Nunca Cumplimos 30 relates the problematic life of the signal between 1995 and 1999, marked by precariousness. He also discusses the differences between their faces and how he became the focus of current Chilean television.

"We had a lot of confidence in the industry, but this one collapsed, literally, half an hour after it aired." With this sentence, Iván Valenzuela summarizes briefly the story of Channel 2 Rock & Pop: the overflowing optimism of a group of young people convinced to have come to change the television industry forever, but who have suddenly collided to precarious reality. The illusion that prevailed before August 16, 1995 disappeared in a few minutes and the next four years, during which the signal (visible only in Santiago) miraculously survived, were a permanent flicker. But from time to time, some of the best TV shows of the 90s have also appeared.

The sentence of Valenzuela is part of the book We have never been 30 years: oral history of Channel 2 Rock & Pop written by journalists Javier Correa and Maria Ignacia Pentz, and who will be launched Thursday at the International Book Fair of Santiago (FILSA). In this, more than thirty respondents reconstruct the story of a chain that seemed doomed from the beginning, but despite its low rating and its multiple financial and technical problems, counted in his ranks several names during the decade. next would become an important space in the world of communications and entertainment. A significant part of what you see today on local television has had its cradle in this signal.

Journalists such as Valenzuela, Soledad Onetto and Juan Cristobal Guarello, animators such as Sergio Lagos, Marcelo Comparini and Juan Andrés Salfate, filmmakers like Álvaro Díaz, Pedro Peirano (both behind 31 minutes) and Carlos & # 39. ; Caco & # 39; Montt, writers like Alberto Fuguet and Rafael Gumucio, and even the current Mayor of Maipú, Catherine Barriga, tell in the book how to create cult programs such as Plaza Italia Plan Z and Good luck .

"After its closure, Channel 2 Rock Pop quickly became a sort of myth, a reference to television, and their faces have become the replacement for traditional strings that repeat formulas and characters. is that very few people have seen the channel, "says co-author Javier Correa, adding:" What we were interested in is that the history of the channel combined very well other media projects that have marked the years 90, such as radio and television Rock & Pop Magazine or the Contact Zone ". "All sources had a lot to say, pending accounts, intangible memories, explanations or guilty of closure.Most have a tragicomic view of their pbadage in the channel, but no one regrets to have been part of it," said María Ignacia Pentz.

We leave wrong

Tragedy-comedy abounds in history. "The day of the launch of the channel, when you leave, you have to say a formal thing which is a legal obligation at the beginning of the broadcasts (…) and the boy who reads it improvises and says everything in reverse, This was the first minute: the broadcast on the radio was publicly communicated to many people who watched it, at least the specialized press, the customers, all attentive.And it comes out at three o'clock in the afternoon. -midi: a bad that looked bad, that was badly made up, "says Luis Ajenjo, then executive director of the channel, to describe the moment when they knew that things would not go well and what can to be a channel where the majority of young people under 30 without TV experience may not have been the best of ideas.

The initiative quickly lost the sponsors and its weak public. But between this beginning of transmission and the closure of 1999 after the failure of a put option, the backstage triumphs of the chain are also narrated: as Rodrigo "Pera" Cuadra and Juan Andrés Salfate raised Damn for the necessity of doing something with the terrible films bought by the chain or as Plaza Italia of Marcelo Comparini and Marco Silva, became one of the talk shows the Most popular on the national screen, despite its low rating, relies on guests such as Gustavo Cerati, Jorge González and Don Francisco.

There is also the boom of Plan Z, and as the humor program became a cult hit, it did not make everyone happy. "When we arrived on vacation, I remember that the first thing I saw in the paper was:" Twelve posts on CNTV for a show. "I said" bading! " Who will have sent this condoro? And it was us, "recalls Peirano in a moment.

As in all history, there are also grudges (Guarello does not seem to value much Valenzuela, and Fuguet does not have the best memories of the team of Plan Z ) and anecdotes (the day of the closing, after a night of drinks, Díaz, Peirano, Ángel Carcavilla and Guarello were arrested), and moments that explain why Channel 2 (who lost the name Rock & Pop in his last year ) has become a myth although it is a failure. "Do not have a model, a structure and be full of urgent problems that prevented you from solving others, made it possible to create programs in complete freedom.This hueá gave us a dividend that was freedom." Álvaro Díaz said that in this space with so many problems, the best television produced in Chile was probably produced.

In the FILSA, We will never have 30 years will be released Thursday at 7 pm in the room of the arts of Estación Mapocho, presented by Rafael Gumucio.

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