Puerto Rico TV - WIPR-TV 50th Anniversary

WIPR-TV 50th Anniversary

The channel celebrated their 50th anniversary by producing a documentary focusing on their history. On July 1, 2008, TuTv renewed 150 contracts.

In 2008, Puerto Rico's Public Broadcasting Station, WIPR-TV, celebrated its 50 years of broadcasting with a documentary that relived some of the best and worst moments in its history.

The documentary "50 Años WIPR-Televisión", (50 Years of WIPR Television) is about 70 minutes long and reviews some of the news, entertainment programming, music and sports events that the station has presented during half a century.

WIPR-TV, today better known as the Puerto Rico's Public Broadcasting Corporation (CPRDP), or its branding, TUTV or Tu Universo Televisión, was inaugurated on January 6, 1958 under the administration of the then-current governor, Luis Muñoz Marín.

The documentary was dedicated to the actor, director and historian Ángel Rivera Vázquez, who had worked in WIPR since its beginning.

Spearheaded by Investigator Flavia García, who had been working for the previous 9 years on an investigation of the history of television, headed the production of this special along with Luis Rosario Albert and Susanne Marte.

The Corporation's President, Víctor J. Montilla, received a congratulatory resolution on behalf of the Puerto Rican Senate for the "good music, art and television" that have distinguished the channel for the past five decades.

Some of the historical moments aired include:

• The first airing on WIPR-TV, a music program with local performers
• The Casals Festival, which first aired live from the University of Puerto Rico's theater in 1961
• WIPR-TV was the first Puerto Rican station to air a live basketball game.
• The 1961 signing of a law by then-governor Roberto Sánchez Vilella that would declare WIPR-TV an official part of the Government of Puerto Rico.
• President John F. Kennedy's visit to the island.
• The pardon granted to the nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos in 1964
• The accomplishments of the former baseball player Roberto Clemente in the Major Leagues
• Puerto Rico's first Miss Universe: Marisol Malaret
• The death of three "independentista" (seekers of independence for the island) young men that were killed during by police during the ambush in Cerro Maravilla in 1978
• The Dupont Plaza Hotel arson in 1986
• The termination of 314 employees at WIPR-TV in 1990.
• The broadcasting of the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1993
• Dayanara Torres being crowned Miss Universe
• The attack on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001
• Two new Miss Universe title winners: Denise Quiñones (2003) and Zuleyka Rivera (2006)
• The broadcasting of the Central American and Caribbean Games Mayaguez in 2010
• The full broadcasting of the President Barack Obama visit in 2011