TV channels Curacao

Curacao's television is that of the largest island of the former Netherlands Antilles: a broadcasting tradition going back to 1960 - earlier than most of the Caribbean - serving a multilingual community in Papiamentu, Dutch and Spanish.

How television came to Curacao

Television reached Curacao on 31 July 1960, when TeleCuraçao began broadcasting from Willemstad - the first television station of the Netherlands Antilles, founded by the American broadcaster Gerald Bartell with the support of the Antillean government; the opening night, planned for weeks, brought American celebrities to the island. The first schedule ran five hours a night, about a fifth of it live, mixing American series with Dutch programmes and its own local news, and a repeater carried the signal to Bonaire. Control of the station passed to the Antillean government in 1968, and digital broadcasting arrived in 2013. Since 2010, Curacao has been a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its own right.

The island's television has always been polyglot: programmes in Papiamentu and Dutch sit beside Spanish-language fare from Venezuela, whose coast lies some sixty kilometres away, and the American networks that the cable packages - long organised by operators such as UTS and Columbus - bring to island homes.

The local channels

TV Direct 13 carries the island's general programming, following the life of Willemstad and the communities across the island; it belongs to Direct Media Curaçao, the local group that also runs the Direct and Life radio stations. Bonce TV brings entertainment to the mix - Caribbean events and the island's own music videos.

The music side

VAM TV covers the musical side of the island - the tumba, the ritmo kombiná and the Caribbean rhythms that fill Curacao's screens. At carnival time, the Festival di Tumba - the contest that crowns the season's tumba king - is among the island's shared television occasions.

From the carnival of Willemstad to the election nights of the island, Curacao's channels serve a community that speaks in three tongues and watches in one - on screens from Punda to Westpunt.