22 (Continued from Page 21) Throughout the years, the telecast was known as The Academy Awards Show, and since 2013, simply as The Oscars. What follows is an abstract from VideoAge’s 2014 Issue: “VideoAge found one of the first accounts of the international sales of the Oscars TV rights in an ad in the September 1979 Issue of Television/Radio Age, by ABC Pictures International, to license The 52nd Annual Academy Awards, scheduled for ABC Telecast April 14, 1980 [and] available live by satellite or film or videotape within 36 hours.” As previously mentioned, the first Oscars broadcast in LATAM was reported to be in 1953 on Mexico’s XHGC-TV. Then VideoAge continued: “Brazil followed in 1954, and Colombia in 1981 on RCN. However, LATAM’s active involvement with the Academy Awards began in 1948, when Argentina’s Dios se lo pague was given an honorary prize, before the Best Foreign Language Film Award was established in 1956. Argentina began submitting works for the Best Foreign Film in 1961, followed by Peru in 1967 and Venezuela in 1978. While on NBC, the Oscars’ international TV rights were handled by California National Productions, an NBC division created in 1953 that worked closely with NBC and parent company RCA, which later became NBC Films. While on ABC, the international rights were sold by ABC Film, a division established in 1954 that in 1972 became ABC Pictures International. By 1970 the Oscars telecast was licensed in 50 countries, and by 1984 that number had risen to 76. By then ABC was sending two satellite feeds internationally: one for live broadcast (which could not be modified by the licensee) and, the next day, a 90-minute edited version. In both cases the licensees were allowed (and still are) to include voiceovers in either Spanish or Portuguese. Marcel Vinay Sr. (a former senior executive at Azteca) remembered acquiring live broadcast rights for Televisa in 1982, and according to TV executive Manuel Fraiz Grijalba, it reached Venezuela on his station, Venevision, in 1985. At that time, to alleviate collection problems, ABC Pictures International started to sub-license the Academy Awards show, and for five years, starting in 1990, the Oscars telecasts were distributed by Pedro Leda in Argentina, while in Brazil they were handled by agent Herbert Richers. By 1996, when Disney bought ABC, the studio began to license the Academy Awards directly to television networks worldwide under its Buena Vista International Television banner, by combining the ABC and Buena Vista distribution stream under one company. TheOscarswerealwaysvery important to Latin America’s broadcasters because they were transmitted in the same time zone as the U.S., and thus aired live. The arrival of the pay-TV movie channels in LATAM boosted demand for the Academy Awards, and in some territories, the live event moved away from free-TV. The Academy and Oscar January 2023 VideoAge’s International TV Distribution Hall of Fame Fascinating Stories Honoring Executives Who Built An Industry Volume 1 By Dom Serafini Available in Print and e-Book
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