AGAIN...

We have another loss in Venezuela. Less than three years after the government did not renew RCTV's broadcast license and sent the station to cable, now they have created a new norm, especially designed to take the station from the air, even on cable. The new norm classifies cable stations as "national" or "international." "National" stations must comply with the restrictive Media Content Law and broadcast the President's speeches, "cadenas." Not surprisingly, CONATEL, the government's communication regulating body declared that RCTV is "national" to be able to modify and control the oppositional stance in the station's content. RCTV did not broadcast a presidential cadena yesterday. Last night, cable companies, complying with the new norm, took RCTV out of the air.

So, today Venezuela wakes up with less of a voice. We're going towards a silence. Better said, they're moving the country towards a generalized silence in which the only voice that's heard is the President's.

Links with related news stories:

BBC News

AFP

Reuters

Without RCTV: Venezuelan TV is deformed

Today, two years ago Venezuelan network RCTV was closed. An arbitrary measure that was very telling of the government's character. 

Beyond the terrible loss of a key part of our freedom of expression, the absence of RCTV from the open airwaves has produced an immense deformation in Venezuela's television industry:

• Because RCTV is now only on cable, its revenues have dropped dramatically and so has its level of production.  Furthermore, the network is now almost exclusively devoted to producing remakes and adaptations of literary novels. These telenovela are of uneven quality regarding their scripts, casts and production values.  This has the detrimental effect of  impoverishing the Venezuelan telenovela industry.
• Obiously, both Televén and Venevisión now get higher shares. However, Televén doesn't really compete with Venevisión's high numbers. Hence, the latter wins almost every time slot in the programming grid.
• Without competition in the domestic market, Venevisión aims towards the international market.
• Regarding telenovelas, this means a new "norm" of 120 episodes, regardless of the storylines and their success (or lack thereof). (This is a bit of  a dumb "norm" when we consider the high international sales of Doña Bárbara, which boasts 190 episodes). In this sense, there is no respect for the story, nor for the audience. Because, even though extending a telenovela can be disrespectful to the viewers, not giving it enough episodes to develop correctly also denotes lack of respect.
• The lack of competition in the domestic market ensues a lackadaisical attitude regarding the network's promotion and presentation of its products. I don't see nearly the same energy regarding press releases and  interview opportunities that Venevisión used to show when competition with RCTV kept Venezuelan TV alive.  Also, the network's public relations efforts have ceased to be proactive, for the most part. 
• Regarding programming, it seems that it doesn't really matter if a telenovela is premiered at the wrong time of the year, as it happened with La Vida Entera, whose premiere coincided with regional elections and the professional baseball season. Nor does it seem to matter if transmission is irregular. After all, the local market is secured. (For 8 consecutive weeks, La Vida Entera did not air every day, as it should have).
• Because RCTV produces less and  Venevisión has the local market won, the quality of the work goes down. So do the salaries of those who work in telenovelas and television. 
• In this sense, it's actors who are the most affected. Their job sources are seriously diminished (the problem is even worse when we consider how the government is asphyxiating  both the theater scene and the film industry) and the two networks offer salaries that, in general, do not reflect the experience, talent and dedication of most Venezuelan actors.
• Political polarization, which has invaded almost every aspect of Venezuelan life, also affects the viewing habits of some audience sectors that refuse to watch Venevisión because they believe the network "sold out" to the government when it decided to eliminate political discourse from its programming. This is as sad as those members of the public, who are pro-government, and who've decided not to watch RCTV on cable. These decisions give political ideology the reign over media consumption, when each individual should be completely free to decide what they like or not, and what they will consume. Without realizing it, they're playing the President's game of "divide and conquer." 
• It doesn't help our television that we lose our critical skills because of our political position. As Venezuelans, we must require RCTV, Venevisión and Televén to give us the best possible television. We should not routinely excuse some media outlets because they've been shunned of the open airwaves and blindly indict others for still being there. 
• Maybe the worst problem is the immense fear to be closed by the government that exists in the media outlets that are still on the air. This fear has been transformed into the worst and saddest kind of censorship: self-censorship.  And even though the government has a media law to control media content, it's self-censorship which invasively and excessively regulates the content of a majority of private media outlets in Venezuela. Fear is never a good motivator.

After two years of the closing of RCTV, the panorama doesn't look good. Venezuelan TV is seriously deformed. And, so is our telenovela industry. However, I must say that censorship is always superficial and is never smart. Neither is self-censorship. We can always "turn it around" with intelligence. The ball, then, is in the audience's court. We read what we want and decode as we wish:

ONE YEAR LATER: THE CLOSING OF RCTV

One year later:

• We're still mourning.
• We still have one eye closed.
• We lost the mechanism of internal competition, essential to the evolution of Venezuelan TV.
  
• Nobody watches the government network TVES.
• The job sources for actors, producers, directors and technical crew members have been severely diminished.
  
• Writers in RCTV are adapting classic works or remaking old telenovelas.
• Writers in Venevisión are being directed to write for an "universal" market, not for Venezuelans. This international market seems to like telenovelas made in Miami, and those produced by Televisa and Telemundo. 
• Telefutura has a say in the casts of RCTV telenovelas, but then moves those same productions to humiliating slots in its schedule.
• Actors have seen their few work sources invaded by political polarization.
• In a modern twist of the witch hunts, some Venezuelans decided to judge actors and writers not by their talent, but by their workplace. 
• The wound hasn't healed. It's a wound in our freedom of expression, a hole in our remote control, and in our Venezuelan essence.

BACK WITH A NEW LOOK

When this blog turned six months old, I made the resolution to change its visual look. It's taken me almost six more months to do it since it isn't easy for me to find time for such a task. Finally, it's done! (Hence my wide smile as I look at my computer's screen). And it was possible thanks to the amazing help of my friend dRAGOONS. If you can read Spanish, I recommend you visit his blog, Utópico Real, where you will get to know this bioanalysis student, who moderates the Internet message board TVVI, and who has a real talent for visual communication.

The change in the blog's look comes at the same time as I arrive back to Athens after two intense weeks of research in Caracas, where I documented the current state of the telenovela industry, ten months after the closing of RCTV and its transformation into RCTV Internacional. I still have much analysis to do, but the panorama isn't particularly sunny for actors, writers and the Venezuelan public. Both RCTV Internacional and Venevisión have shifted gears and now privilege the international market over the local one. This will probably mean more remakes of old telenovelas and more telenovelas that follow the traditional model of the telenovela rosa. It isn't a good time for creativity and talent. In addition, the work sources for actors have significantly dried up.

This trip also included several media interviews about my book Venezuela es una Telenovela. It's always both surreal and fascinating for me to talk about my book. Interviews usually center in either or both aspects of my research: telenovelas and Venezuela.

There was an element of serendipity in my visit to my birth city. Two events coincided with my stay. I've commented already about the first one: the premiere of Caramelo e Chocolate, the first telenovela broadcast by government network TVES.

The second event was the end of the production of Arroz Con Leche, a telenovela that's entering its final broadcast week. In all the years I've been studying telenovelas, I'd never been able to witness that moment in a telenovela's biography. Once again I was reminded of the importance of vantage point for the construction of our perceptions, and the immense distance that exists between what people "know" about a telenovela's production and what actually happens behind the heavy doors of every television studio and inside the network's boardrooms.


While I was in Caracas there was an episode of Arroz Con Leche that garnered 15 points of rating, a true feat...even in the current no-internal-competition environment. In this particular episode the character Tomás Chacón beats his wife Amanda. (We don't see him actually hitting her because such scenes are prohibited by the Venezuelan Ley de Contenidos). What does this peak in the ratings mean under these circumstances? Is it because there's a fascination with violence and/or drama? Or is it that Venezuelans can identify with and/or recognize this issue as one of the country's most pressing sociocultural problems? It's worth analyzing since those numbers and the content of that episode provide us with a trap door through which we can examine the social formation.

TELENOVELAS: WHEN THERE IS NO COMPETITION II

Recently, I wrote a post about my concern regarding the loss of local color and flavor in Venezuelan telenovelas due to the lack of competition, now that RCTV is out of the open airwaves.

An important aspect of this no-competition phenomenon is the definition of local "success" or "failure" of a telenovela under this particular conditions.

Traditionally, ratings and shares have been the currency of the television system. Of course, good ratings aren't always accompanied by quality television. But, these numbers are considered by the industry and by advertisers as the measure of tv consumption.

But, what happens with the perception of these numbers when there isn't competition, as in the Venezuelan television case?

I don't think there's a change in the advertisers' perceptions. They know well that now that RCTV is only on cable, Venevisión is the colossus and the most watched tv network in Venezuela. For them, ratings have the same meaning they've always had. It's business as usual.

This is possibly true also for the majority of people who watch telenovelas in Venezuela. Those who don't care about ratings, or who wins, but who just want to be entertained by their telenovela of choice. Their decision-making process every evening is still pretty much the same. They just have fewer options, courtesy of the Venezuelan government.

I note a change in perception, though, in those members of the audience that are most committed to the telenovela genre: bloggers and message board participants. In those spaces politics frequently color the perception of whatever is on the tv screen. Ratings, which are seldom made public, are interpreted, even when there hasn't been access to them. Opinions are created about this or that telenovela, and spirals of silence (Noelle-Neuman, 1974) appear among those who disagree, but who perceive themselves as being in the minority, even if they aren't.

Given Venezuela's intense political polarization and the soon-to-happen important constitutional reform referendum, I'm not surprised by most of what I read in blogs and boards. However, there are some arguments that intrigue me. For instance, there is the generalized assumption that if RCTV wasn't only on cable, that its telenovelas would win on primetime. This, of course, is impossible to know for sure. The most important thing I've learned in all these years studying telenovelas is that the audience is unpredictable. Therefore, RCTV could well win or lose.

There is an interesting paradox that has caught my attention. The most visited post in the Spanish version of my blog is the only one that mentions Venevisión's telenovela Arroz con Leche. (Here the post's version in English). However, participants in message boards frequently say that this telenovela is a failure. Some argue that its share is lower than Venevisión's average share...an intriguing and fascinating argument...That is, that since the telenovela has no competition, then it competes against the network that produces it.

This disparity between the number of hits to that particular post and the opinions expressed on the Internet made me look carefully at recent shares and ratings for the 9 p.m .slot.

Below, a graphic I prepared with the shares of the first two weeks of November. I didn't include Sundays (no telenovelas air on Sundays), or the days where baseball games preempted the telenovela's broadcast.

(Please click on the graphic so you can see it bigger):



A few reflections:

* Because RCTV isn't on the open airwaves anymore, the distance between Venevisión and the rest is immense, in terms of share.
* At 9 p.m., Televén and the Cable (aggregate share of all cable outlets) fight tooth and nail for second place.
* On most days, telenovela Arroz con Leche has a better share that its network average (green line).
* It's still impossible to predict who would win at 9 p.m. if RCTV was still on the commercial airwaves.

So, what can we say about the success or failure of Venevisión's telenovelas, now that there is no competition?

I don't believe we can clasify them as a failure, given the distance between them and the other options offered by Televén and the other commercial TV outlets.

At the same time, their success will always be tarnished by the absence of its traditional competitor, RCTV. It's like those baseball records with an asterisk.

On the other hand, what can we say about the success or failure of RCTV's telenovelas, now that they air only via cable?

We can't say they are successful or failures. We can only compare their numbers with the other options available by cable. Again, in baseball terms, this is like speculating whether an African American player who was never allowed to play in the Major Leagues would have been a record holder. Unfortunately, we can only speculate...

The most important thing is that by being assured (Venevisión) or incapacitated (RCTV) to hold the local market's supremacy, the focus of network executives and owners will shift to the international market. In this way, the terms of the game change. And, maybe, the way Venezuelan telenovelas will be written and produced from now on will change too.

Good News: The Association of Venezuelan Actors

Difficult historical moments can bring about positive consequences. Such is the case of the closing of Venezuelan television network RCTV. The immense dent suffered by our freedom of expression has brought about the creation of LA ASOCIACIÓN DE ACTORES Y PROFESIONALES DEL ESPECTÁCULO Y EL ENTRENIMIENTO (The Association of Actors and Entertainment Professionals), an overdue event that I welcome happily.

I wish that the association centers its efforts on the defense of the principles that sustain a free society and the rights of all its associates. I also hope that the association will elevate the perception of actors that the average Venezuelan holds, underscore the most noble aspects of these professions and crafts , and encourage and facilitate the professional training of all its members.

Following is the original text of the Letter of Principles of the new Association. It's in Spanish, but I know many of my readers will be able to understand the gist of it.

CARTA DE PRINCIPIOS DE LA ASOCIACIÓN DE ACTORES Y PROFESIONALES DEL ESPECTÁCULO Y EL ENTRENIMIENTO

Amparados en los derechos constitucionales nacionales y derechos humanos universales que nos asisten, referidos a la libertad de pensamiento, expresión, información, creación y asociación, y en pleno ejercicio de estas facultades, hemos decidido constituirnos en la Asociación de Actores y Profesionales del Espectáculo y el Entretenimiento, que se regirá bajo los siguientes principios:

