VENEZUELA Closure of Radio Caracas Televisión paves way for media hegemony june 2007 Report by : Andrés Cañizalez, Robert Ménard and Benoît Hervieu Reporters Without Borders - Despacho Américas 47 rue Vivienne - 75009 París (France) Tel : 33 1 44 83 84 68 – Fax : 33 1 45 23 11 51 [email protected] - Read more www.rsf.org The most popular and one of the oldest of refusing a TV station the right to broadcast for Venezuela’s news media, Radio Caracas the next 20 years? Finally and above all, why did Televisión (RCTV), stopped broadcasting at President Chávez go ahead with a measure that was midnight on 27 May, 53 years after it first went so unpopular, even among his own supporters? on the air. There were tears and anger at its Opinion polls says 70 per cent of Venezuelans dis- Caracas headquarters. The last news pro- approve of RCTV’s closure - this in a population in gramme was followed by farewell hymns and which four out of five get their news from television prayers. Outside, the Venezuelan capital shook alone. to the rhythm of demonstrations by the many opponents and fewer supporters of what the Reporters Without Borders went on a fact-finding former called a “closure” and the latter called trip to Venezuela from 24 to 28 May, meeting with “the end of a frequency concession.” national and foreign journalists, media owners, media specialists, human rights activists and RCTV is no more. It had to surrender its broadcast political analysts. It was at RCTV on the day it channel to a new public TV station, Televisora stopped broadcasting. Its requests for meetings Venezolana Social (Tves), on with government officials and representatives of the orders of President public and pro-government media went unan- Hugo Chávez. RCTV, swered. Their silence was as eloquent as the whose mascot is the lion, comments of the people it did meet, and tends was accused of supporting to confirm that RCTV’s closure was not just an a coup five years ago, one administrative measure. On the contrary, it was Televisora that briefly ousted the a political move, one that establishes government Venezolana social president from 11 to 13 April hegemony over the broadcast media and consti- 2002. Without waiting for tutes a grave danger for editorial pluralism. It also RCTV to exhaust all of its appeal possibilities, revealed a new aspect of this political system Chávez signed the decree creating the new known as “Chavism” - one that could be called state-owned station on 11 May. At RCTV, media hegemony. employees and management had been hoping until the end for an 11th hour reprieve. But the game was lost and a new media landscape is Presidential addresses emerging in which Globovisión, with a signal that reaches only Caracas and four nearby Imagine yourself with a TV remote control, zapping cities, is the only opposition TV station that sur- between five or six TV stations all showing exactly vives - and it might not survive for much longer. the same images of the president giving a speech. This bizarre situation is the almost daily lot of President Chávez likes to deliver long radio and Venezuelans. The president’s speeches rarely go TV addresses which all the on for less than three hours and some go for seven broadcast media, including if he is feeling inspired. Far from limiting himself to the privately-owned ones, cutting ribbons at openings, making the occasion- simultaneously transmit in al formal address to the nation or praising the “cadena” whether they want recipients of awards, Chávez delivers disserta- to or not. He also has his own tions. Whenever the fancy takes him, he talks at Sunday programme called Hugo Chávez length about contemporary geopolitics, about the “Aló Presidente” on the lead- works of independence hero Simón Bolívar, about ing public TV channel. So he already has an his own works (what he has written and what he Radio Caracas Televisión impressive media apparatus at his disposal for intends to write), about the Russian revolution and getting his message across. about what his own grandmother used to tell him. or media hegemony Why did he need to take RCTV’s broadcast fre- e of Wouldn’t one TV station be enough for such a quency and give it to another of his own sta- verbose speaker? No at all. President Chávez tions? Why was RCTV’s management not prefers speeches in full to extracts, and he charged and prosecuted at any point in the past es way f imposes them on all the TV and radio stations, osur five years for its “involvement” in the coup, enezuela including the privately-owned ones, as he is especially as under the law this is a condition for V Cl pav entitled to do under article 10 of the Radio and 1 Television Social Responsibility Law of right-wing editorial line, RCTV had the occasion- November 2004. The system of “cadenas” al problem with previous governments as well. It (obligatory