Перулік телеарна иесі және саясаткер Рикардо Бельмонт Кассинелли

Peruvian TV network owner and politician

Ricardo Pablo Belmont Cassinelli (born 29 August 1945) is a Peruvian TV network owner and politician. He was the Mayor of Lima serving from 1990 to 1995 and as a Congressman for the Center Front, representing Lima between 2009 and 2011, replacing Alberto Andrade, who died in office. He was popularly known as "El Hermanón" (Big Brother) for his friendliness and also as "El Colora'o" (Ginger) because of his reddish hair.

Ricardo Belmont is the son of Augusto Belmont Bar, who founded TV Bego Excelsior (Channel 11 in Peru) in 1967. TV Bego Excelsior also owned Excelsior FM radio (104.7 FM in Peru). The younger Belmont was an avid sportsman who enjoyed football and boxing, and was a patron of players in both sports. His sports passion would later influence him in his political speeches, using sporting terms such as "let's all kick into the same goal post", and, during his reelection bid, "Second half time is about to start, and it's works vs. words. Choose the tree (his electoral symbol) and we'll win the game." In his "serious" life, he dedicated himself to journalism, befriending several local and national politicians all the while aspiring to be his own man in the media business. In his spare time he also dedicated his life to worthy causes, the most prominent being the local Telethon (based on the American version by Jerry Lewis), dedicated to helping the disabled kids at the San Juan de Dios Clinic in Lima. In 1986 he took over Channel 11 and renamed it Red Bicolor de Comunicaciones (Bicolor Communications Network; the initials RBC allude to his personal name). Initially airing only from noon to midnight, Belmont mostly purchased American programming such as Bonanza, Get Smart, Bravestarr, and The Twilight Zone (the 1985 version). The few RBC produced shows included "Desafio Familiar", which was a Peruvian version of Family Feud, "Habla el Pueblo", a Larry King inspired talk show with Belmont himself as host, and "Mirando la Música", a music video program. In the late 1980s RBC started diversifying to break out of the niche market to compete with the Peruvian Big Two, America Television and Panamericana Television. RBC Radio 980 AM was mostly sports talk, while 91.9 FM was adult contemporary, in addition to Excelsior, which was mostly tropical and salsa.

In the 2006 elections, he ran for Congress in the Lima constituency, as an invited candidate under the Centre Front coalition but he was not elected, but he was summoned to Congress in August 2009 as a replacement for Alberto Andrade (his successor as Mayor of Lima), who died in office and completed the latter's 2006–2011 term.

In November 2015, he agreed to be summoned to run for president of the Republic of Peru in the 2016 elections, by the Siempre Unidos party. However, in January 2016 he announced his resignation from the presidential candidacy because he did not accept pressure on behalf of the party's founder, Felipe Castillo, so that Isaac Humala, the father of then President Ollanta Humala would be part of the presidential shortlist. In 2018 he was a candidate for mayor of Lima for the Peru Libertario party. Since 2019 he has become a YouTuber and on his channel he publishes videos analyzing topics such as local politics, geopolitics, progressivism and the popular president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador.