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Alert

Future of private television network may be subject to referendum and its broadcast frequency offered to cooperatives

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF today voiced concern about the threat hanging over the privately-owned broadcasting group Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) that its licence may not be renewed. Communication and information minister William Lara announced after the presidential election on 3 December 2006 that the network's future will be put to a referendum.

"If RCTV's licence is withdrawn because it is an opposition network, then it is clearly a violation of editorial diversity," RSF said. "As President Hugo Chávez was re-elected by a very broad margin, we fail to understand the logic and above all the timing of this move."

The press freedom organisation added: "Anyway, it is not the role of a news media to govern, so its future should not depend on the outcome of a referendum. And why should the development of community media, encouraged by the government, threaten the existence of commercial media? We call on the Venezuelan government to review its position."

When Lara announced on 11 December that the renewal of RCTV's licence would be put to a referendum, he was partially echoing a suggestion made during the election campaign by Chávez that a referendum should be held on the concessions held by all four leading privately-owned national television networks - Globovisión, Venevisión, RCTV and Televen - which all back the opposition and did not conceal their support for the April 2002 coup attempt against Chávez. Created in 1953, RCTV is Venezuela's old commercial television station.

Lara unveiled his initiative after a meeting with community media outlets at which, he said, they had requested a referendum on RCTV. Two weeks before, the governor of the northern state of Miranda, Diosdado Cabello, said 2,000 independent media were interested in sharing the braodcasting frequency assigned to RCTV. Carlos Escarrá, the head of the ruling coalition's parliamentary block and the person in charge of proposing constitutional reforms on private property, suggested during the election that RCTV's frequency be reassigned to cooperatives.

Under Venezuelan law, a broadcast media's infrastructure, equipment and buildings are private property but broadcast frequencies belong to the state, which assigns them to individual media.