CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela will not renew the license of an opposition-aligned TV station when it expires next year, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday, accusing the broadcaster of backing plots to topple him. ``There will be no new concession for that coup-plotting television channel named Radio Caracas Television,'' Chavez said in a year-end speech to troops.But the head of the station, Marcel Granier, said the channel had a legal right to continue broadcasting under its current license for many years.
If Chavez ``was serious, I think he's badly informed,'' Granier said. ``There is a lot of confusion among officials who have been threatening Radio Caracas Television, and that confusion is transmitted to the president,'' he told Globovision television. ``The only thing that is clear is the desire to intimidate, to threaten.''
| Don't count on the courts there to save you. I suspect Hugo will march the troopers in and shut them down, and dare Granier to do something about it. |
RCTV, as the station is known, is among several private Venezuelan media outlets that supported a devastating 2003 strike that failed to unseat Chavez. The station, which has more than 2,000 employees, is one of the country's oldest channels and began broadcasting in 1953.