Television in Venezuela: Who Dominates the Media?

[Judi Lynn]

13.12.10
Television in Venezuela:
Who Dominates the Media?
by Mark Weisbrot and Tara Ruttenberg

It is commonly reported in the international press, and widely believed, that the government of President Hugo Chávez controls the media in Venezuela. For example, writing about Venezuela's September elections for the National Assembly, the Washington Post's deputy editorial page editor and columnist, Jackson Diehl, referred to the Chávez "regime's domination of the media. . . ."1 In an interview on CNN, Lucy Morillon of Reporters Without Borders stated, "President Chávez controls most of the TV stations."2 And on PBS in November 2010, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega stated that the Venezuelan media is "virtually under the control of Chávez."3 Such statements are made regularly in the major media and almost never challenged.

Table 1 shows the evolution of Venezuelan television audience share from 2000-2010. There are three categories: private broadcast channels, which are privately owned and available on broadcast television without payment; the state channels, which are run by the government and also broadcast without payment4 by the viewer; and private paid TV, which includes cable and satellite, for which the subscriber must pay a fee; and other paid programming that is being watched during the time of the survey.

As can be seen from the table, as of September 2010, Venezuelan state TV channels had just a 5.4 percent audience share. Of the other 94.6 percent of the audience, 61.4 percent were watching privately owned television channels, and 33.1 percent were watching paid TV.

Since the private TV owners are mostly against the government, it is clear that more than 94 percent of the TV that is seen by Venezuelans is not pro-government. In fact, much of the private media is stridently anti-government, in ways that go beyond the boundaries of what is permitted in the United States, for example.5 There are no data that describe the breakdown of audience share of the various TV channels on the basis of political bias. However, it is clear from this data, based on household surveys over a 10-year period, that statements about the Venezuelan government "controlling" or "dominating" the media are not only exaggerated, but simply false.

More:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wr131210.html

[Arctic Dave]

1. No post from the usual anti Chavez peanut gallery?

I guess this blows a huge hole in their whiney Chavez controls everything meme.

[mudplanet]

3. He's a dictator, just like Obama.

Because of him the people in the colonias are forced to have access to health care. He has taken away their choice to have their children die of lockjaw as infants. And what about the poor owners of that TV station? I bet they were forced to cancel one of their bi-annual Aspen skiing trips, or at least fly first class instead of on the private jet. It's terrorism, and the US govt should do something about it.

[Doctor_J]

11. The US government IS doing something about Hugo

military coups, propaganda, spies, economic terrorism... The people who actually run the US despise democracy and especially populism, and try to stamp it out every place it rears its ugly head.

[Igel]

6. Oh, I don't think the claim is he controls everything.

I think the claim is that he wants to control everything and is working to that end.

That the number of private tv stations (which is not the focus of the OP) has dwindled dramatically and yet maintain a 61 share is quite impressive. (Even if they are de facto providers of free air time to the government.) That the state share stays so low, even though they've taken over many of the private stations is also impressive.

However, my only claim is that as bureaucrats and technocrats increase regulation and control, people continue to adapt to try to do what they, the individuals being regulated and controlled, want to do. This usually upsets the bureaucrats and technocrats, who assumed that the regulations would easily achieve the intended purposes, so they add more regulations and increase control. At some point they stop; they've reached their limit. Or they're stopped, as the people reach their limit. On occasion, they don't stop nor are they stopped.

Chavez assumed that people would flock to his broadcasts. Private media flourished. He's pruned private media, and stations that got relatively few viewers got more viewers. In many cases, people decided to pay--and not just for their soap operas--to watch stations other than the crappy ones left or the state stations. (It's been pointed out that many of the remaining private stations have engaged in ritual acts of self-defanging in order to avoid forced castration at anothers' hands; whether this is true or not I can't say; however, if we have absurdly "chilling effects" on free speech at the drop of a hat in the US, I have to imagine that it can happen elsewhere, too.)

[Doctor_J]

9. This is total horseshit

Of the 40-some stations in Venezuela, all but a handful (3-4) are completely anti-Chavez, along the lines of Fox News. It may well be that the saturation of right-wing hate speech has been gathering a following, just as it has here. You might as well argue that Fox "News" is so popular because all of the others are left-wing (do you believe that one too?). That is a complete lie, just as your post is. Instead, the truth is that privately owned Big Media, in Venezuela as well as the US, is extremely right-wing, pro-corporate, and anti-democratic.

Threads like these are very revealing. Someone who believes the right-wing propaganda about the Venezuelan media almost certainly believes it about the US media.

[Fearless]

2. If the government is so great then why do so few people apparently watch its stations?

[mudplanet]

4. Oh, give us all a break. What proportion of your tv viewing time is spent watching CSPAN?

If you actually check the schedule and tune in to every conservative appearance on CSPAN because you're a fan, you've got a serious entertainment disorder.

Was this a serious question.

I'm a Chavez supporter, but I wouldn't watch that shit. It's old westerns and comedy for me.

Maybe the best measure of the government's popularity with the populace is the fact that it gets voted into office repeatedly.

I'm not saying that is an indication that it's a good government - raygun was voted into office twice and he was an criminal and in early dementia.

[Fearless]

7. CSPAN doesn't have a political agenda.

[Doctor_J]

10. You forgot the sarcasm tag

:eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

5. They have so many choices, don't they? You're attempting to deflect the importance of the article.

The government's station, Telesur is a news-focused station. I would imagine the others are similar, wouldn't you?

How many people spend all their time watching CNN, or MSNBC?

The point of the article remains that the government DOES NOT CONTROL the Venezuelan media. PERIOD. Not even close.

[Doctor_J]

8. THis might be the dumbest post today

and the bar is pretty high on that.

[Fearless]

12. Excuse me? Who made you the posting police?