Venevisión () is a Venezuelan

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

television channel and one of

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

's largest television networks, owned by the Cisneros Media division of Grupo Cisneros.

History

The company's roots date back to June 1, 1953, with the establishment of Televisora Mirandina Independiente S.A, (Televisa), which operated the channel 4 in Caracas and channel 5 in Maracaibo. When TELEVISA went bankrupt in 1960, Diego Cisneros purchased the remaining assets of the company. On February 27, 1961, Venevisión (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsparking lot. Venevisión began with a capital of 5,500,000 bolívares 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 broadcast live because 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 nationally, and was seen in most of Venezuela on many VHF and UHF channels. In March 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 other's programs. Because of these agreements, Venevisión later began using the videotape system. In their first year of existence, Venevisión made approximately 800,000 bolívares a month in advertisements. By 1971, it began to bring its then black and white programs to viewers internationally via videotape, with the drama program ''Esmeralda'' as the first to do so. In the next year, the network officially took over the broadcasts of the

Miss Venezuela Miss Venezuela (Spanish: ''Organización Miss Venezuela'') is the national beauty pageant of Venezuela, traditionally held in September. It is preceded by two or three months of preliminary events, with the awarding of corporate prizes. The fi ...

beauty pageant, and it has been its home ever since. 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 Corporación Venezolana de Televisión (Spanish for: ''Venezuelan Television Corporation'') or VTV is a state-run television station based in Caracas, Venezuela, which can be seen throughout the capital and surrounding areas on channel 8. Programs ...

's studios and

CANTV CANTV () is the state-run telephone and internet service provider in Venezuela. It was one of the first telephone service enterprises in the country, founded in 1930. The largest telecommunications provider in Venezuela, it was privatized in 19 ...

'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 Caricuao () is a district of Caracas, Venezuela. It is part of Libertador municipality. It is named after a powerful indigenous chief of the Caracas tribe, who fought bravely against the Spaniard Conquistadores; he and Tiuna chief were the firs ...

, and

Guarenas Guarenas is a city in Miranda, Venezuela. It was established in 1621 as ''Nuestra Señora de Copacabana de los Guarenas''. It is part of the Guarenas-Guatire conurbation On February 27, 1989, a morning protest in this city over the recent nati ...

with better quality. In the 1970s, like other television stations in Venezuela, Venevisión began experimenting with color broadcasts. In 1978, the Ministry of Transport and Communications fined Venevisión 4,000 bolívares on two occasions in one week for violating the regulations for color broadcasting. It was only the next year when color broadcasts commenced, with full color transmissions commencing on June 1, 1980. The very first programme by Venevision shown in color was the eight edition of the OTI Festival, which was held in Caracas and broadcast live to all Latin-America, Spain and Portugal. In 1982, Venevisión began preliminary work in the city of

El Tigre El Tigre () is a city of Venezuela located in the state Anzoátegui. It is the capital of Simón Rodríguez Municipality and it is located south in Anzoategui state, equidistant from the Orinoco River and the Caribbean Sea in the Guanipa Mesa a ...

(located in the

Anzoátegui State ) , anthem = '' Himno del Estado Anzoátegui'' , image_map = Anzoategui in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map = , pushpin_map_ ...

) 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 May 27, 1987, president

Jaime Lusinchi Jaime Ramón Lusinchi (27 May 1924 – 21 May 2014) was a Venezuelan politician who was the president of Venezuela from 1984 to 1989. His term was characterized by an economic crisis, growth of the external debt, populist policies, currency dep ...

gave a 20-year broadcasting licence to the network. 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. In April 1994, it started broadcasting for 24 hours seven days a week. Today, Venevisión is on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 1995, Venevisión was the first television station in South America to include news and movies with

closed caption Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio po ...

and the movies in

Second audio program Second audio program (SAP), also known as secondary audio programming, is an auxiliary audio channel for analog television that can be broadcast or transmitted both over-the-air and by cable television. Used mostly for audio description or oth ...

sound. Venevisión held the broadcasting rights to Venezuelan baseball games during the 2004–2005 and the 2005–2006 baseball seasons. Since Venevisión was inaugurated in 1961, their

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...

has been a tiger. In 2007, it started simulcasting

Copa America Copa or COPA may refer to: COPA COPA may refer to: * Computer Operator Programming Assistant. trade of ITI * Child Online Protection Act, a former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the internet * Canadian Owners and Pilots Asso ...

and

2007 in high-definition format. Since September 2014, Venevisión currently became the oldest television network in Venezuela and surpassed the record of its former rival

Radio Caracas Televisión Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) was a Venezuelan free-to-air television network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Quinta Crespo. It was sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas. Owned by Empresas 1BC, Radio Caracas Televisi� ...

before its forced closure in May 2007, 53 years and 6 months after it was launched.

Programs

International broadcasts

Many of Venevisión's programs can be seen in other countries on Ve Plus TV, Venevision Plus,

Venevision International Cisneros Media (abbreviated as CM, formerly known as Venevision International) is an entertainment company that broadcasts Spanish content in the United States and in other locations around the globe. CMD is a Spanish-language Entertainment com ...

a cable channel completely owned by Venevisión. Other channels, such as

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...

in the United States and

Televisa Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...

in Mexico, broadcast some of Venevisión's shows.

Political position

Venevisión was a vocal opponent of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Hugo Chávez's government up until 2005, when its criticism was notably toned down. On April 11, 2002, the network along with most of the other private networks in Venezuela, simultaneously showed Chávez's address to the nation in split screen with the shooting of people in a demonstration prior to the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt. The next day, Isaías Rodríguez announced in a news conference that Chávez had not resigned and that there had been a coup. However, Venevisión has been criticized by the Venezuelan opposition and Anti-Chávez groups. Since the Presidential election in 2006, it has quieted its opposition to Chávez, similar to rival

Televen Televen is a private Venezuelan national television network headquartered on the Caracas neighborhood of Horizonte. For this reason it is also called 'Canal de Horizonte'. Televen was inaugurated as the ''TELEVEN Corporation'' (''Corporación TE ...

after the 2004 recall referendum. For the presidential election, Venevision devoted 84% of its coverage to Chavez's positions, and only 16% to the opposition.Simón Romero
Media Mogul Learns to Live With Chávez
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', July 5, 2007 Many in the opposition and the other anti-Chávez TV networks,

and

Globovisión Globovisión is a 24-hour television news network. It broadcasts over-the-air in Caracas, Aragua, Carabobo and Zulia on UHF channel 33. Globovisión is seen in the rest of Venezuela on cable or satellite (Globovisión has an alliance with Dire ...

, saw it as a betrayal and accused both Venevisión and Televen to submitting to Chávez because they eventually renewed their broadcasting concessions. The criticism of Venevisión by the opposition increased during the refusal to renew the broadcasting license of RCTV by the Chávez government in 2007. RCTV was the most watched channel in Venezuela while Venevisión was second. The network renewed its broadcasting concession by the government many times as of 2018. Most viewed Venevisión and its rival Televen of secretly supporting the closure of RCTV since it would benefit itself. Cisneros however, said he expected only around a 5% increase in advertising revenue, after accounting for inflation.

Programming

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venevision Mass media companies established in 1961 Spanish-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 1961 Television stations in Venezuela Television networks in Venezuela 1961 establishments in Venezuela Venezuelan brands