Quote:
Originally posted by Mellark
I am not Venezuelan.
Well, I was watching a video on YouTube on the final day of RCTV's closure in the open signal. One of the hosts were holding a photo of him with a host from RCTV. It was during the last hour of the final RCTV special Un Amigo Para Siempre (A Friend Forever). I've seen RCTV promos/spots on YouTube as well. However I know some of the shows there.
Venezuela, I'm rooting for your country and wishing you all good luck in this election.
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Watching some videos on Youtube =/= knowing what happens in Venezuela.
Chavez was friendly towards the media when he first got elected (that's where that picture is from) but then after the opposition grew stronger the media started bashing him and his government. During the 2002 coup d'etat attempt some TV channels like Televen, Venevisión, RCTV y Globovisión (the 4 major privately-owned channels) went in full force against Chávez and when Chávez was giving an official message to the country during the April 11 riots they split their screens and on the other side of the screen there was a message by some officials from the Army and the National Guard who were rebelling against Chávez, which is illegal. They went temporarily off air because of this, but that night Chávez resigned (some claim he didn't resign but that's another story) so they went back on air and the following day some of these officials who were interviewed in Venevisión said "none of this would've been possible without the media". Chávez retook power 2 days later. Fast forward 5 years he was still bitter about it (these channels constantly aired opposition ads that went like "Not a step backwards. Get out, leave now!" and sometimes said he was crazy and stuff) so when the concessions to keep broadcasting in the public airways had to be renewed in 2007 he denied RCTV their concessions (but renewed everyone else's which made a lot of people think the other channels sold out to Chávez, especially Televén and Venevisión which became much less agressive towards the Government) and the Supreme Court (in complicity with Chávez) ordered RCTV to be closed for a new state television called TVes to take its place. Eventually RCTV managed to open in a basic cable platform calling themselves "RCTV internacional" but when they refused to air the government's messages (commonly called "cadenas") they were closed for a second time while they argued they didn't have to air those messages cause they weren't on the public airwaves anymore. The channel has been off air since then.
TV channels in Venezuela are/were extremely biased. On one hand you have the government-owned channels who broadcast Socialist propaganda 24/7, and before the 2007 incident the privately owned channels broadcasted all day opposition rallies and propaganda. Nowadays due to fear of being closed they are more balanced, some argue they are slightly more pro-Chávez than they are not (except for Globovisión). It's quite disgusting that they can't exercise free speech properly (and in RCTV's case to be on air) I agree with that part, but I can't let you believe such a lie that RCTV
liked Chávez and that they got closed because of a bad interview.