Anti-Chavez channel removed from cable [View All]

[cali]

Source: WaPo



Jan 24 12:45 AM US/Eastern
By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER
Associated Press Writer


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan cable television providers stopped transmitting a channel critical of President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, after the government cited incompliance with new regulations requiring the socialist leader's speeches be televised on cable.

Radio Caracas Television, an anti-Chavez channel known as RCTV that switched to cable in 2007 after the government refused to renew its over-the-air license, disappeared from the airwaves shortly after midnight.

RCTV was dropped just hours after Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela's state-run telecommunications agency, said several local channels carried by cable television have breached broadcasting laws and should be removed from the airwaves.

Cabello warned cable operations on Saturday evening that they could find themselves in jeopardy if they keep showing those channels.

"They must comply with the law, and they cannot have a single channel that violates Venezuelan laws as part of their programming," he said.

Several channels have not shown Chavez's televised speeches—a requirement under new regulations approved last month by the telecommunications agency, Cabello said.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR2010012400636.html