Masterkoki
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« on: May 27, 2008, 06:59:11 PM » |
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Last night a comunique from VTV (Venezolana de Televisión) was made public. It informed all private TV stations that from June 1st on a fee of 120 Bolivares (about $55) per second will be charged to all private broadcast stations for transmitting live or otherwise footage coming from VTV with the exception of official speeches of President Hugo Chavez.
VTV, which slogan is "the channel of all Venezuelans", is the main state-owned TV station. It's main programming consist of news and opinion segments that are obviously pro-government.
Now here's the sweet part: most official acts including those where the president speaks are broadcasted by VTV because journalists from private TV stations are not allowed inside public buildings when official acts are being held. This forces the private media to use VTV's broadcast to inform their audience, following a sacred rule of having a small text on the corner that says "courtesy of VTV" or "origin: VTV".
This comunique was given by VTV's president Yuri Pimentel with the full support of Chavez but was not authorized by Information and media minister Izarra, who resigned today following this decision.
As a Venezuelan I know why the government did this but I don't want to rush giving an opinion because I'm kind of mad right now and I want to cool down so I can analyze this, but I would very much like to know your opinion on this matter.
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neorealist
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« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2008, 07:03:54 PM » |
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sounds like the ring of a police state...he is leaving the realm of socialism and going far far off on the fringe.
Its a shame IMO
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The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. - Robert Bloch
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Masterkoki
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« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2008, 08:40:42 AM » |
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That's state capitalism to me, which he "opposes"
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Godot
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« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2008, 09:33:10 AM » |
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What are the implications of the policy, other than financial? Are there any free speech or transparency issues? How much footage do the corporate media show annually, and would the cost be prohibitive? If not, then I wonder what the big deal is so long as they still have access to the footage. If one station ran 60 seconds a day for 365 days they're only paying $1.2 milion dollars a year, which shouldn't be much. Besides, they can recoup the costs by passing it on to either advertisers or subscribers.
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tadpol
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« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2008, 05:08:17 PM » |
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I think I agree with Godot. I don't see what this really does. A few million dollars or little more face time for news anchors doesn't seem like a big deal. So why did he do this, and why did someone resign over it?
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Masterkoki
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« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2008, 08:53:19 PM » |
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Well first of all our private media is not run by Ted Turner. A million dollars is a HUGE amount of money. And as I said, journalist from private news media ARE NOT allowed inside public buildings when official acts are done. And the comunique indicates that it only exempts footage where the president is speaking, which to me is another step for the personality cult this government wants impose.
So let's say there's a national disaster and the civil defense chief announces the emergency through VTV (which doesn't have a significant audience by the way). Then by law private media would have to actually pay to retransmit this information!
Now concerning financial needs, well... isn't $130 a barrel of oil enough?
To me this is just another way of harming the private media, specially GLOBOVISION (an all news TV station like CNN) which openly opposes the government. In fact Yuri Pimentel said yesterday that VTV and other state-owned TV stations can't be charged for retransmitting private media footage!!! I honestly think it's an outrage!
Now the math:lets say each day a news program must broadcast VTV's footage to be balanced in their news. They decide to transmit 20 minutes maximun a day. So that's 20min x 60sec x $55 = $66,000 x 365days = $24,090,000!!! for every station! Now you would ask why the hell would they need 20 minutes a day? Well because the only footage of official information from the government comes from VTV... To me is not a problem of freedom of speech it's just blatant mobster politics.
Minister Izarra resigned because this decision wasn't approved by him but was bypassed and went directly to the executive violating hierarchy rules
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Godot
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« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2008, 08:37:34 AM » |
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If Chavez is requiring private media to broadcast 20 minutes of VTV footage a day (or at all), and is also imposing fees, then yes I agree that it is racketeering. My understanding of Venezuelan private media is that it mocks the notion of "restraint" or "public interest" in its zeal to criticize Chavez. If a US station were broadcasting similarly, I would expect them to be shut down, arrested, etc. With the mainstream media against Chavez, I can understand the motivation for his efforts to curtail them - or just piss them off - though I don't necessarily agree with the method.
I'm not sure what the big deal is about not charging VTV if it is state-owned. Wouldn't that just be creating another layer of bureaucracy since the funds ultimately belong to the state?
Of more concern to me is that the media isn't allowed into the public buildings during official acts. However - it is also true in the US, and it depends on the type of act. We have CSPAN to cover votes and some hearings, but not everything is open to the media, or even the public to attend. Context is everything. What kind of official acts are the media being barred from? Are the acts being broadcast uncut on VTV? If so, does it even matter that the private media are not allowed to cover them so long as they are covered and made available to the public on VTV? It would seem to me that the transparency is there, and that the issue is merely a power struggle and not one of secrecy or even freedom of speech.
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