· La Asociación, será democrática, participativa y asamblearia
· De carácter plural y unitario,
· Comprometida en defender las libertades, la democracia y los derechos humanos
· Animada en el ejercicio de la tolerancia, la inclusión y la necesaria reconciliación nacional, indispensable para la paz y crecimiento de los venezolanos
· Comprometida en velar en pro de la igualdad de oportunidades y condiciones, sin discriminación alguna de ideología política, religión, sexo, raza y cualquier condición o circunstancia personal o social
· Fundamentada en la solidaridad
· Fundamentada en el respeto a la diversidad de actividades de los actores y profesionales del Espectáculo y Entretenimiento
· Comprometida en la defensa de las reivindicaciones de los asociados y profesiones representadas, con el fin de incidir sustantivamente en la mejora de calidad de vida y condiciones trabajo
· Comprometida en organizar y representar a los Profesionales del espectáculo y entretenimiento: Actores, animadores, escritores, directores, productores; de Teatro, Cine, Televisión, Radio, doblaje, video, internet y cualquier otro medio inventado o por inventar; en defensa de sus derechos y e intereses.
· Comprometida en propiciar espacios y programas dirigidos al bienestar y seguridad social de los asociados
· Es de interés de la Asociación, la creación, y desarrollo de la Industria del espectáculo y del entretenimiento en todas sus expresiones y medios; en pro del fomento de empleos y estabilidad laboral

En consecuencia los abajo firmantes declaramos que realizaremos acciones y actividades en la defensa de la libertad, de la democracia y los derechos humanos en pro del derecho al trabajo y la reconciliación del país

Caracas veintiseis de junio del dos mil siete

Original Stories or Remakes?

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Luis Clemens, a freelance reporter who covers Hispanic marketing and media for trade publications such as Multichannel News.

In his blog, Clemenseando, Clemens wrote a post titled Too Many Telenovela Remakes? in which he describes the current telenovela landscape in U.S. Spanish speaking networks:

All three of Univision's primetime telenovelas are remakes. "La Fea Más Bella" is a Televisa remake of Fernando Gaitán's "Yo soy Betty, la fea." "Destilando Amor" is the Mexicanization of another Gaitán novela "Café, con aroma de mujer". In the new Televisa-produced version, Colombian coffee has been replaced with Mexican tequila. (The original setting of a coffee plantation has been replaced with an agave plantation and agave is the basic ingredient of tequila). "Duelo de Pasiones" is yet another Televisa remake. This novela is a remake of "Flor de las Nieves", which first aired in Cuba in the late 1950s.

To be sure, remakes aren't exclusive to the U.S. telenovela landscape. Remakes ("refritos", as they are commonly called in Venezuela) are present in many television stations across the world which, like Univisión, purchase their telenovelas from Mexican giant Televisa.

In Venezuela, remakes also have a place in television production. In the last few years, RCTV re-made as single shows some of its most successful telenovelas like La Señora de Cárdenas, Natalia de 8 a 9 and Silvia Rivas, Divorciada, all originally written by José Ignacio Cabrujas. In 2006, RCTV broadcast to low ratings a remake of Julio César Mármol's El Desprecio. And before being taken off the air by the government's cancellation of its license, RCTV was airing Mi Prima Ciela, written by Pilar Romero as a remake of her two successful telenovelas Elizabeth and Maite. Venevisión has also produced remakes of variable quality and degrees of success. (By the way, the question why remakes aren't always successful in Venezuela merits a separate post).

As I told Clemens, when he interviewed me, I'm not against remakes. But, I am against producing an excessive number of them. I also disagree with those who see the remake as the only production option, or as their preferred production choice. I firmly believe that it isn't healthy for the telenovela industry that one of its crucial players--Televisa--produces almost exclusively remakes. This focus on remake production will gradually asphyxiate creativity, diminish the generation of new plots and the possibilities of Latin Americans telling the stories of who we are and how we love. In the long term, remakes may produce fatigue in the audience as the genre will lose its freshness.


Last summer Produ.com published on its website a collection of videotaped interviews with key producers and writers discussing the issue of remakes. In his interview, Colombian writer Fernando Gaitán, whose marvellous Yo soy Betty, la Fea has been successfully remade in many countries, and is the inspiration for ABC's Ugly Betty, states that "television can't continue repeating itself, they're going to kill the genre", and adds "the remake is eating up the telenovela".


Award-winning Venezuelan author Alberto Barrera Tyszka hits the nail on the head when he states that the current emphasis on remakes "is related to one of the telenovela industry's strongest anxieties: how to guarantee success".
Certainly, the percepction among many networks executives is that remakes are sure successes. This is particularly true in Mexico.


And, even though Mexican producers like Salvador Mejías argue that they are the ones taking risks "because the issue is that people don't feel it's a remake", it seems obvious to me that the preference for remakes is a telltale sign that the "business" aspect of the telenovela is paramount and more important than any of the other facets of this media/cultural product that so defines Latin Americans.

