The company's roots date back to June 1, 1953, with the establishment ofTelevisora Independiente S.A, (TeleVisa), which operated the channel 4 in Caracas and channel 5 in Maracaibo. When TeleVisa went bankrupt in 1959 and 1960,Diego Cisneros purchased the remaining assets of the company. On February 27, 1961, Venevisión (aportmanteau based on the wordsVenezuela andTelevisión, withVenezolana de Televisión as its legal name) was officially inaugurated with a special inaugural ceremony on March 1, 1961, a show in which thousands of people attended, and took place in the station'sparking lot. Venevisión began with a capital of 5,500,000bolívares and 150 employees including artists, administrators, and technical personnel. Venevisión's original administrators were Diego Cisneros (president), Alfredo Torres (transmission manager), Héctor Beltrán (production manager), and Orlando Cuevas (general manager).[4]
Initially, Venevisión broadcast live because they hadn't yet installed thevideotape system. Except for the news, the elaboration of their programs utilized the technical formats used in movies at that time. In a short period of time, Venevisión greatly expanded nationally, and was seen in most of Venezuela on manyVHF andUHF channels.
In March 1961, the newly created Venevisión and the American television network,ABC, signed two agreements: one for technical support and the other for the rights to broadcast each other's programs, joining the ABC-led Worldvision network. Because of these agreements, Venevisión later began using the videotape system. In their first year of existence, Venevisión made approximately 800,000 bolívares a month in advertisements. By 1971, it began to bring its then black and white programs to viewers internationally via videotape, with the drama programEsmeralda as the first to do so. In the next year, the network officially took over the broadcasts of theMiss Venezuela beauty pageant, and it has been its home ever since.[4]
In the 1970s, Venevisión changed its legal name from Venezolana de Televisión (VENTEL) to Corporación Venezolana de Televisión (CVT).Channel 8, initially known as CVTV, took over the Venezolana de Televisión name, though abbreviating it as VTV, when it was nationalized in 1974.[4]
In 1976, Venevisión moved their transmitters, which were located on the top of a building in La Colina, a neighborhood inCaracas where Venevisión's studios can be found, to Los Mecedores, nearVenezolana de Televisión's studios andCANTV's installations. In Los Mecedores, a tower with an altitude of 100 meters was placed and a powerful new antenna was installed. With this new antenna, Venevisión's signal was able to reachPetare,Caricuao, andGuarenas with better quality. In the 1970s, like other television stations in Venezuela, Venevisión began experimenting with color broadcasts. In 1978, the Ministry of Transport and Communications fined Venevisión 4,000 bolívares on two occasions in one week for violating the regulations for color broadcasting. It was only the next year when color broadcasts commenced, with full color transmissions commencing on June 1, 1980.
The first programme by Venevision shown in color was theeight edition of theOTI Festival, which was held inCaracas and broadcast live to all Latin-America, Spain and Portugal.
In 1982, Venevisión began preliminary work in the city ofEl Tigre (located in theAnzoátegui State) to install equipment that would expand and improve their coverage in that region.
On November 1, 1986, Venevisión was the first television station in Venezuela to have their very own satellite dish.
On May 27, 1987, presidentJaime Lusinchi gave a 20-year broadcasting licence to the network.
On February 4, 1992,Carlos Andrés Pérez addressed the nation from Venevisión's studios during acoup attempt against his government.
Beginning on March 22, 1992, Venevisión would broadcast for 24 hours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. In April 1994, it started broadcasting for 24 hours seven days a week. Today, Venevisión is on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In 1995, Venevisión was the first television station in South America to include news and movies withclosed caption and the movies inSecond audio program sound.
Venevisión held the broadcasting rights to Venezuelan baseball games during the 2004–2005 and the 2005–2006 baseball seasons.
Since Venevisión was inaugurated in 1961, theirmascot has been a tiger; the channel is nicknamedEl Canal del Tigrito because of that.[4] The mascot returned for the Christmas spots in 2021[5] and 2022.[6]
Since September 2014, Venevisión currently became the oldest television network in Venezuela and surpassed the record of its former rivalRadio Caracas Televisión before itsforced closure in May 2007, 53 years and 6 months after it was launched.
In November 2021, it announced that it would not cancelSuper Sábado Sensacional in 2022.[7]
In May 2025, it was announced that Venevisión would return to fiction production with a reboot of the teen musical series Somos Tú y Yo.[8]
Many of Venevisión's programs can be seen in other countries onVe Plus TV,Venevisión Plus and ViendoMovies, a cable channel completely owned by Venevisión.[citation needed] Other channels, such asUnivision in the United States andTelevisa in Mexico, broadcast some of Venevisión's shows.[citation needed]
On April 11, 2002, the network along with most of the other private networks in Venezuela, simultaneously showed Chávez's address to the nation in split screen with the shooting of people in a demonstration prior to the2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt. The next day,Isaías Rodríguez announced in anews conference that Chávez had not resigned and that there had been a coup.[9]
After thePresidential election in 2006, Venevision softened its opposition to Chávez. For the presidential election, Venevision devoted 84% of its coverage to Chavez's positions, and 16% to the opposition.[3] Critics saw the change, which created rifts in the Venezuelan elite, as a way of maintaining its broadcasting licence by avoiding a confrontation with Chávez. The criticism of Venevisión by the opposition increased during therefusal to renew the broadcasting license of RCTV by the Chávez government in 2007. Critics said Venevisión would benefit from the closure of RCTV, which was Venevisión's main rival. Cisneros however, said he expected only around a 5% increase in advertising revenue, after accounting for inflation.[3]
Venevisión Play is a Venezuelanvideo on-demandover-the-topstreaming service owned by Venevisión, that was launched on August 25, 2023.[11] The service mainly distributes telenovelas produced by Venevisión and other programs including news, television series, documentaries, sports programming, talk shows, reality shows,Miss Venezuela and other special events.[12]
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