Emídio Rangel
Considered by many was a visionary, Emídio Rangel marked the audiovisual in Portugal and brought innovative formats to Radio and TV
"This leap year radio will be in your receivers 24 hours a day, with music and news."
Before the official start of the radio, at 7 AM of February 29th, 1988, Emídio Rangel presented TSF to listeners.
Four years before, it had been aired a pirate emission that included statements of about 60 Portuguese personalities defending the legalization of new stations.
A «decisive [initiative] for the Parliament to create the Law of Radio», considered Emídio Range, one of the names that was behind the project.
A station made of stories
In the same year it started its regular emissions, TSF conquered the recognition of the public and of the world of journalism for its coverage of the Chiado fire.
«In case the non-governmental information didn’t exist, the media repercussion of this huge event would probably be very different. These live transmissions dynamited any informative control. We marked the agenda», considered Emídio Rangel.
The communication occupied the posts of TSF’s director and CEO.
A station that was marked by the stories.
"Once we knew that a ship with seven black refugee people had arrived. […] They were in a contained in infrahuman conditions. We decided to make the emission 24 hours over 24 hours from there. […] They stopped being treated as animals to become being treated as human beings."
An innovative approach – and attitude – in the national media panorama.
Actually, it even became famous the episode when Rangel, due to a conflict between members of the cooperative, used a drill the force the entrance in TSF’s facilities.
Troubled times, but with an always present mission:
"We wanted to give voice to the people. To have people in our stories. […] We introduced a small revolution: we opened newspaper with what was important. We could oopen with a strike or with sports."
This was the first of many revolutions promoted by Emídio Rangel in Portuguese journalism.
The first steps
The communicator was born in Angola, in Sá da Bandeira (current Lobango), on September 21st of 1947.
We went by Rádio Clube de Huíla and by Rádio Comercialde Angola.
"At that time, as it is today, radio has a special fascination, has an intimate language that pleases me a lot. Especially when it is done, when on is at the microphone."
It was as reporter that he lived the 25th of April. He was on vacation in Lisbon when the revolution happened, which he covered for the Angolan microphones.
"The first time that i called they didn’t want to put the work in the air, but I continued to call and to insist: 'Air it.' E despite the prohibition, I start to transit news and detailed reports of what was happening."
On the Portuguese radio
Emídio Rangel arrived in Portugal in 1975.
In the beginning of the following year, he entered in RDP by public tender, in which he was in second place.
The first times at the radio station weren’t easy.
"In Angola, I was already known as a radio professional. Here, I was the retornado."
The reality he found in the station’s studios was quite different.
"In Angola I learned all the variables of the radiophonic exercise, of making sound design, locução. […] In RADP, it caused some surprise to colleague journalists who knew how to write a news, but didn’t know how to work it after."
His story about Ereira, a village near Coimbra that was isolated in winter, was distinguished with Prémio Gazeta.
He conquered international recognition by winning Reis de Espanha award, with a work about the landfill in Bobadela.
«Because I was there day and night, I was able to portray that reality. I made a story about those people, was able to create empathy with them and to understand their values».
Emídio Rangel was reporter, deputy editor-in-chief and special envoy; but work in RADP was no longer enough.
«I started to think that Portugal couldn’t keep on living with a State radio and another from the Church [Rádio Renascença]. It was needed to free the radio, to fight so it was possible to create new stations».
Of the fight was born TSF.
The passage to television
In 1992, he left the radio station he founded to become information director of SIC, the first private TV channel of Portuguese television.
"I had a big experience in TSF of what should be the change in television information. The logic was basically the same: to end with Portugal Sentado, with the bureaucratic and hierarchical information."
Ended up on also adding program direction.
SIC conquered absolute share leadership for several years.
"A station that has 50% of share sells everything, even the President of the Republic!", he came to state.
The path in SIC brought new challenges to Rangel’s career.
"We wanted to make a television that reached the biggest number of people, that was SIC’s survival condition," he referred.
The communicator also participated in the foundation of SIC Notícias, in 2001.
With the turn of the millennium, SIC’s audiences started a decreasing path, losing viewers to TVI.
The success of the reality-show Big Brother was one of the major enablers of the turn.
"SIC could have that in exclusive, but I thought that that layout was doable in SIC’s model. […] For me, Big Brother wasn’t showable in SIC because it would affect the credibility of rest of the channel."
In 2001, Rangel became general-director of RTP.
In the following year, he was invited to negotiate his exist, under the structuring process started in the company the Durão Barroso’s Government.
He returned to TSF to restructure the news station.
His resume also includes the participation in several media and communication projects, both national and foreign.
He was a BBC collaborator in Portugal, correspondent of TDM – Teledifusão de Macau, and manager of magazine Grande Reportagem and of the radio station NRJ – Rádio Energia.
More recently, Emídio Rangel was connected to proposals for the candidacy to a fifth free-to-air channel and the creation of a new media group.
Recognized as a reference in the national media panorama, he passed on August 13th of 2014.
A professional to whom "the biggest Journalism commitment is with the truth."