I alway say that telenovelas have a little (or a lot) of Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Montecristo, The Prince and the Pauper, The Man in the Iron Mask and Ugly Duckling, among other classic plots. Notwithstanding this common ground, Latin American creativity has produced wonderfully diverse love stories with characters we know and recognize. These are stories about ourselves, and as such they must evolve with the social formation and not get stuck in a vicious cycle of repetition.

(Note: Here you can find several video interviews with Fernando Gaitán in Spanish, including the one in which he discusses remakes. Also, through the link Ver más opiniones del Remake, you can access other interviews on this same topic).

Telenovelas and the Closing of RCTV

In the sad and worrisome saga of the closing of RCTV, telenovelas have taken center stage.

In political discourse:


On May 26, one day before closing RCTV, Chávez mentioned telenovelas as one of RCTV-induced worst ills in Venezuelan society, calling them "pure poison" that promote capitalism, "a danger for the country, for boys, for girls.” Ironic words coming from one of the most important beneficiaries from the ideological work performed in the mid 1990s by RCTV's telenovela Por Estas Calles.


Telenovelas are also an ingredient of the opposition's discourse that criticizes the closing of RCTV. For instance, Monsignor Roberto Lückert, vicepresident of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, Conferencia Episcopal Venezolana , declared in daily El Universal that the end of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) “injures the Venezuelan sentiment because it is one of the oldest communication enterprises in the country" , whose telenovelas and humorous shows were “part of Venezuela's sentiments and feelings”. Surprising words coming from the Catholic Church, which has traditionally criticized telenovelas, but consistent with the logic of polarization that pervades my country.

In academic discourse:

There is an acknowledgement of the privileged sociocultural role that telenovelas play in Venezuela. In Latin America in general, and in Venezuela in particular, melodrama is a key element of identity. (Personally, I keep searching for the English equivalent to the verb “despechar”… and haven't been able to find it, after many years...is it that only Latin Americans can be "despechados?" Maybe that's why boleros, rancheras and telenovelas are Latin American. ) Academic discourse in Venezuela also acknowledges the role that fiction plays in our imaginary. As sociologist Tulio Hernánez expressed en El Universal on June 1st:

“In fiction, only in fiction, life is as we would like it to be: Good people are rewared, bad people are punished, and suffering lovers trust their eternal love. Fiction is a commercial product that the masses perceived and celebrate with a high degree of identification. As part of Venezuelan culture, every night people watch with focused attention an episode of their favorite story and follow the comings and goings of its characters. RCTV, as the pioneering and oldest network with 53 years of history and the largest number of telenovelas under its belt, has created an affective and emotional link with the audience."

In the public's perception(s):

In blogs and Internet chatrooms dedicated to Venezuelan television, there are many posts indicating how the audience misses watching RCTV's telenovelas. “What about my telenovelas?”, is the question being asked by a generation that has chosen every night between RCTV, Venevisión, and more recently, Televén.

Surely, some of RCTV shows have found and alternative outlet. We can watch newscast El Observador in youtube. And it seems that humorous show La Rochela will be on the air this coming Monday on Globovisión. But...what about telenovelas? It's hard to imagine them on any outlet related to Internet, like youtube and Globovisión, because that would hamper international sales, which are the most important source of income for what is left of RCTV. Therefore, I don't think the audience will be able to watch its telenovelas in the near future.

Before ending this long post, I must mention how important it has become for the Venezuelan audience to see telenovela actors express publicly their rejection to the closing of RCTV. And even though throughout my research I've learned that both in RCTV and self-censored Venevisión there are actors from every political stance, the audience uses the simplistic and manichean logic of polarization and assumes that if an actor hasn't voiced publicly (VERY publicly, as in standing on the stage of one of the street protests, or appearing on a TV opinion show) their rejection of the government's measure against RCTV, then that actor must be "chavista", a supporter of Hugo Chávez. (See in Spanish: 1 and 2). The public (and some of the entertainment columns) now are the judges of actors' credibility, and their judgement is based on political position. In these perceptions we see, one more time, evidences of the domination of the logic of polarization, the use of labels (“chavista”, “antichavista”, etc.) to organize reality, and the wide fracture in Venezuelan society. And all these factors help the government, not those who opppose it.

Actors are also the target of the government's attacks. The Chávez government understands well the power of popular culture and its voices in Venezuela, and, therefore, wants to diminish and silence those powerful voices when they aren't on their own side. Hence, we see Chávez further demonizing the private media, arguing that these "manipulate people's feelings" by "placing a bunch of crying actors on the screen. It's a terrible thing, typical of fascism."


