The Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT; Brazilian Portuguese: [sisˈtẽmɐ bɾɐziˈlejɾu dʒi televiˈzɐ̃w / ˈɛsi ˈbe ˈte]; Brazilian Television System) is a Brazilian television network founded in August 19, 1981 by the businessman and television personality Silvio Santos. The company was established after a public competition by the Brazilian Federal Government to form two new networks, created from revoked concessions of the defunct Tupi and Excelsior networks. SBT was funded in the same day that the concession agreement was signed, and that the act was broadcast live by the network, so that this was his first program aired. Before acquiring the concessions of the four station that were to form the SBT, Grupo Silvio Santos had since 1976 the concession of Rio de Janeiro's channel 11, known as TVS, which was a fundamental step to give life to SBT.
In April 2018, SBT was the second more watched television network in Brazil. Throughout its existence, the network always occupied this space in the audience ranking, except between 2007 and 2014, when the Record network took the post.SBT has a total of 114 broadcast television stations (O&Os and affiliates) throughout the Brazilian territory, and is also available through pay television operators (cable and satellite), free-to-air signal on satellite receivers and also through streaming media in their mobile application (Android, iOS and Windows), applications for smart TVs and its website. Also on their website, its programming is available in video on demand for free, also available from the video-sharing site YouTube since 2010. In March 2017, the 43 channels of SBT on YouTube accumulated 20 million subscribers and 70 billion minutes watched.
SBT broadcast in their programming a wide variety of television genres, whereas its own material generally stand adjacent to the entertainment.Foreign programming, mainly the telenovelas produced by the networks owned by the Mexican conglomerate Televisa, are part of their program schedule. It is the only commercial television broadcaster in Brazil which airs children's programming, even arranging a partnership with the U.S. The Walt Disney Company, in which the company provides two hours of daily programming for the network.The network also possess times for the television news, producing in all three daily newscasts, a weekly news program and a weekly newscast. To produce its programs, the network owns the CDT da Anhanguera, a television complex located at kilometer 18 of Rodovia Anhanguera, in Osasco, São Paulo, occupying an area of 231 thousand square meters. This is the third largest television complex in size installed in Latin America, being smaller only that the studios of TV Azteca, in Mexico, and the Estúdios Globo.
