Following our move to rebroadcast news bulletins from Venezuelan channel RCTV, which lost almost all of its broadcasting power when it had its terrestrial broadcast frequency taken away a week ago (with protests in the streets – pictured), people watching the broadcasts on WorldTV have grown rapidly.
In the first full day of broadcasts yesterday, there were 6431 unique viewers and almost all of the views were from Venezuela, as the table below shows…
| 90% | Venezuela |
| 2% | United States |
| 1.5% | Spain |
| 1% | Mexico |
| 1% | Colombia |
| 0.5% | Argentina |
| 0.5% | Chile |
| 0.5% | Peru |
What is happening in Venezuela, a rapidly developing (and cool) country, is something the whole world should be aware of. There are arguments for and against the recent actions of Hugo Chavez, the country’s president, and in the past I’ve been generally supportive of his policies, but the messages coming out of Venezuela are very mixed at the moment and it’s growing increasingly hard to know what is real and what isn’t.
On the one hand there is no doubt that Chavez has done much to help the poor of Venezuela, but on the other, is the growing concern about whether he is increasingly heading towards a worrying dictatorship.
This alone makes it important that people try to educate themselves about the situation, speak to any Venezuelans they know, and read (with an open mind) all reports they can on the subject.
In the meantime we will continue to offer re-broadcasts of RCTV’s six daily newscasts updated once a day. Freedom of speech at least deserves a helping hand.
