Chile Now Boasts two All-News Channel

Wednesday Chile’s public TV network, TVN, unveiled its 24-hour all-news channel, called 24 Horas. This new channel comes into the cable TV market to compete with CNN Chile. Chile's version of CNN is a partnership between Liberty Global –owner of Chile’s largest cable provider VTR- and Time Warner.

CNN Chile began operations last December with 30 minutes news segments around the hour. The channel is centred mostly in Santiago and brings regional news items from partnerships with regional television channels.



The Atlanta based news channel arrival was welcomed by all sectors of public life, because it gives fresh look to news coverage in Chile. CNN Chile is able to give a more diverse view of news than the one seen on Chilean TV channels, who in their news coverage are mostly concerned with the crime beat and other sensational news items.

CNN Chile has been a different voice. But CNN Chile has failed to break news, it has failed to provide live coverage of news events. In fact CNN Chile has had multiple technical glitches due to serious technical editing errors in their digital software that feeds reports to air.

Also CNN Chile is extremely rigid in its 30 minutes segments, it lacks segmented programming, it lacks personalities. CNN Chile is a bland news channel with little muscle or zest behind its coverage.

One click away on the clicker is TVN’s 24 Horas. The channel is oriented towards creating programming that delivers content after a 15-minute news segment at the top of the hour. It has personalities; it is developing segmented niches, with interviews, sports, arts and entertainment, international and financial news. Each of these areas is covered as a clear segment with a presenter identified with each area. To ensure international coverage, 24 Horas signed a partnership deal with NBC’s MSNBC news network.



However, 24 Horas makes the same mistake seen throughout Chilean television, its inability to edit and keep time. 24 Horas continues with the national incapacity to respect the clock, it continues to run over two or three minutes in its programming into the next hour. This is unacceptable for a serious news organization.

The major flaw 24 Horas has, is its Santiago centric news coverage. That coverage can also be seen in its continuity like graphics and information, for example, the weather in Santiago, traffic camera that show Santiago streets. The rest of the country also needs to know the weather and many cities are equipped with traffic cameras that can be followed on the Internet. That is the plus CNN Chile has over 24 Horas, it covers the country better, despite the fact 24 Horas is a channel owned by all Chileans.

24 Horas with its programming segmentation would appear to have an upper hand over CNN Chile’s 30 minute news segments, that contradicts its slogan “está pasando, lo estás viendo”. A slogan that translate to "it’s happening you are watching it," but with its ongoing 30 minute segment, after an hour-and-half, the viewer gets a constant repeat of the same news items. So CNN Chile’s slogan, “está pasando, lo estás viendo,” should translate to "it’s happening we are repeating it."

One final note, I applied unsuccessfully to both channels for employment as a journalist/producer. CNN Chile’s Director General Patricio Hernández told me I was too expensive for the local market. Meanwhile at 24 Horas, I was part of a cattle call with some 80 people. In that cattle call we were placed in an auditorium, there a HR person came to front of the auditorium, told us to fill in a job application form -all had sent resumes- then we were told to do a “psychology profile test.” In that exam we were shown 4 slides of different images and we were supposed to describe what we saw. We were also told to do a word matching test, where we were supposed to find the most correct word that would match with another.

In all my years of living and working in Canada, where I took part in many hiring processes as a candidate or as an interviewer, I was never given nor did I ever performed a psychological test. I was not called for a second interview, which leads me to think I was either to old and expensive, or I did not passed the so-called sham of psychological test.

New transit system struggles to meet demand

On Saturday February 10, the Chilean Government gave the go ahead for an ambitious plan to reform Santiago’s public system. That day it unveiled the much await public transit system, Transantiago.

Transantiago was designed as to replace a public transit system operated by an independent quilt of privateers who owned as many as one bus to a large fleet, part of some of the 8 thousand or so buses that clogged and raced through Santiago streets. Service was never a motto for the former system, which remains in place in the rest of the country. The former system depended on drivers capturing passengers charging them and then the driver would hand that money back to the bus owner in exchange for a percentage of its daily take.

That system meant passengers rode on buses that were converted trucks chassis, sat on dirty seats, heard the constant music piped by the driver, passengers took the bus on any point of the street and similarly got off anywhere they wanted. Buses and their lines would compete for passengers racing through the streets without care for other cars of pedestrian; the buses were responsible for a large portion of Santiago’s pollution; drivers would drive from one point of the city to another on trips that would last some four hours before setting back on its return route; passengers had no rights usually drivers would insult or curse at them and students were the most hated because they paid student fare.

That system was to change with the introduction of Transantiago. The new system was parcelled out to private companies that won bids for management areas and bought high-end buses, which would link feeder bus system with main thoroughfare routes and the subway. The system was to operate with GPS where a central control unit would regulate bus fleets, and passengers would pay with an electronic debit card collecting the fare for a ride that included transfers for up to 90 minutes.

That is how the system was designed and it was advertised as a new transit system that would put at its centre the user, it sold the system as one were passengers would have a greater quality of life, better rides, shorter trips and a longer spare time.

But since its introduction, it has been anything like that at all. Some of the companies that won the contracts to offer service have failed to produce buses for their routes; in fact, some companies were not structured as such. The centralized electronic GPS bus fleet system is not in place with just over half of the fleet having the electronic systems required.

Passengers have seen long waits for buses; they have had to walk for the first time more than a few street blocks to take the bus. Passengers could not understand the map of the city, because of lack of reading and writing comprehension, passengers had to get up earlier to travel to work and have arrived late.

Transantiago a public transit solution a plan set to improve the lives of Santiago residents has shown it self to be a system that will eventually work, but to date the system is working at meeting basic needs.

The new bus system has also unveiled how 40 years of free market of city land use and real estate speculation has transformed Santiago into an ugly dispersed city that has pushed to the outskirts of the city working families, the working poor and the marginalized. This mass of people has to travel some 40 kilometres each day to go to work and back home. People have to travel anywhere from two to three hours each day to work and then return home. It is that large mass of people that has been disenfranchised by the Transantiago, because buses have failed to meet their needs, they have to travel from the outskirts of the city transfer onto another bus before continuing to their destination.

The Government has tried daily to improve the system. The minister of transport has given the system 90 days before it is fully operational and has asked the passengers to understand the changes and be patient.

Protest have occurred on Santiago poorer districts that demand better services. Teenagers have taken to violent protests that include stoning buses, stoning police, set bon fires and even shots have been fired by demonstrators.

The subway has been the only system able to meet passenger demands, despite that capacity the subway has been forced to shut doors in some stations to reduce the passenger numbers on the train platforms and stairs.

Transantiago will eventually turn out to be the system that was promised, but in its six weeks of implementation, it has become a hot potato for the Government as criticism continues to rise. The opposition parties demand the resignation of the minister of transport if not they charged they would introduce a constitutional charge against the minister.

To complicate matters an owner of two companies that won contracts to operate 40 percent of the Santiago fleet, wants the system dismantled and called for return to the previous system. The minister of transport told him to either put up or get out.

The system was well designed but it failed to take into account Santiago outskirts and the control systems that control the fleet have not been put into place, so to date Transantiago rides blind with inspectors on the streets trying to determine the schedules are met.

Transantiago remains the last hope for a quality public transit system, that it already has shown that pollution and noise pollution levels have decreased significantly, so it is essential that the system finally gets running on its four wheels and provide the quality it was promised to Santiago residents and that was to then implemented in the rest of Chile’s larger cities.