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Venevision

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Venevision, is one of Venezuela's largest television networks, which is owned and presided over by Gustavo Cisneros. Similar to Televisa in Mexico, Venevision controls a large proportion of all show business activity in the country. In the United States, many of Venevision's popular programs are seen on the Univision network.

History

The company's roots date back to May 4, 1953, with the establishment of Television Independiente, S.A. . When Televisa went bankrupt in 1960, Diego Cisneros purchased the remaining assets of the company. On February 27, 1961, Venevision was officially inaugurated with a special inaugural show in which thousands of people attended, and took place in the stations parking lot. Venevision began with a capital of 5,500,000 bolivares and 150 employees including artists, administrators, and technical personnel. Venevision's original administrators were Diego Cisneros (president), Alfredo Torres (transmission manager), Hector Beltran (production manager), and Orlando Cuevas (general manager).

Initially, Venevision broadcast live because they hadn't yet installed the videotape system. Except for the news, the elaboration of their programs utilized the technical formats used in movies at that time. In a short period of time, Venevision greatly expanded nationally, and was seen in most of Venezuela on many VHF and UHF channels.

In March of 1961, the newly created Venevision and the American television network, ABC, signed two agreements: one for technical support and the other for the rights to broadcast each others programs. Thanks to these agreement, Venevision later began using the videotape system. In their first year of existence, Venevision made approximately 800,000 bolivares a month in advertisements.

In 1976, Venevision moved their transmitters, which were located on the top of a building in La Colina, a neighborhood in Caracas where Venevision's studios can be found, to Los Mecedores, near Venezolana de Television's studios and CANTV's installations. In Los Mecedores, a tower with an altitude of 100 meters was placed and a powerful new antenna was installed. With this new antenna, Venevision's signal was able to reach Petare, Caricuao, and Guarenas with better quality. In the 1970s, like other television stations in Venezuela, Venevision began expirementing with color broadcasts. In 1978, the Ministry of Transport and Communications fined Venevision 4,000 bolivares on two different occasions in one week for violating the regulations for color broadcasting.

In 1982, Venevision began preliminary work in the city of El Tigre (located in the Anzoategui State) to install equipment that would expand and improve their coverage in that region.

On November 1, 1986, Venevision was the first television station in Venezuela to have their very own satellite dish.

On May 27, 1987, The president Jaime Lusinchi, Venevision begin broadcast license in Venezuela on 20 years.

On February 4, 1992, Carlos Andres Perez addressed the nation from Venevision's studios during a coup attempt against his government.

Beginning on March 22, 1992, Venevision would broadcast for 24 hours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. In April 1994, it started broadcasting for 24 hours seven days a week. Today, Venevision is on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In 1995, Venevision was the first television station in South America to include news and movies with closed caption and the movies in Second audio program sound.

Venevision held the broadcasting rights to Venezuelan baseball games during the 2004-2005 and the 2005-2006 baseball seasons.

Since Venevision was inaugurated in 1961, their mascot has been a tiger.

In 2007, it started simulcasting Copa America and Miss Venezuela 2007 in high-defintion format.

Current schedule

To see Venevision's current schedule chart, click the following link.

International broadcasts

Many of Venevision's programs can be seen in other countries on Venevision Continental, a cable channel owned completely by Venevision. Other channels, such as Univision in the United States and Televisa in Mexico, broadcast some of Venevision's shows.

Criticism

Venevision has been a vocal opponent of President Hugo Chavez. On April 11, 2002, Venevision, along with most of the other private networks in Venezuela, simoultaneoulsly showed Chavez's address to the nation at the same time it was showing the shooting of people in a demonstration. In response, he ordered those stations off the air (they returned on the air after he was overthrown). The next day, Isaias Rodriguez announced in a news conference that Chavez had not resigned and that there had been a coup.

Opponents of Chavez claim that the government is abusing freedom of speech and press, especially after periodic inspections of the Venezuelan National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) and the implementation of the controversial Social Responsibility in Radio and Television Law (Ley Resorte).

Lately, Venevision has been criticized by the Venezuelan Opposition and Anti-Chavez group. Since the Presidential election in 2006, Venevision has quieted its opposition to Chavez, similar to rival Televen after the 2004 recall referendum. To many in the opposition and the other anti-Chavez TV networks, RCTV and Globovision, saw it as a betrayal, and accused Venevision to submitting to Chavez. The criticism of Venevision by the Opposition increased during the closure of RCTV by the Chavez government. RCTV was the most watch channel in Venezuela, and Venevision was second. Many viewed Venevision of secretly supporting the closure since it would benefit Venevision. The Venevision's coverage of the closure and the protests that followed where similar how Venevision covered the protest against the 2002 coup, Venevision aired its regular programing while the protest were going on.

External links

Official Site

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Venevision