Wednesday, February 07, 2007

U.S.-Funded TV Marti Soon To Be Seen In Cuba

By Matthew Borghese - All Headline News Staff Writer
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006380622
February 6, 2007 7:38 p.m. EST

Miami, FL (AHN) - TV Marti, the U.S.-funded station aimed at ending the communist regime in Cuba, may soon be showing up on televisions in Havana.

TV Marti has signed a $195,000 deal with WPMF-TV in Miami, which will broadcast programming for six months on equipment powerful enough to allow Cubans with satellite dishes, which have been outlawed, to pick up the station.

Cuba's communist party newspaper, Granma, has spoken out against the move, saying, "They are trying new ways to get their meddlesome and subversive messages, designed to destabilize the Cuban revolution, seen and heard in our country."

"The authorities of our country, with the support of the vast majority of the people, are taking and will take the necessary measures" to make sure the programming doesn't reach Cuban televisions.

TV Marti hit the air on March 27, 1990, and operates as an element of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), along with its sister station, Radio Marti. The stations are remnants of the Cold War-era anti-communist radio networks like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) which were broadcast into the Soviet Union in an attempt to help bring down the Iron Curtain.