the kidnapping of the group's assets, including Rede Excelsior, which at the time was composed of broadcasters in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte. The group negotiated the debt in court and the broadcaster returned to the air. Soon afterwards, Excelsior TV officials tried to create a foundation to buy the station and took the proposal to the then President of the Republic, Humberto Castelo Branco, who did not accept it, claiming that such a procedure was not permitted by law. So, Carlos Lacerda tried to stay with the Rio de Janeiro broadcaster, while, in São Paulo, Ademar de Barros wanted the São Paulo broadcaster. Both were governors and used the debts that the broadcasters owed to the states as an argument, but their proposals were not accepted by the federal government. Still in 1965, Excelsior launched the 1st Brazilian Popular Music Festival, which had as its winning song Arrastão, music by Edu Lobo performed by Elis Regina. In the same year Mário Simonsen died in Paris. His son Wallace Simonsen then sold the station to Edson Leite, Alberto Saad, Otávio Frias and Carlos Caldeira (the last two were owners of the Folha da Manhã group of São Paulo newspapers). The station's direction was with Edson Leite and Alberto Saad. Continuing investment in telenovelas, in 1966, in the midst of several internal crises, Excelsior launched the longest telenovela in the history of Brazilian television: Redenção. (Redemption) The novel was an original by Raimundo Lopes with 594 chapters, featuring Márcia Real, Flora Geni, Rodolfo Mayer, Vicente Leporace and Procópio Ferreira, among others. Redemption was in the air from May 1966 to May 1968. In 1967, even though the broadcaster had a lot of debt, its new studio was opened in the São Paulo neighborhood of Vila Guilherme. The complex consisted of 12 studios, had 40 vehicles and more than five hundred employees worked on it. The Brazilian Television System (SBT) studios started to operate there later. In its new studios, Excelsior produced Morro dos Ventos Uivantes, with scenes from the 19th century and adaptation by Lauro César Muniz, and O tempo eo vento, text by Érico Veríssimo adapted by Teixeira Filho and directed by Dionísio Azevedo. The latter was the final representative of a set of soap operas that the broadcaster presented at 21: 30h. In 1968, financial problems escalated and many artists, in the face of