# RBS TV Santa Maria

RBS TV Santa Maria (channel 12) is a television station in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, affiliated with TV Globo, member of RBS TV and owned by Grupo RBS. RBS TV Santa Maria's studios are located on Maurício Sirotsky Sobrinho Avenue, in the Patronato district, and its transmitter is located at Morro da Caturrita.

## History

TV Imembuí, channel 12 of Santa Maria, was founded on December 13, 1969, by the group that also maintained Rádio Imembuí in the municipality with the support of TV Gaúcha, from Porto Alegre, and José Mariano da Rocha Filho, dean of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM, by its initials in Portuguese). The station is one of the pioneers in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, alongside TV Caxias, channel 8 in Caxias do Sul. Its founder was Quintino Oliveira, who died in January 2021.
In its early years, TV Imembuí, installed at the back of the premises of Rádio Imembuí, was marked by its amateurism and craftsmanship. The station was equipped with two Maxwell cameras, a sound control table, a cutting table and telecine. It was transmitted from the top of Morro da Caturrita, through a microwave transmitter. In addition to local programs produced in Santa Maria, TV Imembuí also broadcast TV Gaúcha programming in the afternoon.
Due to the lack of advertising resources to continue with the station's local productions, which filled most of TV Imembuí's schedule, in 1973, the share control of channel 12 in Santa Maria passed to TV Gaúcha, owned by Maurício Sirotsky Sobrinho, which marked the beginning of a new phase at the station. On September 9, 1973, TV Imembuí became part of the RBS Group. Upon joining the group, it also became affiliated with TV Globo, retransmitting TV Gaúcha's state programming and Rede Globo's national programming, produced in Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro, respectively. In 1983, TV Imembuí dropped its Tupi-Guarani name and was renamed RBS TV Santa Maria, as part of a unification project initiated by Walmor Bergesch.
RBS TV Santa Maria covers the central-west region of Rio Grande do Sul and, from Monday to Friday, produces three local blocks of Jornal do Almoço, lasting 22 minutes in total, which are also retransmitted by RBS TV Uruguaiana, expanding its coverage to 44 municipalities.
The local edition of Jornal do Almoço resumed on August 14, 2024, after a break for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Its return was marked by a new set and a screen to interact with journalists and reporters.
Currently, the reporting team is made up of journalists Fabiana Lemos, Vanessa Backes and Bernardo Barcellos. In early October 2024, journalist Mauricio Rebellato announced his resignation from the RBS group, after ten years.

## Digital television

| Channel | Video | Aspect | Programming |
| 12.1 | 33 UHF | 1080i | Main RBS TV Santa Maria programming / TV Globo |
The Zero Hora newspaper announced in the edition of November 10, 2011 that the station would start transmitting its digital signal, through physical channel 33, until the end of the year, being the first retransmitter in this system in the interior of the State, however the launch of the transmission digital took place on April 18, 2013.

### Transition to digital signal

The station turned off its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on December 17, 2018, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remains on its pre-transition UHF channel 33, using PSIP to display RBS TV Santa Maria's virtual channel as 12 on digital television receivers.