Ávila TV is a public regional television channel based in the city of Caracas. It can be seen in the metropolitan area of Caracas on UHFchannel 47 or Inter channel 89, and in the rest of the country on Digital TVchannel 25.3 or CANTV TV Satelital channel 15. Focusing on music and culture, it attracts young adults mainly between the ages of 14 and 30. Avila TV grew out of the Metropolitan School of Audiovisual Production which, still hosted in the same building, provides Caracas youth access to a free one-year program on video techniques, both at Ávila's headquarters and at cultural centers.
History
The channel was inaugurated on July 6, 2006 by then Caracas metropolitan mayor, Juan Barreto. with an investment of about 11m bolívares fuertes. The channel was transferred to the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information, MINCI, as established in the Gaceta Official Nº 39.083 date 18 December 2008, 11 days after opposition politician Antonio Ledezma assumed power as mayor of Caracas. Controversial changes in management and dismissal of employees who volunteer much of their time has caused concern among some of the collective and its audience that functionaries from the national government are trying to stifle the wide-ranging critical voice the station has presented. In December 2015, a decision was taken to re-politicize the channel and include pro-government news programs, movies and documentaries.
Programming
Ávila TV has a very urban-oriented programming, mostly made by young producers that don't come from the traditional media and have not been formally educated as broadcasters. Avila also holds a school of media producers called EMPA where they include youngsters and other members of the public who want to learn about media production, trying to attract people from the most populated areas of Caracas. Ávila also features foreign programs from other Hispanic American countries, Spain and Japan, as well as films and documentaries. The varied programming includes both short clips or common 30-minute/1 hour long programs. Ávila TV is also a radical television experiment, trying to make TV an instrument of social inclusion. Based on a radical narrative of the city of Caracas, its social discourse is built from a different perspective from traditional TV channels. As well as programs on gender issues which tackle the typical machismo perspective, it hosts programs that talk openly about homosexuality and others that address Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan rights. The channel tries to broadcast a closer or more approximate vision of the working class and particularly the world of young caraqueños.