simultaneous broadcasts) is one of was suspended for periods ranging from 24 to 72 the key levers of a regime that largely governs hours in 1976, 1980 and 1981, long before for and by communication. There have been Chávez came to power, 1,542 Chávez “cadenas” in all since 1999, with a because of “sensationalist” total of 922 hours of airtime. In the same period, content or, in the last there have also been 1,000 hours of his person- instance, an “enticing and al programme “Aló Presidente,” broadcast on erotic” ad. In 1987, when Sundays by the state-owned Venezolana de social-democrat Jaime Televisión (VTV). One the Marcel Granier Lusinchi was president, the recent “cadenas” in particular, government decreed that on 28 December 2006, caught broadcast frequencies were conceded for a peri- the public’s attention. od of 20 years. Until then. there had been no limit. The meas- Three weeks after his reelec- ure was above all targeted at “Aló Presidente” tion as president by a very RCTV, which was being critical large margin, Chávez gave a speech to the of what was called “govern- armed forces at the Caracas Military Academy ment omnipotency,” said in which he unexpectedly commented towards Carlos Ayala, a lawyer and former president of the the end: “There will no longer be any [frequency] Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concession for that TV station that was an (IACHR). The commercial TV stations and the accomplice to the coup, the station called Radio state-owned Venezolana de Televisión were all Caracas Televisión.” The threat at first met with suspended for 24 hours in 1989 for broadcasting incredulity. Six years before he was democrati- a cigarette ad. cally elected in 1998, Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez had also tried to stage a coup - the 15th anniversary Chávez’s election as presi- of which he marked with a military parade on 4 dent was hailed for a while February. So he did not seem to be an position by some of the privately-owned news media but to use “coup-mongering” as a charge to bring RCTV maintained its same editorial line and against his detractors. continued until the end to criticise violent crime, corruption and the cost of certain government Despite its 42 per cent average viewer rating, far measures and to always refer to “Lt. Col. Hugo ahead of any of its public or commercial rivals, Chávez” instead of “President Hugo Chávez.” RCTV and its viewers soon realised the presi- Like the other opposition media, the events of dent was not joking. Communication and infor- 11 April 2002 gave RCTV the chance to sound mation minister William Lara said on 2 January the charge against the Chávez government. “11 that RCTV’s broadcasting licence had been April 2002 was initially a demonstration against renewed for 20 years by a 1987 decree and government policy,” said Antonio Pasquali, a for- expired on 27 May 2007, and that three options mer Central University of Venezuela professor were being studies for replacing RCTV as ter- and specialist in communication. “The privately- restrial broadcast Channel 2. There were moral owned media, especially the big TV stations, and political charges as well as administrative gave it the dimensions of a coup. Unlike the ground for not renewing its licence – RCTV was media owners, most of the demonstrators did not accused of broadcasting pornography and, know Pedro Carmona, the Venezuelan Chamber Radio Caracas Televisión above all, of playing a leading role in the April of Commerce president who briefly replaced 2002 coup and the petroleum industry strikes in Hugo Chávez.” or media hegemony 2003 and 2004. Let us go back and look at all of e of this. The 11 April clashes left 17 dead. Splitting their screens in two, Venevisión (owned by media mogul Gustavo Cisneros), Televen, RCTV and 11 April 2002… then TV silence Globovisión simultaneously broadcast the es way f osur enezuela speech Chávez gave before leaving the Miraflores presidential palace and the V Cl pav Headed by Marcel Granier and with a markedly 2 exchanges of gunfire taking place during the renewal of the lion’s licence stems from this. demonstration. “There was complete confu- sion,” said an independent journalist. “You did “If you accept that RCTV was guilty of a coup, a not know who was firing on whom, but what you legal problem immediately ensues,” said Ayala, could see on the screens reinforced the idea the lawyer. “Under the 1987 decree that has that the government had given orders for shots been invoked by the current government, a to be fired at the crowd.” Globovisión director broadcaster may request the renewal of its con- Alberto Federico Ravell said: “The only reliable cession if it has not been found guilty of any source at that moment would have been the ‘serious misconduct.’ In the absence of any defence ministry, but we had no access to it.