History
Canal i was officially inaugurated on October 5, 2007, taking over the signal of the now defunct music channel, Puma TV. Canal i is a 24-hour news channel; it is the fourth Venezuelan 24-hour news channel to be founded after Globovisión, Canal de Noticias, and TeleSUR. The president of Canal i, Wilmer Ruperti, invested $ 21 million in order to establish the network.
The idea to create Canal i dates back to 2004 when Ruperti purchased Puma TV, however, the project was delayed until 2006. Canal i aims to provide a fair and balanced news programming that does not have any political affiliations. Some of Canal i's presenters include Carlos Escarrá, a pro-Chávez congressperson and member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and Julio Borges, the leader of Justice First, the second largest opposition party.
Mass media in Venezuela comprise the mass and niche news and information communications infrastructure of Venezuela. Thus, the media of Venezuela consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema, and Internet-based news outlets and websites. Venezuela also has a strong music industry and arts scene.
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012.
Caracas, officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas. Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern part of the country, within the Caracas Valley of the Venezuelan coastal mountain range. The valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the coast by a steep 2,200-meter-high (7,200 ft) mountain range, Cerro El Ávila; to the south there are more hills and mountains. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an estimated population of almost 5 million inhabitants.
Venevisión is a Venezuelan free-to-air television channel and one of Venezuela's largest television networks, owned by the Cisneros Media division of Grupo Cisneros.
Telesur is a Latin American terrestrial and satellite news television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela and sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua. It was launched in 2005, under the government of Hugo Chávez, with the aim of being "a Latin socialist answer to CNN".
Corporación Venezolana de Televisión 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 that can be seen on VTV included Aló Presidente and Telesur Noticias.
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 Televisión (RCTV) was inaugurated on 15 November 1953 by William H. Phelps, Jr. Its radio counterpart was Radio Caracas Radio.
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 and worldwide from their website. Some of Globovisión's programs can be seen in the United States on cable network Canal Sur and TV Venezuela, a channel offered in DirecTV's Para Todos package. In Latin America, Globovision can be seen in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and other territories as Aruba, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Curaçao in DirecTV's package.
Canal Maximo Televisión (CMT) was a Venezuelan free-to-air television network that was seen on UHF channel 51 in the metropolitan area of Caracas, Barquisimeto, and the Miranda State, channel 43 in Calabozo, Puerto Ordaz, and the Zulia State, and channel 21 in San Cristóbal.
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 on July 10, 1988 by Omar Camero Zamora and T Radioven, S.A. As an alternative for the two-leading-private TV Networks on Venezuela, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) and Venevision, Televen distanced itself from this trend and made a different oriented programming in some cases the middle classes who do not usually watch TV and it was open and being composed of talk shows, sports, movies, a full range of series, mainly American, and Brazilian, Colombian, Mexican, and U.S. Hispanic telenovelas, and in the 1990s, anime.
La Tele was a regional television network in Venezuela. It could be seen on the cable and satellite systems of DirecTV, Supercable, Intercable, and Net Uno.
Puma TV was a privately owned over-the-air television network based in Caracas, Venezuela that featured music videos by artists from all over the world and entertainment related news. On October 5, 2007, Puma TV was taken off the air and replaced by Canal i, a 24-hour news channel.
Cuba was the first Latin American country to begin television testing in December 1946 when station CM-21P conducted an experimental multi-point live broadcast. The first regular commercial broadcasting began in October 1950 by the small radio station Union Radio, soon followed by other stations. The broadcasts featured sport, soap operas, news, cooking shows, and comedy. Censorship was imposed following the 1952 coup by Fulgencio Batista, and again by the government of the Cuban revolution after their victory in 1959.
The RCTV protests were a series of protests in Venezuela that began in the middle of May 2007. The cause of the protests was the decision by the government to shut down Venezuela's oldest private television network, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), refusing to renew its broadcasting license and instead creating a new public service channel called TVes, which began operations on 28 May, the same day RCTV's license expired. RCTV had Venezuela's largest viewing audience, with 10 million of the country's 26 million people viewing its shows and soap operas.
Televisora Nacional was the first television station (state-owned) to begin operations in Venezuela. It broadcast from 1953 to 1992 making Venezuela the ninth country in the world to have television.
Canal 11 Televisión was a short-lived television channel based in Caracas, Venezuela. It first went on the air in December 1966 and ceased operations due to bankruptcy less than two years later.
TeleVisa, officially known as the Televisión Independiente, S.A. became the first privately owned television station to begin operations in Venezuela. It was the second television station to begin operations after the state-owned Televisora Nacional. In 1960, Televisa was purchased by Diego Cisneros and re-branded as Venevisión and became in business' Cisneros family.
Wilmer Ruperti is a Venezuelan-born shipping business magnate. Since 2003, he has captured a major share of the market in physically exporting oil from Venezuela to the rest of Latin America, and has become one of Venezuela's wealthiest persons.
Capitolio TV is a Venezuelan television channel established in 2016. It is headquartered at the Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas. The channel is owned and operated by the National Assembly of Venezuela. It was established after the old parliament decided to close Asamblea Nacional Televisión after the opposition led by Democratic Unity Roundtable managed to win the majority of the seats in the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election; for that reason it was replaced by the National Audiovisual Television Foundation ANTV granting the concession to its workers.
