Venevisión

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**Venevisión**

Type	Broadcast television station
Country	Venezuela
Availability	National
Founder	Diego Cisneros
Slogan	"Vive en ti" (Lives Within you)
Owner	Grupo Cisneros
Key people	Gustavo Cisneros, President, CEO
Launch date	February 27, 1961
Analog channel	4
Website	Venevisión

Venevisión, channel 4, is one of Venezuela's largest television networks, which is owned and presided over by Gustavo Cisneros. Similar to Televisa in Mexico, Venevisión controls a large proportion of all show business activity in the country. Venevisión's top rival is Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). In the United States, many of Venevisión's popular programs are seen on the Univision network.

1 History
2 Current schedule
3 International broadcasts
4 Criticism
5 Trivia
6 See also
7 External link

[edit] History

The company's roots date back to May 4, 1953, with the establishment of Televisión Independiente, S.A. (also known as Televisa, unconnected with the Mexican broadcaster Televisa which did not exist under that name until 1973). When Televisa went bankrupt in the late 1950's, Diego Cisneros purchased the remaining assets of the company. On February 27, 1961, Venevisión was officially inaugurated with a special inaugural show in which thousands of people attended, and took place in the stations parking lot. Venevisión began with a capital of 5,500,000 bolívares (less than US$2,750 today) and 150 employees including artists, administrators, and technical personnel. Venevisión's original administrators were Diego Cisneros (president), Alfredo Torres (transmission manager), Héctor Beltrán (production manager), and Orlando Cuevas (general manager).

Initially, Venevisión broadcasted live due to the fact that 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, Venevisión greatly expanded, and was seen in most of Venezuela on VHF channels 4, 6, 7, 9, and 12.

In March of 1961, the newly created Venevisión 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, Venevisión later began using the videotape system. In their first year of existence, Venevisión made approximately 800,000 bolívares a month in advertisements.

In 1976, Venevisión moved their transmitters, which were located on the top of a building in La Colina, a neighborhood in Caracas where Venevisión's studios can be found, to Los Mecedores, near Venezolana de Televisión'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, Venevisión's signal was able to reach Petare, Caricuao, and Guarenas with better quality. In the 1970s, like other television stations in Venezuela, Venevisión began expirementing with color broadcasts. In 1978, the Ministry of Transport and Communications fined Venevisión 4,000 bolívares on two different occasions in one week for violating the regulations for color broadcasting.

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

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

On February 4, 1992, Carlos Andrés Pérez addressed the nation from Venevisión's studios during a coup attempt against his government.

Beginning on March 22, 1992, Venevisión would broadcast for 24 hours on fridays, saturdays, and sundays. Today, Venevisión is on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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

[edit] Current schedule

Further information: List of programs broadcast by Venevision

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

[edit] International broadcasts

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

[edit] Criticism

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

Opponents of Chávez 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). And the LOMNA, which is a law claiming to protect minors while probably jst being used as an excuse for the government to censor speech in television networks before 10pm

After Chávez's victory in the Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004, Venevisión's criticisms have been more muted.