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Telefe (acronym for Televisión Federal) is a television station located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The station is owned and operated by Paramount Skydance through Televisión Federal S.A. Telefe is also one of Argentina's six national television networks. Its studios are located in Martínez, Buenos Aires, adjacent to the corporate headquarters; its transmitter is located at the Alas Building.
In areas of Argentina where a Telefe station is not receivable over-the-air, it is available on satellite and select cable systems. Telefe also has regional stations across the country and an international network (Telefe Internacional) which is available in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
Original plans to build the new station in the Colegio El Salvador facilities fell through. Eventually, facilities were secured, and Canal 11 launched from its first headquarters in San Cristóbal, Buenos Aires. The station finally launched on July 21, 1961, at 8:58 p.m. under Teleonce.
Financial problems forced the station to seek a backer, which would turn out to be ABC from the United States. ABC and DiCon formed Telerama S.R.L., a group that allowed DiCon to upgrade and expand its studio facilities.
During its first decade, Teleonce aired shows like Música en el Aire, Cosa Juzgada, Tato Siempre en Domingo, El Reporter Esso, Radiolandia en TV, Operación Ja Ja and No Toca Botón.
Through the 1960s, the family-oriented programming of the channel could not compete successfully against El Nueve and did not have great financial backing like El Trece. On October 17, 1970, businessman Héctor Ricardo García took over the station and changed the profile of the station, for an audience betting on news and more popular programming, adopting the slogan " El canal de las noticias" ("The News Channel"). Under García, Teleonce would climb to the top of the Argentine television ratings.
In 1979, with the arrival of colour television looming and facilities upgrades needed to allow colour recording and broadcasting, the state bought the Canal Once plant from García, who had continued to own it, thus becoming a 100 percent nationally owned network.
The 1980s started with the introduction of colour telecasts on May 6, 1981, but the decade would become turbulent in the legal system. Twice under the dictatorship, a request for bids was issued. On August 19, 1982, the first one received no offers; the second, on October 25, 1983, would result in Canal Once being handed back to García. When Raúl Alfonsín became President of Argentina, among his first acts in office, was to nullify the transfer of Canal Once to García, leaving it in the hands of the state for another six years.
In December 1989, Arte Radiotelevisivo Argentino S.A. (Artear), a subsidiary of Grupo Clarín, won the bidding for Canal Once and Canal 13. Artear chose the latter, and Televisión Federal took control of Canal Once as principal owners effective January 15, 1990. After 16 years of state management, the station was back in the hands of the private sector, and after a decade of branding as Canal Once, the new branding of Telefe, an acronym of the new ownership's name, debuted on March 5 the same year. During the first weeks of the relaunched channel, the Telefe brand mirrored the blue and white of the Flag of Argentina (blue name on a white screen). That logo was later replaced by the three-circles logo used till the present.
With Gustavo Yankelevich (and after 1999, Claudio Villaruel) directing the channel's output, and with the introduction of satellite broadcasts nationwide, Telefe took to an unprecedented 20-year streak atop the Argentina ratings. It logged ratings wins in every year between 1990 and 2009, acquiring the rights to The Simpsons, Formula 1 racing and the franchise for Big Brother.
In 2010 and 2011, under the direction of Marisa Badía, Telefe lost its number one position in the ratings — which had not happened since just after the privatization of the station — to then-perennial runner-up El Trece. In 2012, however, another change in management, this time to Gustavo Yankelevich's son Tomás, and shows like Graduados, Dulce amor and Pekín Express helped Telefe return to the top of the rating list.
In December 2019, Viacom re-merged with CBS Corporation, forming Paramount Global (later known as Paramount Global) and making Telefe a sister to CBS in the United States, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, and Network 10 in Australia.
Between 2022 and 2024, Paramount sold several of Telefe's owned and operated regional affiliate channels. In June 2025, it was reported in Argentina that Paramount had intentions to sell the network by the end of that year. Rumored candidates included Alpha Media, Marcos Galperín, Grupo Werthein and former Telefe artistic director Gustavo Yankelevich. Paramount Global remained owners of Telefe in August 2025, when it merged with
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| Main Telefe programming |
| Main Telefe programming (mobile version) |
| 34 |
| 29 |
| 38 |
| 30 |
| Buenos Aires | Bahía Blanca | LU80 TV | El Nueve TV | 9 | Grupo Televisión Litoral & La Nueva Provincia | |
| Mar del Plata | LRI486 TV | Canal 8 Mar del Plata | 8 | Neomedia de Gestion | ||
| Imperio Televisión S.A. | ||||||
| Jorge Félix Gómez & Carlos Antonio Smith | ||||||
| Alpha Media | ||||||
| Jujuy Province | San Salvador de Jujuy | LW80 TV | Canal 7 | 7 | 36 | Radio Visión Jujuy S.A. |
| Canal 9 Televida | 9 | 28 | Cuyo Televisión S.A. & Los Andes | |||
| Posadas | LU86 TV | Canal 2 | 2 | 32 | La Verdad S.R.L. | |
| Salta Province | Salta | LW82 TV | El Once TV | 11 | Grupo Televisión Litoral | |
| San Juan | San Juan | LU1H TV | Telesol | 5 | 36 | Andina S.A. |
| CAS TV S.A. | ||||||
| Government of San Luis | ||||||
| Tucumán | San Miguel de Tucumán | LRK458 TV | El Ocho TV | 8 | 20 | Grupo Televisión Litoral |
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