MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela’s only opposition television network sold to a group close to the government

The channel's editorial line will move towards the center in the interest of maintaining viewer ship and advertisers, said the new owners

Globovision, Venezuela's only opposition television network which had a long history of clashes with the populist government of deceased President Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian revolution, was sold Monday and will change its critical coverage, network officials said.
“This channel already has been sold off,” the network's website said in a statement.

Leopoldo Castillo, one of the new managers and a host of the “Hello Citizen” show, said it had been decided to move the channel's editorial line toward the center in the interest of maintaining viewer ship and advertisers.

“The Globovision that we knew, the Globovision that we have lived with for the past 12 years, is not the one we are going to be seeing. I want to make things perfectly clear; anything else would be deceit” Castillo told reporters.

Management under President Nicolas Maduro's government will be led by Castillo and Vladimir Villegas, a brother of Information Minister Ernesto Villegas, who has been critical of the government.

“Some want Globovision to change completely, others no, but I can’t please everybody”, said Villegas in an interview published Monday in El Universal.

The sale includes 80% of all television station shares which belong to two families, while the other 20% was confiscated by the government almost three years ago, arguing the company owes taxes to the state.

Globovision is the only private broadcast TV network in Caracas and nearby Valencia, and available on cable in the rest of the country. It has been critical of the government for years, drawing reprisals and fines from the government.

The network had broadcast live speeches and political gatherings led by Henrique Capriles, whom Maduro officially defeated by a razor-thin margin in an April 14 election. Capriles has not conceded amid claims of electoral irregularities