Sistema Nacional de Televisión owns the following channels in Nicaragua:
- Canal 6 Nicaragüense, a television channel owned and operated by the Government of Nicaragua through a company called Nepisa. It was established in 1957 by the family of the Nicaraguan president at the time, Anastasio Somoza Garcia. In 1979, when the Somoza regime was toppled by the Sandinistas, Canal 6 was nationalized, being embedded in the Sistema Sandinista de Televisión, the country’s state-owned broadcasting group. In 1997, the channel was declared bankrupt. In 2011, the government restored Canal 6’s broadcasting.
- Televisora Nicaragüense, known as TN8 or TeleNica, a nationwide television channel that was founded by Nicaraguan businessman Carlos Briceño. The channel was known as a quality broadcaster with programs spanning all television genres, including news, information programs, sports, movies, and entertainment. However, following the sale of the channel in 2010 to a group of investors believed to include members of the family of Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president, the channel has massively changed its editorial line, becoming openly supportive of the country’s presidency.
- Canal 4, a television channel operated by Intrasa, which took it over from the company Nueva Imagen, S.A., in which FSLN has a stake.
- Viva Nicaragua Canal 13, a Managua-headquartered channel that offers a generalist program, which includes newscasts and information.
- Canal 15 Nicaragüense, a television channel specialized in educational and cultural content, launched in 2011.
- La Rock 22, a radio station founded in 2020.
Media assets
Television: Canal 6, Canal 8, Canal 4 Multinoticias, Viva Nicaragua, Canal 15 Nicaraguense
Radio: La Rock 22
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
The television outlets operated by Sistema Nacional de Televisión are fully controlled by the Presidency and FSLN through people appointed on the company’s management boards who, in most cases, are members of the Ortega family. Daniel Edmundo and Carlos Enrique, two of the sons of President Daniel Ortega manage Canal 4. Another son of the president, Juan Carlos, manages Canal 8 and the newly launched La Rock 22. Camilia, Luciana, and Maurice, three other children of the president, run Viva Nicaragua.
Canal 6 is operated by the government and controlled by the Presidency, which makes all decisions.
Except for Canal 6, all the stations currently operated by Sistema Nacional de Televisión used to be private channels that were acquired by individuals with close ties to the Presidency, mostly companies controlled by the FSLN, which holds concentrated power in Nicaragua.
For instance, in 2017, Canal 4 was purchased by David Pereira, an entrepreneur affiliated with FSLN. Since 2010, Canal 8 has been owned by a group of investors that includes Juan Carlos Ortega, one of the sons of President Daniel Ortega, with funding from a government cooperation scheme between Nicaragua and Venezuela. Juan Carlos Ortega also serves as the director of Canal 8. Viva Nicaragua was taken over by Sistema Nacional de Televisión following a dispute over its ownership. Additionally, in 2018, the government launched Canal 15 Nicaragüense to operate on the frequency previously used by 100% Noticias, an independent broadcaster, according to information from local journalists interviewed for this report in May 2024 and the media database curated by the Media and Journalism Research Center.
Source of funding and budget
The television outlets operated by Sistema Nacional de Televisión are financed in a proportion of over 50% from the state budget. Some of the channels in the group, such as Canal 6, draw their funding almost entirely from the state budget. Canal 8 regularly receives government funding, mostly state advertising, which accounts for more than half of its total turnover, according to local journalists interviewed for this report in May 2024.
Editorial independence
Led by people close to the Ortega family, the television channels part of Sistema Nacional de Televisión closely follow an editorial line that promotes the country’s government. In the meantime, most of the independent reporting programs that were aired on the channels taken over by the government in the past decade have been canceled, and their journalists have quit.
One of Canal 8’s most outspoken journalists, Carlos F. Chamorro, who directed the channel’s Sunday TV news program Esta Semana, left the station right after the purchase of the station in 2010, making a series of accusations against the outlet’s new owners. Local experts and journalists said that the group that bought the channel is linked with the FSLN’s business arm.
No domestic statute or independent assessment/oversight mechanism to validate the editorial independence of the channels run by Sistema Nacional de Televisión has been identified.
July 2024