page_title: RTP Açores
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: RTP Açores / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Ponta Delgada, Sao-Miguel, Azores, Portugal Français&#160;: Ponta Delgada, Açores, Portugal
context_page_description: RTP Açores is a Portuguese regional television channel operated in the Autonomous Region of the Azores by the national broadcaster, RTP. The channel began broadcasting programmes produced at its studios in Ponta Delgada on 10 August 1975.
context_section_description: In 1975, during the transformative phase of Portugal's transition from Estado Novo regime to Third Portuguese Republic, Ramalho Eanes, then president of the administrative council at RTP solicited a dossier already published by João Paz on the future of regional broadcasting, then referred to as RTP-Açores. After studying the process, its implications and conditions, Ramalho Eanes informed António Borges Coutinho that this project would be implemented swiftly.
  Along with Sousa Gomes and Sidónio Paes, the administrative council saw the public station in the Azores: "...as to contribute to the eradication of illiteracy...an instrument for education and culture...an instrument to promote cultural democracy...a vehicle that contributed to a better knowledge for all citizens...a means to appeal to unity and social responsibility for all...and a contribution that [served] positive collaboration in the transition and institutionalization of democracy".
  Instability at the national/regional levels and the move towards more autonomy and independence meant that RTP's motives were met with anxiety and distrust, the national broadcaster at that time being a tool of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA). In the streets of Ponta Delgada, for example, local cultural brigades were already trying to mould values and guide the transformation towards democracy.
  Following the Carnation Revolution, the move towards a decentralized constitution, with an autonomous status for regional authorities, the island of São Miguel in the archipelago of the Azores, was chosen for the broadcasting centre. Local news and entertainment was broadcast from its first studios in a building in the outskirts of the urban area of Ponta Delgada, in the locality of Sao Gonçalo.
caption: The broadcast studio/headquarters of RTP Açores in Ponta Delgada
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