International NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) claimed Friday that the Venezuelan government waited for more than one week, since RCTV Internacional started operations on cable TV, in order to request a national production certificate.

"In the event that RCTV should declare itself as national audiovisual producer, why did the Venezuelan authorities wait for 10 days to notify it, with only five days as deadline? Why this question was not raised before?" said a press release.

"Why did it happen at a time when RCTV came back to the screen, by means of cable and satellite? This measure has never applied for other international cable TV channels. The administrative maneuver is rather coarse, for nobody to think that it was a renewed attempt at censorship," RWB wondered.

The organization remembered that private TV channel Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) was taken out of the Venezuelan Hertzian waves on May 27th, 2007. Later on, it became RCTV International and started cable and satellite broadcasting last July 16th.

Ten days later, Mario Seijas, the chair of the Venezuelan Subscription Television Chamber advised that RCTV Internacional should register as national audiovisual producer within a five-day term.