undeniably reduced and the conglomerates got a good TV deal, their private advertising channels and two very good cash flow sources.
The last decade of the century also saw the decay of the traditional 2000 or more seats theaters, located across busy urban centers, and their transformation into, for example, Christian churches first and gay clubs latter, or, otherwise, straight forward demolition. The emergence of the multiplex inside shopping centers also obeyed security reasons since traditional downtown streets were not as safe as before. The first cineplexes had between 2 and 4 screens. By the late nineties, with shopping centers entering less upscale neighborhoods, multiplexes with up to 12-14 screens appeared in the 3 biggest cities.
VCRs were available since the early 80s, especially in the Betamax version, since Sony and others used the Andean countries as scrap territories for its “loser” standard and all its un-sellable machines. The VHS format started to pick up by the late 80’s and legal video started distribution in 1986 when copyright laws for video products were enforced. Up till today, piracy has always taken a big share of the video market, nevertheless, it is an important window for legal audiovisual products. Viacom’s Blockbuster entered the market in the mid 90’s opening stores in the top five cities. DVD players and films appeared at the turn of the century, with a fast format change across households, from VHS to DVD to Home Theaters, encouraged by cheap Korean and Chinese hardware and Wal-Mart type stores.
Cable television entered the scene in 1987 with 4 channels in the capital city and growing steadily through the nineties, with cable TV licensees in every major city offering 30 to 40 channels and expanding their services with less upscale prices. By the late nineties, riding on the second wave of telecommunications deregulation and football rights ownership, Hughes Corporation’s Direct TV and Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV satellites arrived to compete with national cable TV concerns and to split the upscale market with their limitless channels offers. Of course, both Cable TV and Satellite services offer a good part of their Films and Football as premium content, accessible to subscribers only by paying an extra fee. The Internet appeared in universities in 1994 and expanded steadily into mid-size or big private companies. Broadband services emerged in 1999 in certain cities and are still only accessible to upper classes.
Films released for theatrical exhibition have dropped in Colombia from 206 in 2000 to 175 in 2003. Total audience dropped from a peak in 1994 of 26.4 Million to a 16 Million low in 2005 (Innovarum, 2004, p. 99; Eskpe, 2005). The period 1994 – 2005 has been the Multiplex period for the country, copying the model from the US and Europe. In 1993 Cine Colombia (the biggest Exhibitor) and other exhibitors started building the multi-screen complexes in shopping centers. In 2000, Cinemark, a US company in partnership with CEET – a privately owned Colombian media conglomerate with concerns in press, TV, magazines and shopping centers – started building new multiplexes on the logic that the Colombian exhibition market was underdeveloped, that is, the number of screens per thousand inhabitants was too low compared with international standards. The new complexes are focused on middle and upper class segments, for the obvious reason that lower classes (40% of the country or 20 Million people) cannot afford going to the cinema. As in the rest of the world, the Cineplex process was a reaction of the exhibition industry to fight dwindling audiences (in Colombia the Multiplex effect was felt in 1997 with a brief recovery of audiences to 22 Million). Unfortunately for exhibitors cinema audiences are on the way out again to other modes of consumption of the audiovisual product. But the low-income market is there, waiting to experience entertainment as their fellow nationals have. They are not in the search of a new laptop, or a new PDA. The low-income population in urban and rural areas would receive Cinema as a new experience.
The early 90’s were also the starting point of the new Colombian Constitution, a democratic attempt to create the new political blueprint for the country. The process gathered representatives from many social and political groups. The written result was plural and positive and hopeful but the practical enforcement would be as evasive as it has been for every other law in Latin-American history. Nevertheless it opened new perspectives and set up the creation of the new Ministry of Culture. It meant “culture” would be present at a more executive level within the government. However, it would take some years until concrete cultural policies were applied. In 1997 the General Culture Law (Law 397) was approved and with it the creation of the Ministry of Culture and several entities and norms to support cultural sectors like the National film industry.
Follow to the Next Section
.
