Televisora Nacional

Televisora Nacional was the first television station (state-owned) to begin operations in Venezuela. It broadcast from 1952 to 1989 making Venezuela the ninth country in the world to have television.

On 22 November 1952, the first television station in Venezuela was inaugurated: Televisora Nacional (call sign YVKA-TV), channel five, was a state-owned television station which was installed by Intelec, C.A. (Ingeniería de Telecomunicaciones, C.A.), a subsidiary of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It was directed by the engineers Jordan Graves and Luis Gillermo Jiménez Michelena and it relied on Venezuelan and North American professionals.

At 10:15 a.m., the first images appeared. The national coat of arms was projected, there was music (the national anthem), and then, to the surprise of many, the station went off the air. This occurred because a transmitter, which had been leased by the RCA, failed. This failure resulted in an embarrassment to the station's technicians and engineers because in the channel's headquarters, located on Marín Hill, an inaugural ceremony had been prepared. This ceremony was to be presided by Colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Germán Suárez Flamerich (then in charge of the governing junta), but due to the transmitter's failure, the ceremony never went on the air. Early the next morning, Televisora Nacional began airing cartoons as part of a test signal, which was hardly seen by anyone, and the government was furious because they had just invested 2.5 million Venezuelan bolívares to install the first television station in Venezuela.

Finally, on 1 January 1953, YVKA-TV, began transmitting its regular programming in the channel 5.

From 1 June 1980, Televisora Nacional, as well as the other television networks in Venezuela, were allowed, by the government of President Luis Herrera Campins, to transmit completely in color.

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