A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

By: Sylvia Davila MM

Bogotá

www.pipolmagazine.com

Copyright
April 25/2011

Fernando Gomez Agudelo/ The Man who made us TV viewers

Published in EL TIEMPO Newspaper /April 25/2011

Fernando Gómez Agudelo was one of those men who are able to take a leap into the void, to face the unknown, to do what no one else has dared before.  He took on all challenges and accomplished them successfully.

People that dared to attempt “the impossible” cause great turns in history. Fernando Gomez Agudelo was one of them. At the age of 21, within seven months and not having ever watched television, he managed to design, purchase, transport, and install in Colombia’s rugged geography, the equipment needed to launch our history’s first TV emission. Years later, while the country was still resigned to seeing the moon landing on photographs, by his own means and enterprise, he devices a creative and audacious operation that allowed us to witness live man’s small first footing and that great step for humanity. His production company –RTI  Television– led the medium from the outset, both in terms of technology and content, with Fernando seated in his office armchair, with a coffee maker nearby, a cup and a lit cigarette in his hand, a cigarette burning on an ashtray, and classical music in the background.

Charismatic, versatile, determined, visionary, and cultured, Fernando Gómez was one of those men who dared take a leap into the void, face the unknown, and attempt what no-one else had done before; a man that power did not change; a man that led his passions to a happy ending. Music: his reverence for Bach, of whom he had knowledge up to his last adagio, replaced the god he did not believe in. His love for electronics kept the country, his company, and his household always up to date with the latest of technologies. But it was radio broadcasting, the only mass communication system available during his childhood and youth that led him to his destiny: television.

His father, Jose J. Gomez, a magistrate of the Supreme Court during the thirties, infused his four children’s life with a passion for classical music and, also, stimulated the talents of his sons, Ricardo and Fernando, for electronics. The neighborhood in which they lived had the privilege of benefitting from the private radio station the Gomez boys had installed and which broadcasted music, news and commercials. Ricardo took the path of Mathematics and Physics at MIT and Caltech, while Fernando chose to study Law at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. However, they always remained the tight team they were when engaged on any of Fernando’s adventures.

When General Rojas Pinilla summoned the director of the National Broadcasting System - Fernando Gómez Agudelo – to inform him of his appointment to conduct the operation that would enable the first television allocution in Colombia’s history, Fernando flew to MIT and, over a map of Colombia, with Ricardo and a group of communications engineers, they made the necessary calculations - the two oceans, the rainforest, the desert, the valleys, and the Andes mountain range – to make television possible throughout the country. He purchased the broadcasting equipment from Germany. In New York, while searching for the Studio equipment, he encountered a schoolmate, Fernando Restrepo, who was working for a tele-communications company. The search ended there, giving way to a lifetime friendship and partnership.  All equipment ready, what was now needed was someone to operate them and, then, Cuba’s Canal 11 closedown came to his attention; all of its laid off operators travelled to Colombia. For the content and programming of a live television transmission that did not yet exist, he brought in well-known people from the cultural world that he had personally referred to the national radio-broadcasting world. The first television transmission in Colombia’s history was flawless.  Fernando Gómez was twenty-one years old. The rest is history.  Television in Colombia began, developed, and thrived with Fernando Gómez Agudelo.

Perhaps the example that best describes his personality is the programming of RTI –a television production company that he founded. His clear understanding of the business managed to put his Telenovela (soap opera) at the top of television serials.  During bidding, Sesame Street, the children’s time, was non-negotiable. For many years, humor was an invincible hit with El Chinche, which was outranged only by his authentic liking for nature, Naturalia. The transmissions of the historical series we all remember, verbi gracia, I, Claudius, Fall of the Eagles, The Accursed Kings, were his doing.  His deep-rooted commitment to truth led Germán Castro’s Enviado Especial (Special Envoy) to the journalistic success it became throughout a whole decade. Carlos Pinzón’s Teletón, of which he was a pioneer, was broadcasted until they both died. Palco de honor (Royal Box), at ten o’clock at night, with no rating, was one of his personal homages to classical music.

He had a special nose for people.  By bringing together the best veterans with emergent talents, he formed a team that kept the production company at the very top, and that followed his steps on every new adventure he was to engage in.  Color television, first exteriors, mobile units, modern production systems, all came to Colombia thanks to Fernando. His closest pupils, Patricio Wills, José Antonio De Brigard, and Julio Sánchez Cristo, render homage to him as current leaders of Colombia’s radio and television.

His was a unique personality. He climbed every mountain, was indifferent to powers’ sweet, and nourished a world of his own. He was always himself, nothing altered him. The competitive tendering system in force for television at the time, and the permanent interaction with government officials it imposed, was for him a median between necessity and an inconvenience, which he generally handled with tact and diplomacy and, on occasions, with crushing sincerity.  Invited by Congress to participate in a debate over public and private television, he stood before a plenary assembly, and with his usual composure, in a deep almost inaudible voice he declared: “What happens here is that you’re all a bunch of crooks”.

On his spare time, he let his passions run loose. At home, he was often seen sitting at his studio’s desk, eviscerating a recently bought amplifier just to see how it worked… while Bach reverberated against the walls. He kept the country technologically up to date, but also, he was the first one to have in his home a small panel box covered in buttons from which he controlled all the house lights, the garage door, the coffeemaker, and the concert’s volume.   He would make time to fully immerse himself in his wife Teresa Morales’s activities.  The University, the museum, or any other enterprise she was engaged in had Fernando as her first assistant. Together since they were twenty, theirs was a profound relationship of interests that served them both.  Latin American literature taken to the screen by Fernando and inspired by Teresa, reached a rating success without precedents.  He loved the countryside and children.  RTI’s Christmas party was neither at night, nor had any liquor offered. It took place at an amusement park with and for the entire personnel, their spouses, and children.  Upon seeing the children’s fear of riding the high slide, Fernando, in suit and tie, did not hesitate in climbing on to the sack and taking his own ride down. “Big and small”, all followed him.

Fernando was never motionless, that’s perhaps why he left so soon. The day before his death, at the age of 59, he kept himself busy installing wires and switches for the stereo equipment in his living-room.  Fernando Gómez Agudelo dared to try all sorts of ventures successfully. He kept a full commitment to his country over his personal interests. The passions he let run loose became historical prowesses. He never let go of his tenderness toward his family, toward the countryside, dogs, and children.  He managed Colombian television while running a thriving production company. And he used it to share with us the benefits of his great passions and of what he was and never stopped being: a leader.
April 25/2011 - SYLVIA DAVILA MORALES®