Venezuela: RCTV may be off the air, but its shows still go on

[El Capitan]

RCTV may be off the air, but its shows go on


TV station still filming despite being blocked by Chavez

By Fabiola Sanchez
The Associated Press

June 9, 2007


CARACAS, Venezuela · Inside the studios of Radio Caracas Television, actors are still filming soap operas and news anchors are still going on-camera more than a week after President Hugo Chavez forced the station off the air.

Some of the programs are making their way to viewers on the Internet or by satellite to stations abroad. Other shows are not reaching any audience at all, but cameramen, sound engineers and actors are continuing to produce most of RCTV's programs in hopes they may once again reach viewers across Venezuela, if only by cable.

Almost-daily street protests have raised the spirits of RCTV's nearly 3,000 workers, whose bosses have told them to keep reporting for work as usual. Chavez insists he will not go back on his refusal to renew the channel's broadcast license, but in the studios many express optimism that RCTV will not be shuttered for good.

"I like to think positive and I want to believe that everything that's happening will be for good," said soap opera actor Juan Carlos Alarcon. "I think that after this whole crisis, we're going to come out of it stronger."

RCTV, the country's most-watched and oldest private channel, went off the air at midnight May 27 under a government decision that turned over its license to a state-funded public channel. The Supreme Court also ordered the temporary seizure of RCTV's broadcasting equipment, including transmitters, to be used by the new channel.

Chavez accused the channel of backing a 2002 coup against him and violating various broadcast laws. RCTV has denied wrongdoing, and legal challenges brought by the channel are still being considered by the Supreme Court.

The channel has continued filming its regular programs -- including variety shows, comedy programs and others -- with the exception of two morning talk shows, said Ines Bacalao, vice president of marketing and programming.

Some employees left the company in the past several months, but Bacalao said that number was not higher than normal attrition.

Asked why the station continues producing programs that are not seen by the public, Bacalao said: "At some point we hope to take back our signal" and return to the open airwaves.

She said switching to cable TV is an option, but not the preferred one because it would exclude 70 percent of RCTV's audience. Cable reaches fewer than 30 percent of Venezuelan households.

RCTV's news programs have begun to be broadcast on its sister radio station, Radio Caracas Radio, and transmitted by satellite internationally through Colombian network Caracol, U.S. cable channel TV Venezuela and others. A similar arrangement is planned with Mexico's Televisa.

RCTV also has turned to the popular video-sharing site YouTube, as well as other sites, to transmit three daily editions of its news program El Observador.

The channel decided to use such Web sites last week when the news program's own site went down after it was attacked by hackers from Latin America and elsewhere, said Tamara Slusnys, who is in charge of the RCTV site.

Soap operas, meanwhile, are still being produced in the studios under contract with other television stations across Latin America.

On the set Monday, a director shouted "Action!" and a sound engineer dangled a microphone while men playing police burst onto the scene and made an arrest.

In an unusual step, the channel plans to take some of its shows outdoors to city plazas in Caracas. Programs to be performed on the street include a soap opera and a Venezuelan version of the game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

Many employees say they hope to return to the air but also fear the uncertain future.

"We don't know what's going to happen to the channel," said Ana Virginia Escobar, a news anchor. "We know they have a fund to make do for a time with the entire work force, but we're sure that fund will run out."

The studios are bustling as usual, but workers have removed large screens where they used to monitor feeds shown on the air.

Each day at lunchtime, a dozen or more employees hold noisy protests on the front stairs, banging staplers on hole-punchers and spoons on pots and pans.

Technician Milagros Ardila said the protests are "so that people know we're still standing."

[JMitch1959]

OAS Rejects Rice's Demand to Intervene in Venezuela's "TV or Not TV" Situation
June 8, 2007 (LPAC)-- The General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), Chilean Jose Miguel Insulza, rejected any possibility of a direct OAS intervention into Venezuela, as was demanded by U.S. Secretary of State Condolezza Rice at the OAS General Assembly that concluded June 6 in Panama City. Rice argued that Insulza should send a mission to Venezuela to evaluate whether "freedom of the press" exists in that country, following President Hugo Chavez's decision not to renew the license of the private RCTV television station.

Chavez's political opposition has used the denial of the license to unleash a wave of student protests, claiming that Chavez is a "dictator." The Venezuelan government charged that these protests had been organized by the Albert Einstein Institute, chaired by Gene Sharp, which has played a key role in organizing allegedly "pro-democracy revolutions" in several Eastern European countries.

Rice cited Article 18 of the Inter-American Charter in arguing that Insulza should go to Venezuela to prepare an official report on the situation there. But Insulza explained that Article 18 requires that the government involved authorize such an official investigation, and Venezuela certainly wouldn't agree to it. Moreover, he added, this really is a matter internal to Venezuela. During his remarks, he also took the opportunity to state that he favored "reopening" dialogue with Cuba, which no doubt didn't endear him to Ms. Rice either.

During the OAS General Assembly meeting itself, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Madura and Rice exchanged harsh words, with Maduro charging, correctly, that the U.S. had failed in its attempt to use the OAS to interfere in Venezuela's internal affairs.