Venezuela's Contrarian TV Station Survives on YouTube

carlos_J writes "Ars Technica is running a story about RCTV, a Venezuelan television station whose broadcast license was refused renewal by the government. In response, the station turned to YouTube to get its message out. Says Ars, 'El Observador clips have been seen 175,000 times since May 28, and the channel is currently the most-subscribed channel of the week. While putting the station's shows on YouTube is an excellent idea, YouTube still lacks anything near the reach of over-the-air broadcasts. But the use of the site to avoid censorship is growing, and it's not hard to imagine a day in the near future when the site (or sites like it) becomes as essential as local TV stations. As that happens, YouTube will come into even more conflicts with governments that have an interest in controlling what their citizens see, It's already happening--Thailand's king, for instance, has a thing for iPods but isn't too keen on YouTube. Will Hugo Chavez show more tolerance? '"

Comments

If the Fairness Doctrine Legislation Passes......

[MoronBob]

I guess will see Limbaugh and the rest moving to You Tube.

Re:Will Hugo Chavez show more tolerance?

[vegetasaiyajin]

Whatever Chavez has done, he has not yet refused to hold elections and he has been elected numerous times now in elections that have been certified by observers as legitimate. So the opposition should just suck it up.

SO we should let our rights be violated just because he had the majority?

And what kind of analysis is that?
You decide that a video is right because it was made by foreigners (who were biased BTW) and sanctioned by (clueless) international distributors, and the debunkings are wrong because they were made by the opposition, without even looking at the content.

Your famous unbiased video does not even show the most crucial moment of April 11: when Chavez's highest ranking military officer announced that Chavez had resigned (see http://youtube.com/watch?v=DQ14XCNMY7k). So, I don't care if RTE is biased or clueless, but their video is misleading.

A lot of people here believe that it was RCTV who announced Chavez resignation in April 11 and not Chavez's highest-ranking military officer simply because what they know about those events is the version shown in "The Revolution will not be televised", which is nothing but propaganda.

With the closing of independent media now I understand why they say it will not be televised.