By Bernd Debusmann
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – It has been labeled a weapon
against “cultural imperialism,” the voice of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, a threat to U.S. influence in Latin
America, and “poison for the minds of people longing to be
free.”
The object of such diverse descriptions is Telesur, a
Caracas-based Spanish-language TV channel which became part of
a war of words between Venezuela and the United States even
before Chavez formally launched it on July 24 and said the
network was vital to his vision of Latin American integration.
Telesur was conceived as a Latin American alternative to
international networks like CNN, the BBC, TVE of Spain and
Germany’s Deutsche Welle, all of which broadcast to Latin
America in Spanish.
“We want to show Latin America through Latin American
eyes,” said Aram Aharonian, Telesur’s director general. “The
United States and Europe have dominated information beamed to
our continent for decades. It is time to change that. They
portray us in black and white. We are a region in Technicolor.”
Judging from Telesur’s programming in the first weeks of
October, those colors are pink or red. So far, the new network
resembles more a History Channel for left-wing intellectuals
than a serious challenge to round-the-clock news broadcasts
from the United States and Europe.
There were documentaries on the last days of Marxist
revolutionary Che Guevara, the victory of the Sandinistas over
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, and the unsuccessful
fight of the Montoneros movement against Argentine governments
in the 1970s.
Rounding out the offer: documentaries on the harsh living
conditions of miners in Bolivia and the situation in the
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony where the Polisario
Front and Morocco fought a 16-year war over a desolate desert
region.
Such high-brow fare contrasts sharply with local TV
programming in most of Latin America, where ratings are
determined by light entertainment and telenovelas, soap operas
that command huge audiences.
“We don’t have a way of measuring our audience yet,” said
Aharonian, a Uruguayan journalist who is 59, wears his gray
hair tied in a ponytail and speaks with the enthusiasm of a
20-year-old. “We estimate our present viewership at between two
and seven million and we aim for 30 million.”
Telesur broadcasts expanded from an hour a day in the pilot
phase to four hours by the time of the launch and six hours at
present, re-broadcast four times each 24 hours.
By the end of the month, it is scheduled to go to 24 hours
a day, with 10-minute newscasts at the top of the hour and two
one-hour news programs during the day.
U.S. HOSTILITY PIQUES INTEREST
According to Aharonian, interest in Telesur surged after
the U.S. House of Representatives adopted an amendment that
authorized the U.S. government to counter the new network with
broadcasts of its own.
The amendment was introduced by Connie Mack, a conservative
Republican congressman from Florida who described Chavez as “an
enemy of freedom” and said he wanted to use Telesur to “poison
the mind of people longing to be free.”
“Mack did us a favor,” said Aharonian. “People from all
over Latin America and the U.S. called us asking how they could
get Telesur. He couldn’t have done better if he had worked for
us.”
Broadcast over satellite, Telesur is a joint project of the
governments of Venezuela, which provided 51 percent of the $10
million start-up capital, Argentina (20 percent), Cuba (19
percent) and Uruguay (10 percent). The partners agreed to share
programming, such as documentaries, classic movies and films
made by up-and-coming Latin directors.
Telesur is not the first attempt to produce television by
Latin Americans for Latin Americans, though it is the first
joint venture between governments.
In 1994, Reuters, Argentina’s Artear, Spain’s Antena 3 and
the Miami-based network Telemundo joined up to form
Telenoticias, a 24-hour news channel transmitted via satellite
to cable and broadcast outlets in Latin America, Spain and the
United States. It failed to capture a large audience and faded
away after changing ownership twice.
Mexico’s television giant, Televisa, ran a 24-hour
international service called ECO, compiled from correspondents
around the world, for many years. ECO ended in 2001 when
Televisa fired 400 employees.
Like its unsuccessful predecessors, Telesur is partly based
on the premise that Latin Americans know little about each
other but would like to know more, given the chance. One of the
promotional trailers which now take up a good part of the
network’s air time highlights the thinking.
The trailer shows a reporter asking six people in the
street, apparently picked at random, to name the capital of
France. They all have the right reply: Paris. The reporter then
asks the same people to name the capital of Honduras.
“Guatemala,” says one. “Nicaragua,” says another. Others
just shrug their shoulders. Only one has the right answer:
Tegucigalpa. The trailer ends with the exhortation: “Lets get
to know each other.”
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