Rede Excelsior was a Brazilian television network founded by Mário Wallace Simonsen on July 9, 1960, in São Paulo, São Paulo. Its last broadcast happened on September 30, 1970, when the Brazilian military dictatorship put an abrupt end to it. History In 1959, the Victor Costa Organization, owner of TV Paulista, channel 5 of São Paulo (later acquired by Rede Globo), was awarded by the federal government with a second television channel in the city, channel 9. Possession of more than one TV channel by a single group was not prohibited by the broadcasting laws of that time. The Victor Costa Organization already owned the Radio Excelsior (currently the CBN station) and therefore, it was determined that the name of the future TV station would be Excelsior. "Excelso" is Portuguese for sublime. However, even before the launch of the channel, it was bought by a group of businessmen led by the Simonsen family, owner of over 40 companies, the most famous of them being Panair do Brasil, then the country's largest airline company. The group featured entrepreneurs like José Luis Moura, a coffee exporter from Santos, Congressman Ortiz Monteiro, founder of TV Paulista, and John Scantimburgo, owner of the newspaper Correio Paulistano. TV Excelsior was acquired for ₢$80 million, a sum extremely high for the time. In addition to the station's license, the purchase also included some equipments, among them cameras, a tower and a transmitter. The transmission system was installed at the corner of Consolação street with Avenida Paulista, the studios were set on Avenida Adolfo Pinheiro, and the station's commercial and administrative center in downtown. With the 1964 political-military movement, the broadcaster began to have problems with censorship. Programs such as those by Moacir Franco, Derci Gonçalves and Costinha were highly targeted, the texts of the soap operas were constantly censored and some had to be transferred after 10 pm. As a form of denunciation, the excerpts cut from the programs were not reissued, in their place animated figures appeared with their mouths and ears covered and the caption “censored”. Excelsior TV remained with good ratings and, in 1965, the program Moacir Franco show reached a rate of 77% of the audience in the city of São Paulo and 97% in the city of Santos. On the other hand, that was a year of serious problems for the other companies in the Simonsen group. This process ended with