Avila TV

Avila TV

Ávila TV is a regional television channel created by the Venezuelan government and then Caracas metropolitan mayor, Juan Barreto. It was inaugurated on July 6, 2006 with an investment of about 11m bolívares fuertes ($5.1m United States dollars). It can be seen in the metropolitan area of Caracas on UHF channel 47, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A good portion of its audience accesses it on-line. Focusing on music and culture, it attracts young adults mainly between the ages of 14 and 30.

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.

Much of the music and lifestyles shown by Ávila TV were and continue to be neglected by other media. For this reason, many are considered underground or quite rare in the city. The channel tries to broadcast a closer or more approximate vision of the working class and particularly the world of young caraqueños.

The channel was transferred to the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information, MINCI, as established in the Gaceta Official Nº 39.083 date 18th of December 2008. 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.

Avila TV grew out of the Metropolitan School of Audiovisual Production (Spanish acronym: EMPA) 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.