December, 13 2010, 12:29pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460
Private, Opposition TV Continues to Dominate in Venezuela, New Paper Finds
Data Show State TV Has 5.4 Percent of the TV Audience
WASHINGTON
A new issue
brief looking at data on Venezuela TV audiences contradicts the
widely believed -- and widely reported -- claim that the Chavez
government dominates the television media. In reality, the paper finds
the opposite is true: the state share of television audience is very
small -- currently only 5.4 percent --while private, opposition-owned
channels overwhelmingly dominate the television audience, with 61.4
percent watching privately owned TV channels, and 33.1 percent watching
paid TV.
"Statements claiming the Venezuelan government 'controls' or
'dominates' the media are not only exaggerated, but simply false," CEPR
Co-Director and lead author of the paper, Mark
Weisbrot, said.
These claims appear regularly in the major U.S. media and are almost
never challenged. For example, in a description of Venezuela's
elections last September for the National Assembly, the Washington
Postreferred
to the Chavez "regime's domination of the media . . . ." In an interview
on CNN, Lucy Morillon of Reporters Without Borders stated, "President
Chavez controls most of the TV stations."
The brief, "Television
in Venezuela: Who Dominates the Media?", from the Center for
Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., analyzes data from
AGB Panamericana de Venezuela Medicion S.A., a local affiliate of
Nielsen Media Research International, for the years 2000-2010 and also
finds that state television audiences have increased during times of
political turmoil, such as during the failed April 2002 coup and the
2002-2003 oil strike.
"The most likely explanation for these spikes in state television
viewers is that more people are interested in the news during these
times, and so more want to get both sides of the story," Weisbrot said.
But even in these few brief spikes of state TV audience - lasting for
no more than two or three months - the state TV audience share has
never reached 10 percent, even for one month in the past decade.
The paper notes that the primary means through which the government
seems to get its message out is through President Chavez himself, in
the "cadenas", or official speeches, that private broadcast TV channels
are required to broadcast. In 2009, according to data from AGB
Panamericana de Venezuela Medicion S.A., these cadenas amounted to an
average of about 24 minutes per day. While this has the potential to
get the government's message out more than the current share of state
TV programming, it is difficult to measure its impact without data on
how many people watch these speeches.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. In order for citizens to effectively exercise their voices in a democracy, they should be informed about the problems and choices that they face. CEPR is committed to presenting issues in an accurate and understandable manner, so that the public is better prepared to choose among the various policy options.
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Apr 15, 2024
With world leaders convening in Washington, D.C. this week for the annual Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, global anti-poverty campaigners said Monday that delegates from the world's largest economies must prioritize taxing the superrich and taking other steps to alleviate rampant inequality in the Global South.
Oxfam International revealed that based on the World Bank's analysis of worldwide inequality and poverty, 64 out of 106 low- and middle-income countries that receive grants and loans from the bank and the IMF have high or increasing rates of income inequality.
Sixty percent of countries that are eligible for grants or low-interest loans from the International Development Association (IDA) have ratings above 0.4 on the Gini coefficient scale—a warning level developed by the United Nations. The scale rates more equal countries closer to 0 and countries with high income and wealth disparities closer to 1, with rating above 0.4 signifying high levels of income inequality.
Kate Donald, head of Oxfam International's Washington, D.C. office, noted that the news comes less than a year after more than 200 worldwide economists successfully pressured the World Bank to set a new goal of reducing the number of countries with high inequality rates.
The agreement was "a landmark move," said Donald. "But if the bank is serious about tackling inequality, the first test will be making it a headline priority for its lending to the world's poorest countries, being discussed now at the Spring Meetings."
According to Oxfam's analysis, half of IDA-eligible countries are overindebted and need roughly 45% of their debt to the banks canceled in order to address surging inequality in their own communities.
The global financial institutions must prove at the Spring Meetings that "tackling inequality is a priority," said Donald.
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At Inter Press Service, Jaime Atienza, equitable financing director at the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, pointed to the example of Zambia, one of 37 countries identified by Oxfam as facing rising levels of inequality.
While still struggling, Atienza wrote, through the G20 Common Framework on Debt, Zambia "secured serious debt relief and restructuring with both government and private creditors, which will help enable vital and urgent investments in health, education, and social protection."
"For too long, Zambia's plans for ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, and for realizing crucial development needs, have been held back by constraints in investment caused by the debt crisis," wrote Atienza. "The debt relief and restructuring that has been agreed at last gives the country a fighting chance. All those who have facilitated this agreement have saved and transformed lives."
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Both Atienza and Oxfam said delegates from G20 countries, the world's largest economies, must center at the Spring Meetings Brazil's call for a global plan to require wealthy people to pay their fair share in taxes.
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