In its 11:00am time slot the government has opted for a more "child appropriate" show. Baywatch. All hail the Hoff!
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[ 08 April 2008: Message edited by: leftyboy ]

Presumably, therefore, the Times approves of the change and will be sending the Venezuelan National Telecommunications Commission a note indicating their complete agreement with the new policy of getting rid of The Simpsons and replacing it with the kind of material that the Times, itself, graces its web pages with.

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Originally posted by leftyboy:
Seriously are you saying that you're not slightly amused at Venezuela's contortions of logic to replace The Simpsons with Baywatch? Or can the dear leader do no wrong, food riots and political oppression aside.

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Political oppression? Bullshit.

Is there a shred of evidence anywhere that Hugo Chávez had anything to do with this decision? All the reports I have seen indicate that the National Telecommunications Commission received complaints from viewers about the Simpsons, and the directive came from them. Do you seriously think Chávez doesn't have anything better to do than meddle in the programming schedules of television stations?

The objection was apparently to the 11 a.m. time slot. The Simpsons has not been banned, or taken off the air altogether.

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leftyboy: I forgot that the Times was geared to children.

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My point was that the Times was able to display bikini clad women and squawk about the apparently dumb decision of the Venezuelan NTC at the same time. The intended entertainment, in this case, is mocking the decision of the NTC while at the same time imitating it by showing the graphic for Baywatch, and not The Simpson's, alongside the cleavage shot from Dallas, etc..

Only trouble is, there's a period after Caracas. The "food riots" part is in another sentence - one that doesn't refer to Venezuela.

There is no context in pulling the Simpson's under the guise of protecting the children only to replace it with the one of the most sexist and objectifying shows of all time. Let us not even dwell on the irony that they are both produced by FOX.

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Originally posted by leftyboy:
Venezuela has said The Simpsons pushed “messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents”.

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See if I say anything nice about Hugo Chavez now.
I like him, with the occasional caveat, but I love The Simpsons.

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David Hasselhoff and his aerodynamic life-saving cohorts began their slow-motion jog across the nation’s screens on Friday morning, after a ruling that The Simpsons was in danger of breaching the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television.

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That is just really really odd...Baywatch is judged more socially responsible.

[ 08 April 2008: Message edited by: Doug ]

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Xinhuanet: Guillen said it is up to Televen's management whether "The Simpsons" may be shown at another time of day.

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The school day in Venezuela is like bar hours in England. A few hours on, a break for a few hours, and then back again. So the ruling presumably is to "protect" kids who are home from school.

More comments ....

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I think I can help you out a bit. I'm from Venezuela, even though I now live in Memphis. This whole "inappropriate" for the kids thing, refers to a law that now has place back there where shows have to be classified according in categories of health, sex, violence. And it is assumed that anything during the day can be watched by children....
Venezuelan tv is horrible anyway, it consist of badly translated, bad soap operas and maybe one or 2 semi-good national productions.

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Doug: That is just really really odd...Baywatch is judged more socially responsible.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
And how come the business of the telecommunications regulators in Venezuela makes international news?

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I think the reason it's in the International News and Politics Forum is that this is the one where mindless parroting of MSM distortions and lies about unfashionable countries normally get a full airing.

The following is a case in point.

[ 09 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

This non story is amusing only in the sense that those who likely mocked or feigned indignation when George Bush the 1st said almost the exact same thing about the Simpsons ten years ago - now defend the view for Venezuela -

in the US the tv networks told Bush to change the channel luckily.

One of the commentators from the US noted that the FCC in his country, or our own CRTC for that matter, has made some equally (apparently) dumb decisions.

February 1913. Bluffton, S.C. Oyster shuckers at Lowden Canning. "Ten-year old Frank. Shucks four pots a day."

10 yr olds more mature in 1913 than 20 yr olds today

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone

[ 09 April 2008: Message edited by: Ibelongtonoone ]

I like the Simpson's (although I think they are now on their third rotation of the same story lines)but I would still turn it off if my grandchildren who are in grade one and younger were in the house. I'd also turn of Baywatch but that is for political reasons i.e. I hate the objectification of women and I think it sends a bad message to children about women and their worth.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
I know the regulator said remove Simpson's from that time slot but I doubt id they said what to replace it with. Gee isn't the TV station smart to shove this in the regulators face, it certainly has the attention of the American media.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
So does anyone know whose decision it was too replace the Simpson's with Baywatch.

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“It had to be taken off,” said Elba Guillen, a spokeswoman for Televen TV station (referring to The Simpsons). “The GOVERNMENT considers it to be a series that isn’t appropriate for that time because it isn’t appropriate for children.”

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(Emphasis added).

A pro-Chavez site includes the official CONATEL announcement:

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En el día de hoy 2/4/2008, CONATEL, en ejercicio de las competencias atribuidas por la Ley de Responsabilidad Social en Radio y Televisión y, en atención a denuncias recibidas por parte de los usuarios, inició un procedimiento administrativo sancionatorio a la operadora de televisión abierta TELEVEN por la difusión en horario “todo usuario” de la serie de televisión “los Simpsons”, específicamente a las 11:00 a.m., el cual presuntamente podría infringir las prohibiciones de difusión en dicho horario de mensajes que atentan contra la formación integral de niños, niñas y adolescentes, de conformidad con lo previsto en el artículo 7 de la Ley de Responsabilidad Social en Radio y Televisión.

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In other words, the official TV oversight board initiated an "administrative sanctionary procedure" against the station.

The actual law, which they cite, was a law passed by Chavez et al. in 2005. It sets up THREE types of TV regimes:

1. 7AM to 7PM Time during which all programming must be appropriate for children of all ages.

2. 5-7 AM and 7-11 pm time during which programming is to be with parental guidance.

3. 11 PM to 5: AM Adult programming (restrictions apply re: explicit sex and violence).

The Simpsons is supposed to have been inappropriate because it contains "mensajes que atenten contra la formación integral de los niños".

"Messages which act against the appropriate formation of children".