Yesterday, actors protested in the streets of Caracas and turned in an important document to the OAS. It's a first step to "rescue the public spaces that have been seized and taken away from us" (actor, writer and university professor Javier Vidal).

And this is the heart of the matter:
The government closes spaces and limits our options. Among these options are telenovelas. Those imperfect and controversial melodramas that are part and parcel of Venezuelans' daily diet and identity.


---Cartoon taken from The Economist-May 30, 2007

Mourning Venezuela's Freedom of Expression

This blog is about telenovelas, but I must write today about how freedom of expression is being severely eroded in my country.

Sunday, at midnight, Venezuelans saw a sad sucession of images on their television screens: the faces of RCTV's workers and friends singing the Venezuelan National Anthem were substituded with a black screen that signaled the end of 53 years of uninterrupted television. Seconds later the logo of TVES, the new government TV station, appeared on the screen.

A commercial, private media outlet has been substituted by a government-controlled one.

A friend told me that it feels as if Venezuela has been suddenly mutilated. It has lost an eye, an ear, and some of its voice.

Since Sunday night, the streets of Caracas and other major cities are smoldering with citizens, many of them students, who feel that the closing of RCTV is unacceptable and that the government has gone too far this time. Tear gas and plastic pellets are being used to "control" them. (Tonight there are more than 100 underage youngsters in jail in Caracas because they were protesting in the streets. At the time of this writing, their parents haven't been allowed to see them).

Meanwhile, the President, his ministers, and members of the unicameral and uni-ideological National Assembly, fill the airwaves threatening local and international media that define what happened to RCTV as a "closing." These public officers also trivialize and mock the reaction in the streets and universities as "weepy" and unrepresentative of the larger population , or condemn it as concocted by the "oligarchy" fueled by "imperialism."

And as the fire of polarization is being stoked, the division between government supporters and opponents is again evidenced. And this fracture that has broken my country into two is as sad as the overt attack on Venezuelans' freedoms.

A Sad Day for Venezuelan Television

Tonight at midnight the Venezuelan government will close RCTV, Venezuela's oldest TV network.

The Chávez government is the most recent episode in Venezuela's political and social history. My country goes from illusion to illusion, and from disillusion to disillusion. The decision to close RCTV underscores and evidences that this government doesn't accept dissenting or opposing views.

The government alleges that RCTV abused the airwaves with its radical opposition discourse. I believe that it is always bad news when a mass medium takes an extreme political position, be it in favor or against the government. In Venezuela, with very vew exceptions, bad news are the norm: the insulting officialist content of La Hojilla in VTV, the paralizing self-censorship of network Venevisión, Televén's silence, the government's intention of making Telesur the new Latin American Al Jazeera, and the blind oppositional stance of several media outlets. They are all bad news because in extremely polarized Venezuela, the first casualty of its ideological war was the search for "truth." By presenting distorted and incomplete versions of reality, ALL Venezuelan media outlets have gradually disabled Venezuelans from being truly informed citizens.

But the answer isn't to close an oppositional outlet and substitute it with a government one (Officialist TVES will air on RCTV's frequency, using its equipment which the Supreme Court has ordered be turned in to the government, which will run TVES). This makes matters worse and moves Venezuelan television closer to a monolith, in which there are only two options: to support the government or be silent.

The decision to close RCTV also disrespects popular will. Polls show that polarized Venezuelans agree on something: they oppose the closing of this network. RCTV is an important part of their everyday life, and it has been for more than 50 years. It's difficult to imagine Venezuelan life without RCTV. But this is this government's modus operandi: for the sake of correcting what it considers "historical errors," they create new errors of historic magnitude.

Here, a link to Le Monde's editorial against the closing of this television network:

Censure à la Chavez
LE MONDE | 26.05.07

©

And what about telenovelas (the main topic of this blog)?
Closing RCTV is an immense loss to the genre. There are rumors that RCTV will still produce telenovelas for the international market and that Venezuelans will still be able to watch them via cable (although many poor Venezuelans don't have access to cable). Today, Sunday, we really don't know what will happen. We will have to wait until tomorrow, which will be even sadder than today. Meanwhile, here are some of those who worked on RCTV to give us some of the greatest telenovela moments in history:


Amalia Pérez Díaz


Doris Wells


Raúl Amundaray and Agustina Martín in El Derecho de Nacer


Gustavo Rodríguez, Pierina España, José Luis Rodríguez and Tomás Henríquez in Estefanía


