Televen
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Televen (acronym for Televisión de Venezuela) is a private Venezuelan television channel which has national coverage.
Televen was created as an alternative for the traditional private television channels, Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) and Venevisión. Televen is one of the first television channels introduced to Venezuela that brings to Venezuelan viewers American television programs and telenovelas from Brazil and Colombia. At the beginning Televen produced their own telenovelas but they later decided not to continue making them due to economic reasons. They have imported productions from other countries in Latin America like the children's game show "Nubeluz" from Peru, but they have also been known to export some of their programs such as "Chamokropolis", which is similar to Nubeluz. Televen successfully, along with Venevisión, snatched the rights to broadcasting national baseball games from Radio Caracas Television and they got the right to show baseball games from the United States Major League Baseball. Though they did not buy the rights to the 1992, 1996, and 2002 FIFA World Cups, which were broadcasted by Radio Caracas Television, Venevisión, and Venezolana de Televisión (in Venezuela, these channels have traditionally transmitted World Cup games). Televen decided to only transmit Japanese cartoons (also known as "anime"), introducing the series "Los Caballeros Del Zodiaco" (Saint Seiya), Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, which was a major hit, and therefore caused the station to import more shows of this series in the following years.
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[edit] History
On February 12, 1988, Televen began its test signal. On Caracas's channel 10, music videos were shown, which were accompanied by their red sphere that symbolizes the number 10. On June 3, 1988, Televen officially went on the air. Televen's founding father was businessman Omar Camero Zamora.
A week later, their first commercials broadcast was the movie "Mandela". The very first commercial break had 25 separate advertisements and holds the record for being the longest commercial break in Venezuelan history.
In the beginning, with the help of investors such as the Venezuelan television personality Guillermo "Fantastico" Gonzalez, it became a television station with nation coverage almost immediately by the beginning of the 90s and quickly claimed a larger audience then the state-owned channel Venezolana de Televisión, but it was still far behind the other national television channels.
Starting in 1994, Televen began to be on the air for 24-hours, uninterrupted.
Televen began to digitalize their signal by transmitting via the Intelsat 709 satellite.
In 1997, Televen finally launched their webpage and that same year they won the ANDA award in the category "New Advertising Technologies".
Televen purchased eight transmitters so that they could be seen in cities that couldn't previously receive their signal. They included Maturín, Valle de la Pascua, Mérida, Valencia, and Puerto Cabello. In other places (Caracas, Coro, Vargas, Maracaibo, Maracay, Puerto Ordaz, Puerto La Cruz, and Margarita), existing transmitters were modernized.
In 1998, Televen completed its first decade. It began to transmit its signal via the satellite "Intelsat 806". With an investment of 22 millions dollars, Televen began to construct a building for their new, larger headquarters that would be enough to support its growth. Televen's original headquarters was inside a shopping mall called Centro Comercial Los Chaguaramos.
In 1999, Televen showed a growth of 100%. In the year 2000, Televen began the new millennium in their new headquarters and was one of the most advanced television stations in Venezuela.
In 2002, Televen began advertising products during prime time that were appropriate for all social classes in Venezuela. With the latest in technology, they were able to be seen in all of Venezuela.
For the year 2004, Televen enlarged their national programming and restructured their prime time programming.
[edit] Programming
You can see Televen's programming chart at: http://www.televen.com/programacion.asp. For those who can't read in the Spanish language, "Hora" is "Hour", "Lunes" is "Monday", "Martes" is "Tuesday", "Miercoles" is "Wednesday", "Jueves" is "Thursday", "Viernes" is "Friday", "Sabado" is "Saturday", and "Domingo" is "Sunday".
[edit] Controversies
Televen was neutral in their political views until the arrival of Hugo Chávez, in which it became being a critic of the government. After the Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004, Televen has attempted to return to its neutral status by canceling the political opinion program hosted by journalist Marta Colomina, who is fierce critic of the government. Due to the decline of advertisement prices in television because of the two month long general strike, it has forced the station (also like some of its national and regional competitors) to lose some of their independence by accepting advertising investment by the Brazilian sect, "Oracion Fuerte Al Espiritu Santo".
In 2005, Televen introduced evidence to Venezuelan courts of an alleged deal involving advertising costs between its principal competitors (Radio Caracas Television and Venevisión).
[edit] Trivia
- Televen's headquarters address is:
Avenida Romulo Gallegos con 4ta transversal de Horizonte, Edificio Televen, Caracas Venezuela.
