Following a meeting with alternative media representatives, Communications and Information Minister Willian Lara said that the government will decide whether to renew a concession with Radio Caracas Television, a major private television network.
Lara said: “The community media expressed an interest in promoting a democratic dialogue so that the Venezuelan people can express their opinions over whether a concession should be renewed which allows RCTV to operate a television channel.”
Lara said the final decision must be made by “the chief of state, the Council of Ministers. But what we’re proposing...in the revolutionary Venezuelan state, is that the opinion of the people is expressed through the alternative and community media.”
Lara’s statement echoed recent comments made by Chavez himself, who said he “had in mind the question of whether to renew or not the concession of RCTV.”
According to its website, RCTV broadcast its first live transmission in 1953. The broadcast, a baseball game between Cuba and Venezuela, was the first of its kind in Venezuela. A year later, RCTV produced its first soap opera, entitled “Camay,” which lasted fifteen minutes and was performed live.
Growing up in a tiny Venezuelan city, I recall watching two channels on our black and white TV set: RCTV and Venevision. I relished the great soaps produced by those pioneering networks even though my mother had a NO SOAPS rule in the house. (I guess she thought my impressionable mind would absorb the smoldering lasciviousness of Raul Amundaray or Marina Baura…) Then there were the laughs which rung through our house as the iconic characters of Radio Rochela performed their silly sketches. “Ajo!” or, even funnier, “Y tu que le dijiste.”
Today, RCTV news programming, often critical of the government, is a fundamental voice within the country's eroding freedom of expression.
I’m sure that when Minister Lara meets with the “Venezuelan people", he won’t ask any Venezuelans I know whether the chief of state should renew the RCTV concession. But if he asked me, I would urge the state to keep RCTV around. It’s a thread in the fabric of our national consciousness as much as tostones and gaitas.
Venezuelans have a right to quality programming, which the new community media outlets will never replace. Not because the alternative media is comprised of amateurs, even though it is. Not because it's one hundred percent loyal to one ideology and man, even though it is. You simply can't replace over fifty years of experience in a single revolution. As my favorite Radio Rochela would say, “ajo!”
Source: El Universal
Definition of the day
Alternative: Allowing or necessitating a choice between two or more things.
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