Mayra Alejandra in La Hija de Juana Crespo


Eva Blanco, Doris Wells and Eva Moreno in Historia de Tres Hermanas


Gledys Ibarra as Luna Camacho in Amores de Fin de Siglo


Doris Wells and José Bardina in La Fiera


Doris Wells, Marina Baura and Aroldo Betancourt in La Hora Menguada


Marialejandra Martín, Aroldo Betancourt and Franklin Virguez in Por Estas Calles


Miguel Angel Landa and Doris Wells in La Señora de Cárdenas

Open Letter from Venezuela Re: Closing of RCTV

We, artists, writers, poets, cultural promoters, actors and actresses; men and women united by the values of the freedom of creation, manifest to national and international public opinion our great alarm regarding the imminent annexation of a new TV station to the asphyxiating official media monopoly that is gradually being consolidated in the country.

We want to denounce this disgrace. It is not our intention to add reasons to the arguments that until now have been fruitlessly brought to the attention of the Executive Power from various sectors of national life requesting the cessation of the measure to close RCTV and respect towards constitutional principles and the present laws that consecrate plurality of thought and freedom of expression as an undeniable base of our democracy.

We want to lift our firm and decided voice of solidarity with a feeling that is, without a doubt and without distinguishing between political preferences, shared by the great majority of Venezuelans.

In Caracas, on the twenty-sixth day of the month of May of two thousand seven.

