Venezolana de Televisión

Cadena Venezolana de Televisión (CVTV) was inaugurated as a privately owned television station on August 1, 1964, at 7:30 p.m.[2] President Raúl Leoni was chosen to be the one to cut the ribbon. Despite its name, however, it was not a nationwide television network at first, broadcasting in the Caracas area during its first years.[3] Only in the late 1960s did the channel become a national network with the opening of stations in major cities nationwide, and became the first network to produce and broadcast a color program in 1971.

The first logo of VTV thus was the company name (CVTV) on a number 8 (reflecting its channel number in Caracas).

In September 1974, CVTV, after prolonged financial problems due to its competition with the better-established privately owned television networks in Venezuela, Radio Caracas Televisión and Venevisión, was purchased by the Venezuelan government and rebranded as Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).[4] Between 1974 and 1980, VTV was funded in whole by the government, but due to an internal economic crisis, VTV was forced to air advertisements for extra revenue (this has no longer been occurring since Hugo Chávez became president in 1999).[5] It now only broadcasts program previews and government ads instead.

After June 1, 1979, VTV, as well as the other television networks in Venezuela, were allowed, by the government of President Luis Herrera Campins, to transmit completely in color using the NTSC-M system.[6] By 1980, the transition was complete, and VTV was then rebranded as the VTV Network (VTV Red) until 1982, together with Televisora Nacional, the other state-owned television channel in Venezuela and the first television station to be established, thus briefly uniting channels 5 and 8 into one national network.

In 1990, VTV, after a government decision to close the Televisora Nacional due to the economic situation of the country, merged it with the latter and thus began simulcasting on channel 5, system M, color NTSC (starting midday). This simulcast lasted until December 4, 1998, when the government handed over the signal of channel five to the Archbishopric of Caracas, which gave birth to Vale TV.

In 1999, VTV used a logo identical to the nicknamed "Exploding Pizza" ident used by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. By 2014, became the first Latin American station to broadcast Russia's RT Actualidad's newscast.

Under the Bolivarian government, VTV has been used by the government as an instrument to campaign against Venezuela's opposition and Venezuela's privately owned media[7][8] with about 75% of its programming transmitted to Venezuelans consisted of Bolivarian propaganda.[1] On the evening of the 11 April 2002 coup attempt against Chávez, Enrique Mendoza, then governor of Venezuela's Miranda State, while being interviewed by Venevisión announced "a esa basura de canal la vamos a cerrar" ("We are going to shut down that trashy channel"), referring to VTV. Hours later, the Miranda state police occupied VTV and forced it off the air. It remained off the air until April 14, 2002, when Chávez was returned to power.[9]

During the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–03, VTV would share ads depicting Venezuelans waiting in line for gas canisters with a voice saying "The opposition unleashed terrorism on the Venezuelan people and it led to hunger and unemployment. Thanks to the new PDVSA, PDVSA is for all of us, all of us are PDVSA". VTV would also alter images of pro-government rallies to make them appear larger and used outdated videos to attack opposition members or former supporters. In February 2004, the president of state television station Venezolana de Television (VTV) stated that VTV was not a state television station but a station of President Chávez's political party. VTV aired ads showing the September 11 attacks, comparing them to the opposition stating "The people know who the terrorists are". In 2005, the program Dossier was cancelled after its host and producer, Walter Martinez, accused the government of corruption.[10]