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Cadena Radial Colombiana - Televisión Colombian Radio Network - Television Caracol TV
Type	Broadcast Television Network
Branding	Canal Caracol
Country	Colombia
Availability	Bolivia Colombia Costa Rica Curacao Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panama Peru Spain Venezuela United States
Slogan	(Spanish) Más cerca de ti (English) Closer To You
Broadcast area	Colombia
Owner	Julio Mario Santo Domingo
Key people	Paulo Laserna Phillips, CEO
Founded	1955 (as a TV production company)
Launch date	1998 (as a TV network)
Affiliates	gentv RTI Telemundo
Website	www.caracoltv.com

Caracol Televisión (Acronym: Cadena Radial Colombiana - Televisión) is a Colombian private national television network, owned by Julio Mario Santo Domingo.

Caracol Televisión started in 1954 when Organización de Radiodifusora Caracol offered to afford national television costs, then state-run, through commercial spots. At that time its board (Fernando Londoño Henao, Cayetano Betancourt, Carlos Sanz de Santamaría, Pedro Navas, and Germán Montoya) started to suggest the possibility of establishing the first television station in Colombia. One year later that idea was accepted and they decided to share the rights with Radiodifusora Nacional, the state-run company operating Colombian television, creating TVC (Televisión Comercial Ltda.), a company which lasted two years.

In 1967, Inravisión awarded through a public bidding the then production/programming company 45 hours a week; because of this, the then Caracol Radio became Caracol Televisión S.A., having TV shows' marketing and production as its main goal. In 1987 Valores Bavaria group became the main stockholder and prompted a technical and administrative modernization to the company.

On 24 November 1997 Caracol Televisión was granted a licence as a "private-operated national channel" for 10 years from Colombia's National Television Commission (CNTV). The other licence went to RCN Televisión. This implied a plan in order to make the infrastructure which was used to produce 10.5 hours a week would have to work to have on air 18 hours a day of general programming since July 1998.

In 2000 Caracol TV strengthened a deal with marketing television company TEPUY, and next year signed a telenovela co-production deal with RTI and Telemundo and a short lived deal with Buena Vista International. In 2004 Caracol TV Internacional was launched.

In December 2005, Caracol TV bought a 25% stake of Miami, Florida television station WGEN-TV. Programming on WGEN includes Colombian and Brazilian telenovelas, a news program produced in Colombia, and a local version of Desafío 20.06, a reality show similar to Survivor [1]. Some of Caracol TV's telenovelas were remade for MyNetworkTV in the US, such as Desire, based on Mesa Para Tres (Table for Three).

• (Spanish) Caracol TV Official Site
• (Spanish) and (English) Caracol TV International
• (Spanish) GOL Caracol
• (Spanish) and (English) gentv Official Site
• (Spanish) and (English) Caracol TV is available online

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