Venezuelan Government Orders Platforms to Pull RCTV

CARACAS: The telecommunications regulator in Venezuela, Conatel, this weekend asked cable providers to pull RCTV from their lineups, alleging that the station is in violation of local rules by refusing to broadcast some of President Hugo Chávez’s speeches.

RCTV was removed from Venezuelan terrestrial airwaves in May of 2007 after regulatory authorities refused to renewed its free-TV license. In July of that year, the channel, which had been critical of Chávez’s policies, relaunched as a cable and satellite service. This weekend, local pay-TV providers were told to cease carriage because the channel did not air a Saturday speech by Chávez. “They must comply with the law, and they cannot have a single channel that violates Venezuelan laws as part of their programming,” Diosdado Cabello, the director of Conatel, is quoted as saying.

New Venezuelan regulations mandate that channels classified as national services must preempt programming to run government content when deemed necessary. "The fight is about wanting to be, or not, classified as an international producer,” Cabello said on state television. “If you want to be international, your programming has to be more than 70 percent foreign. If it’s under 70 percent, you have to comply with Venezuelan norms.”

RCTV, in its own statement, said that Conatel “doesn’t have any authority to give the cable service providers this order. The government is inappropriately pressuring them to make decisions beyond their responsibilities."

Reports indicate that more than 20 services were pulled from Venezuelan pay-TV airwaves because of the Conatel order.