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

[social_critic]

1. I guess the government TV needs an overhaul

I'd like to see a show where they put government guys mud wrestling with opposition guys, live. That would get a huge audience. Or if they don't want to do mud wrestling, they could do baseball.