Critics accuse Televisa of manipulating politicians and viewers and threatening democracy
An anti-PRI protester in Mexico. 'The TV lies,' says the box on his head. Photograph: Reuters
For decades Televisa's
logo – a golden human eye gazing at the world through a television
screen – captured the company's success at controlling and dominating
what Mexicans watched.
The media firm,
the biggest in Latin America, produced soap operas, quiz shows, films
and news bulletins that reflected and reinforced the country's
concentration of economic and political power.
Televisa's eye, with the pupil in the form of a globe, remained an unblinking stare during authoritarian one-party rule and Mexico's transition to multiparty democracy, a change that only increased the company's wealth and influence.
"You
could say it's like Murdoch on steroids in the sense Televisa has
operated under far fewer constraints than Murdoch," said Andrew Paxman, a
historian and co-author of El Tigre, a biography of Emilio Azcárraga
Milmo, the mogul whose father founded the company and the dynasty that
still controls it.
Now, however, the logo suddenly evokes
something else: a critical eye turned on Televisa itself in
unprecedented scrutiny of the way it allegedly manipulates politicians
and viewers.
The company's alleged use – abuse, say critics – of
programming for political and commercial ends has become an explosive
issue in Sunday's election. Student-led protesters have seized the
agenda by marching on Televisa's headquarters and calling the network a
threat to democracy. The frontrunner for president, Enrique Peña Nieto,
has been thrown on the defensive over evidence uncovered by the
Guardian detailing his links to Televisa, whose channels account for
about two thirds of free-to-air television. Its rival, Azteca, accounts
for most of the other third.
"The power of the television networks
does not lie in their economic power but in their ability to manipulate
opinion. About 98% of homes have a television, and it is on between
four to six hours a day in around 60% of homes," said Purificación
Carpinteyro, a former under-secretary of communications.
"The
degree of concentration in television is an attack on democracy. It
gives them enormous power to extort. The [networks] have the political
class under control because nobody wants to be insulted or rubbed out or
exhibited on TV. The television calling somebody corrupt is tantamount
to a judgment from the supreme court."
How Televisa acquired and
uses its clout is a tale of intrigue worthy of the overwrought
telenovelas – soaps – which it makes and exports across the
Spanish-speaking world.
Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta started his
empire with a Mexico City-based radio station in 1930. It grew into a
chain of radio and television stations that in effect monopolised
Mexico's airwaves thanks to patronage from the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for most of the 20th century.
Azcárraga returned the favour by turning news into PRI propaganda and
slanting entertainment shows to reinforce its conservative ethos.
"It
was a symbiotic relationship. Each side helped the other to retain its
monopoly," said Paxman, who teaches history at Millsaps College in
Jackson, Mississippi. Telenovelas, for instance, preached knowing your
place in society, of being happy with your lot."
When Azcárraga
Milmo died in 1997 his son, Emilio Azcárraga Jean, took over and
transformed what had become a bloated behemoth into a slick media giant
in time to adjust to the PRI's loss of power in elections in 2000,
ushering in a more complicated – and lucrative – multiparty era.
Generous
state funds were given to parties to consolidate the fledgling
democracy, making them big buyers of media advertising. They had
additional funding for public awareness campaigns – de facto advertising
– when running municipal, state and federal governments, making
politicians the media's dominant revenue source.
"Democracy is a
good client," Emilio Azcárraga Jean told the US-Mexican chamber of
commerce in 2004. Televisa's nebulous ideology facilitated a pragmatic
shift to dealing not just with the PRI, which clung on to local and
regional power bases, but with rivals such as the conservative National
Action party (PAN) and the leftwing party of the Democratic Revolution
(PRD).
"Before those with political power paid the media to be on
their side, now the media charges. Paying for something is very
different to being charged," said Rubén Aguilar, a former spokesman for
Vincente Fox, a PAN leader and president from 2000-06.
In 2007 the
Mexican congress hit back at the media lords with a law giving
political parties free TV advertising during elections and banning
paid-for political spots. The networks responded to this threat to their
income with fury, then subtlety. Santiago Creel, a senator who had
championed the law, found himself erased from Televisa's news reports.
Seated in the middle of other legislators, all identifiable, he was
transformed into a pixillated blur.
Azteca
and Televisa also began getting associates elected to congress to
defend their interests by adding them to the electoral lists of
established parties. This year's election is likely to yield a
"telebancada" of between 10 and 20 deputies and senators.
After
the new law Alejandro Quintero, Televisa's vice-president of marketing,
also allegedly intensified additional, creative ways to tap the
political pot of gold by offering product placement packages to parties
and candidates.
A character in the telenovela Un Gancho al
Corazon, for instance, showed his support for the Green party on the eve
of an election. The party was fined for veiled propaganda in an
electoral period.
The season finale of the Mexican version of Ugly
Betty, a highly successful soap, included a cameo with the governor of
Monterrey and his wife. State institutions got in on the act: the
federal security ministry, it was revealed, funded El Equipo, a prime
time show in which charismatic police officers heroically fought drug
traffickers. The series tag-line: "They know that good triumphs over
evil."
One national politician depicted the marketing executive as
a Svengali who once said: "It's a lie that we can invent a politician.
Politicians need a long time to create an image. But what we can do is
destroy them quickly." Quintero declined to be interviewed for this
article.
One part of promotional packages allegedly developed for
Televisa by associated companies involves curbing criticism on news and
other shows. "I used to be able to criticise anyone on my show –
senators, ministers, the police, you name it," said Héctor Suarez,
a well known actor and comedian who left Televisa in November 2011
after 38 years. "But they started vetoing scripts. No you can't do this,
no you can't say that. They shut me up."
Much political promotion
was subliminal, he said, and lulled Mexico into accepting manipulation:
"An entertained country doesn't conspire." The student-led movement
Soy132, which marched against Televisa, was an exception, said Suarez.
Most
of Mexico's traditional media – radio, newspapers and magazines – were
just as mercenary as Televisa, said one editor, who declined to be
named. "Ninety per cent of media income comes from public funds," the
editor said. Some journalists' salaries were scaled according to
willingness to disguise propaganda as reporting, he said.
A senior
PRI official, he added, had recently offered his news organisation a
large amount of cash for just one month's positive coverage. Peña
Nieto's campaign team have denied the claims.Demetrio Sodi, a former PRD
senator who once also stood for mayor for the PAN, denied personally
paying for interviews but confirmed secretive deals were widespread.
"What does happen is that a government that commits to buying a certain
number of publicity spots will expect to have interview spaces opened
for them." TV's power, he said, was not in news shows that few watched:
"The real power are the entertainment shows."
Enrique Peña Nieto,
the PRI candidate and presidential frontrunner, married Angélica Rivera,
a Televisa soap star who in adverts acted as the official face of the
State of Mexico, of which he was governor.
Andrés Manuel López
Obrador, a PRD leader and current presidential candidate, is widely
believed to have made some kind of deal with Televisa to secure positive
coverage while he was mayor of Mexico City.
He fended off
scrutiny by sealing his budget records. Evidence uncovered by the
Guardian suggests Televisa now champions Peña Nieto and tries to
undermine his rival. The network declined interview requests for this
article, saying it was still awaiting an apology from the Guardian for a
previous article detailing its support for Peña Nieto, which it called
libellous.
Source: The Guardian
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