Free RCTV

The First Shut Down

RCTV was first shut down on midnight of Sunday, May 27 2007, after nearly a year of threats and attacks on the station by the Venezuelan government.

On June 14 2006, the Venezuelan president declared that he was not going to renew the licenses of certain television stations, particularly those controlled by the "oligarchy" that opposes the government. On January 10 2007, the president declared that RCTV’s months in operation were numbered and nothing would stop him from not renewing RCTV’s operating license. The license was set to expire on May 27 2007. (This date is based on the previous license issued, which, according to the government, was issued on May 27 1987. According to Marcel Granier, the president of RCTV, the license was actually not supposed to expire until 2020.)

Venezuela has no history of not renewing broadcast licenses, and the government’s decision to do so was clearly political; RCTV was strongly critical of the current government (as it had been critical of many governments in the past) and had frequently sided with the opposition movement against the government. Government figures often state that RCTV’s coverage on April 11 immediately after the forced resignation of President Chávez and the coup that followed was biased and not supportive of the president. However, the administration has failed to levy specific charges against RCTV for its alleged involvement in the coup. In fact, RCTV was denied the right to defend itself in courts due to the government’s failure to start legal proceedings or inform through official channels the reasons for the non-renewal of its broadcast license.

The government also failed to inform RCTV, within the timeframe and mechanisms established by law, that its license would not be renewed. Due process was not followed and, as telecommunications minister Jesse Chacon has stated, the decision was taken by the president on political grounds disregarding all other considerations. Unfortunately, Venezuela is a country where the judicial and legislative powers are subservient to the designs of the president, a fact denounced repeatedly by HRF and numerous other human rights organizations.

The Second Shut Down

On July 16 2007, just three weeks after having been taken off public airwaves, RCTV started broadcasting through cable and satellite service providers, as RCTV International (RCTV-I). Only a few days later, on July 25 2007, the Telecommunications National Commission (CONATEL) called on RCTV-I to register as a “service of audiovisual national production” and set August 1 2007 as the deadline (five days). CONATEL also ordered the Venezuelan Chamber of Subscription Television (CAVETESU) to demand RCTV-I to register or, otherwise, take it off their list of channels. The purpose of having RCTV-I register as a “service of audiovisual national production” was to bound it to broadcast President Chavez’s speeches and “nation-wide broadcasts”, as well as revising its entire programming to fit the governments’ content and advertising restrictions. CAVETESU challenged CONATEL’s order and won a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court in 2007, who stated that none of these provisions were yet enforceable against TV channels by subscription or “services of audiovisual national production”, given that this legal term had yet to be defined by the government regulatory body.

The Organic Law of Telecommunications of 2000, passed early in his tenure, already gave President Chavez “the right” to “directly order … all television operators by subscription … as well as all radio and television private networks, to broadcast at no charge the official messages and speeches of the President, the Vice-president or the Ministers” (art. 192). This statute also gave the “National Executive” the power to “suspend any radio or television broadcast, whenever it judges it to be convenient to the nation’s interest.” (art. 209) In the same line, the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television (Resorte Law), passed in 2004, provided that ordering the “mandatory and free of charge broadcasting of official messages and speeches” is within the powers of the State, and that such an order “may be validly notified [to all media networks] by the mere broadcasting of the message or speech through the media services owned by the National Executive.” (art. 10)

As a result of the 2007 Supreme Court ruling, on December 22 2009, CONATEL—whose members can be appointed or dismissed at the discretion of the President—issued a directive defining a service of audiovisual national production, as the channel by subscription whose total programming is less than 70% international, among other requirements. According to RCTV officials, starting December 22 through the following weeks, they successfully adapted their total programming to the 70% international share required by the government.

Notwithstanding, on January 21 2010, CONATEL declared that RCTV-I, along with other 121 channels, were “services of audiovisual national production”, and called for them to “obey the law.” Two days later, RCTV failed to air a speech by President Chávez and that same day the president of CONATEL and Minister of Public Works, Diosdado Cabello, publicly called on the cable and satellite operating companies to take RCTV-I, along with other five channels (TV Chile, Ritmo Son, Momentum, America TV, and American Network) off the air. The order was enforced that Saturday at midnight. On his Sunday show, President Chávez publicly congratulated Cabello: “That’s what must be done with those who refuse to obey the law … Thank you Minister; thank you CONATEL!”

According to a joint statement of condemnation issued by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights’ (IACHR) Commissioner for Venezuelan Affairs and the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the OAS, Minister Cabello had warned that “if the cable operators did not cease broadcasting the channels, ‘It will be they and not the channels who will be subject to an administrative procedure’.” Other human rights organizations condemning this new crackdown on independent media in Venezuela, include the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Inter-American Press Association. Since 2007, the Venezuelan government has denied the IACHR access to the country to monitor the human rights situation in situ. According to the world freedom of expression index, prepared annually by Freedom House, Venezuela and Cuba are currently the only two countries considered “not free” in the American continent.

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