Priscilla Abecasis
Aída Acuña
Ximena Agudo
Marco Aguilar
Yoyiana Ahumada
Miguel Albujas Dorta
Harry Almela
José Tomás Angola Heredia
Moira Angulo Inciarte
Sergio Antillano
Alexander Apóstol
Freddy Aquino
Carmen Araujo
Leonardo Aranguibel
Mariela Arismendi
Edda Armas
Dolly Armitano
Carolina Arnal
Yubiri Arráiz
Belkys Arredondo Olivo
Alberto Barrera Tyszka
Igor Barreto
Luz Marina Barreto
Guillermo Barrios
María Auxiliadora Barrios
Giuliano Bartolozzi
Analya Belisario
Waleska Belisario
Jaime Bello León
Paula Bevilacqua
Nicolás Blanco Colmenares
Ana Black
Alberto Blanco
Valerie Brathwaite
Soledad Bravo
Carolina Brewer
Berta E. Briceño de Tamayo
Luis Brito
Francisco Bugallo
Mariana Bunimov
Guadalupe Burelli
Yul Bürkle
Manuel Caballero
Irene Calcaño
Sary Calonge Cole
Colette Capriles
Amalia Caputo
Andrés Cardinale
Freddy Carreño
Maricarmen Carrillo
Adicea Castillo
Rafael Castillo Zapata
Altair Castro
Ana Caufman de Palenzuela
Jesús Caviglia
Israel Centeno
Eddy Chacón
Thais Chirinos
Sonia Chocrón
Isabel Cisneros
Armando Coll
Marylee Coll
Fabiola Colmenáres
Héctor Concari
Gloria Cuenca
Maruja Dagnino
Sergio Dahbar
Laura Dasilva de Yépez
Milagro De Blavia
Andreina Lazo de Delfino
Maitena de Elguezabal
Cecilia de Gunz
Ivanova Decán
Ana María Del Re
Carmen Alicia Di Pasquale
Audino Diaz
Jeannette Díaz
Bebsabé Duque
Ralph Erminy
Elsa Esté
Roldán Esteva Grillet
Iván Estrada
Ana Teresa Fábregas
Rosana Faria
Iván Feo
Magdalena Fernández
José Antonio Fernández
María Clara Fernández
Carlos Fernández Cuesta
Ana Luisa Figueredo
Carlos Flores León
Alicia Freilich
Claudia Furiati
Raquel Gamus
Gregorio García
Beatriz Gil
Jaime Gili
Dulce Gómez
Milagro Gómez de Blavia
Julieta González
Mercedes Elena González
Víctor Guédez
José Guerra C.
José Antonio Guevara
Moisés Guevara
Cristina Guevara Cruz
Rafael Guillén
Tomás Gunz
Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza
Patricia Guzmán
Katyna Henríquez Consalvi
Alberto Hernández
Oscar Hernández
Tulio Hernández
Alba R. Hernández Bossio
Adolfo Herrera
Gonzalo Himiob Santomé
Solveig Hoogesteijn
María Elena Huizi
Susy Igliki
Sofía Ímber
Luis F. Indriago
Consuelo Iranzo
Julio Iribarren
Verónica Jaffé
Ariel Jiménez
Ricardo Jiménez
Oliver Krisch
Trina Krispin
Gisela Kozak
Luis Miguel La Corte
Roberto Lamarca
Roberto Lampo
Luz Laride Duarte
Enrique Larrañaga
Alfredo Lascoutx
Juan Carlos Lazo
Javier León
Clementina Lepervanche
Eduardo Liendo
Martha Lluch
Rolando Loewenstein
María Teresa López
Pepe López
Antonio López Ortega
Oscar Lucien
María Elena Maggi
Anna Karina Manco
Josefina Manrique
Elsy Manzanares
Luis Manzo
Noemí Márquez
Joaquín Marta Sosa
Américo Martín
Marialejandra Martín
Mónica Martíz
Luis Alejandro Maryniok
Mónica Maryniok Zanoletty
Esperanza Mayobre
Ana María Mazzei
Bernardo Mazzei
Consuelo Méndez
Corina Michelena
Miguel Miguel
Octavio Montiel
Gustavo A. Mora Ciangherotti
Adolfo Morales
Jairo A. Morales
Marcela Navea
Marco Negrón
Vilma Obadía
Nela Ochoa
Ana María Olalde
Rafael Osío
Martha Pabón
Carlos Pacheco
Scarlet Pacheco
Julio Pacheco Rivas
Leonardo Padrón
Juan Páez Ávila
Gazniella Pagazani
Carlos E. Palacios
Federica Palomero
Yolanda Pantin
Valentina Párraga
Antonio Pasquali
Max Pedemonte
Rolando Peña
Luis Pérez Oramas
Juan José Pérez Rancel
Sagrario Pérez Soto
Amalyn Pérez-Díaz
Omar Phillips
Rhandy Piñango Pinto
Sandra Pinardi
María Esther Pino León
Lucía Pizzani
Nyrma Prieto
Adrian Pujol
Duiliana Pulgar
Yenis Pulio
Josefina Punceles de Benedetti
Antonio Quintero
Inés Quintero
Valentina Quintero
Cristina Raffalli
Vilma Ramia
María Ramírez Ribes
María Elena Ramos
Carla Redondo
Eleonora Requena
Ana Isabel Reyna
Raquel Ríos Castro
Ivonne Rivas
Luz Marina Rivas
Nelson Rivera
Jonder Rivero
Tahía Rivero
Inirida Rodriguez
Fernando Rodríguez
Odoardo Rodriguez
Gisela Romero
José Rosas Vera
Bela Rosemberg
Elizabeth Safar
Jacinto Salcedo
Marisabel Sanchez
Luisa Elena Sánchez
Ana Luisa Sánchez
Antonio Sánchez García
Rafael Santana
Tania Sarabia
Nila Sareet
Nancy Serrano
Carolina Siefken
Héctor Silva Michelena
María Cristina Silva-Díaz
Raquel Soffer
Beatriz Sogbe
Edward Sosa
Mariángeles Soto-Díaz
Alberto Spinetti
Patricia Suárez
Pedro Tagliafico
Lihie Talmor
Lucero Tamayo
Iraida Tapias
Pedro Terán
Alonso Toro
Carolina Toro
José Toro Hardy
Ana Teresa Torres
Isabel Urbaneja
Eric Urbina
Alejo Urdaneta
Orlando Urdaneta
Clementina Vaamonde
Patricia van Dalen
Toña Vegas
Yolisbeth Velarde
Henrique Vera
Anabeli Vera Marín
María Marcela Vethencourt Koifman
Adriana Villanueva
Benjamín Villares
Gladys Villarroel
Gisela Viloria
Fernando Wamprechts
Marina Wecksler
Carmen Cristina Wolf
José Luis Yépez Torres
Pedro León Zapata
Manuel Zapico
Luis Zelkowicz
Julia Zurilla


El Nacional, May 26, 2007

Silencing Venezuela's voices: Closing RCTV

This is a terrible week for Venezuela. This coming Sunday, RCTV, the country's oldest tv network will close because the government refuses to renew its concession.

RCTV has produced telenovelas that have made history in Venezuela and around the world.






"Not renewing the concession" is the purposefully misleading term used by the government to cloak its real intention of silencing opposition voices. This move has already have a considerable chilling effect on the other networks: Venevision and Televen.

As I said at the beginning of this post: Venezuela is living a terrible moment. I believe that when RCTV broadcasts its last program this Sunday, my country will definitely enter one of its darkest moments regarding freedom of expression and of the press. Who will be the next victim?