How long before Cubans start saying: I want my MTV?

One of the main criticisms of TV Marti has been that becaause of Cuban jamming that it was not available for most Cubans to see. But in recent years Cubans have been setting up bootleg cable networks in their neighborhoods.

It works like this: a person obtaains a DirecTV dish to pirate satellite signals and then they sell “hook ups” to their neighbors. A web of coaxial cable goes out from the home with the hidden dish to these “subscribers”. Everyone watches the same thing as the home with the dish but it’s an alternative to the state run media that dominate the island.

Well now the folks at TV Marti seem to have found a solution to their problem. They are buying broadcast time from a local station in Miami (part of the TV Azteca Network) which is broadcast on DirecTV. Pretty smart really. But now of course the Cuban government is howling mad because keeping the Cuban people in the dark is increasingly like trying to plug a leaky boat in a bad storm.

So Cuba’s response is to begin arresting the people running these bootleg networks that they have turned a blind eye to in the past. No doubt that the mid level bureaucrats were enjoying their own hook-ups.

By the way, this is about more than TV Marti. I believe it has to do with news analysis programs like “A Mano Limpia” and “Polos Opuestos” that are very popular in Miami and reportedly becoming very popular in Cuba thanks to these bootleg cable networks and a network of people that make VHS tapes of them and circulate them.

An AP report says:

Granma said yesterday that many of those US channels, along with TV Marti, transmit a message that “is destabilizing and interventionist and forms part of the Bush administration plan aimed at destroying the revolution and with it the Cuban nation.”

All of this clandestine work just to have something we all take for granted: uncensored media and opinions from around the world. I guess that’s how “strong and righteous” this revolution is that that it can’t withstand the scrutiny it might get if people were allowed to be exposed to alternate viewpoints.

I’m pretty sure that this is just going to be another source of dissatisfaction for Cubans. With the goverment cracking down on these dishes and bootleg networks, making examples of those they are catching, the people who have eeked out this little bit of freedom for themselves are sure to be angry.

We are in the home stretch people.

12 thoughts on “How long before Cubans start saying: I want my MTV?”

  1. TV Marti was inaugurated more than 15 years ago. Castro has blocked the signal ever since. The question is, why has it taken three different administrations, both Republican and Democrat, this long to address the problem seriously?

  2. This brings to mind a very funny scene from Monte Rouge in which the two State Security characters are checking the microphone they just installed in Nicanor’s bathroom to monitor his conversations. After installing the bug, one of the SS guys asks Nicanor to say something so he can check the hook-up. Nicanor calls out the usual sound-check: One, Two, Three, Testing… But the SS guy is not happy with that. He wants Nicanor to say something subversive. Nicanor responds by shouting: I’d love to have a parabolic antenna

  3. When State Security comes around to check the illegal hookups, the word goes out, and the main satellite antenna is disconnected momentarily. The desire to know what is going on in the world wins out.

  4. de la Cova,

    You are right of course but there are US laws that govern broadcasting and apparently there was never the political will to amend or work around them.

    The bootleg satellite networks are a relatively new phenomenon. So the idea of broadcasting locally in Miami in order to get into Cuba is by extension a relatively new idea. The first I heard of this idea was like 6-8 months ago and it didn’t take long for the people in charge to implement it after the the suggestion was made public.

  5. de la Cova,

    You are right of course but there are US laws that govern broadcasting and apparently there was never the political will to amend or work around them.

    The bootleg satellite networks are a relatively new phenomenon. So the idea of broadcasting locally in Miami in order to get into Cuba is by extension a relatively new idea. The first I heard of this idea was like 6-8 months ago and it didn’t take long for the people in charge to implement it after the the suggestion was made public.

  6. Henry,

    Bootleg satellite dishes have been around in Cuba for many years. This is from an article on Cuban rappers that appeared in the Boston Globe in May 2002:

    “Havana hip-hop was inspired by urban American sounds, picked up by enterprising Cubans who managed to tune their radios to Miami stations or rigged satellite dishes to pick up MTV. They passed around bootleg tapes, reproduced the grooves, and added Cuban touches: Spanish lyrics, Latin samples and Afro-Cuban beats.”

    I don’t think this administration (or any other in the last 40 years) has ever given anything other than lip service to the cause of a free Cuba. Why? I wish I knew.

    Professor De la Cova’s concerns over this country’s inertia is well founded.

  7. I am not apologizing for the administration but simply because a few people in Cuba may have been influenced by some individuals that had dishes in 2002 doesn’t mean that it was as widespread as it is now. Even in the US the penetration of dishes is much higher today than 5 years ago and they are being actively marketed here.

    I personally wasn’t aware of the trend until less than 12 months ago. I believe that perhaps in the last couple of years the non enforcement of the restrictions against such dishes may have greatly increased their penetration.

    Then there is the matter of programming. When these new shows like A Mano limpia started coming out (that are targetting specifically Cuban interests) then perhaps it feuled the demand.

    Like I said, I read the first public reco to use use directv less than a year ago and it’s already up and running.

    Bottom line is that it’s up now. And they are also using radio Mambi and their 50,000 watts to transmit Radio Marti at night.

  8. I am not apologizing for the administration but simply because a few people in Cuba may have been influenced by some individuals that had dishes in 2002 doesn’t mean that it was as widespread as it is now. Even in the US the penetration of dishes is much higher today than 5 years ago and they are being actively marketed here.

    I personally wasn’t aware of the trend until less than 12 months ago. I believe that perhaps in the last couple of years the non enforcement of the restrictions against such dishes may have greatly increased their penetration.

    Then there is the matter of programming. When these new shows like A Mano limpia started coming out (that are targetting specifically Cuban interests) then perhaps it feuled the demand.

    Like I said, I read the first public reco to use use directv less than a year ago and it’s already up and running.

    Bottom line is that it’s up now. And they are also using radio Mambi and their 50,000 watts to transmit Radio Marti at night.

  9. In the book “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” one of the first scenes is about the government confiscating the (forbidden) satellite dishes. Amazing how all these “free” governments operate the same way, isn’t it?

  10. Here is mention of illegal satellite dishes in Cuba SEVEN years ago:
    “If we’re found with cable or a satellite dish, we would be arrested.” Oh. They ask me how many cable channels I get in my house at home. I don’t want to tell them. They insist. I tell them. They look at me in shock. How many without cable? Seven–see, not that much different from you. Yes it is, they cry! Seven is a lot more than two! http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/elian/touring.htm
    US policy toward Cuba has been a series of lackluster half measures that sprout usually around election time.
    The Helms-Burton Act is a good example of a half measure carried out by both Republicans and Democrats.

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