Brasília – Earlier today, during the launch of the TV Brasil Internacional channel, the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that its objective will be to show the world the true image of Brazil, and what is best in the country.
“We are fulfilling another dream, from which we have not awoken. This TV will portray this country’s ways in culture, football, politics. It will be a great channel, it will lay this wonderful country bare to a world that does not know it,” said Lula in his address.
According to the president, right now, the image of Brazil abroad is like a broadcast of the country’s worst moments, and TV Brasil Internacional should change that around. “This public TV channel aims to be the face of Brazil abroad. When we do things to be broadcast abroad, it is as though we were doing a worst of. We do not want foreigners to get an image of Brazil’s worst moments, we want them to get an image of what we are,” he asserted.
Today (24th), TV Brasil Internacional will start broadcasting to 49 countries in the African continent. The channel will broadcast in Portuguese language, similar to other international public channels (BBC/England, RTVE/Spain, RAI/Italy, Canal Cinq/France, NHK/Japan), which broadcast in their native languages.
The programming will consist of content created by TV Brasil itself, with an emphasis on informative and cultural aspects of Brazil, and will be adjusted to the local time of Angola, which is four hours later than in the Brazilian capital Brasília.
The chairwoman of the Brazilian state-owned communications company Empresa Brasil de Comunicação, Tereza Cruvinel, stated that the idea for the international channel to start broadcasting to Africa originated from the continent’s demand for audiovisual programming, and also because of the debt that Brazil has to African people. “In our understanding, president Lula believes that we have a huge debt to Africa that cannot be paid with money, but rather with solidarity,” said Cruvinel.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
