This past Saturday, Venezuelan television news channels Globovision and teleSUR both broke into their scheduled programming at precisely 3:30:48AM local time with to play a prerecorded video of a scrolling textual message announcing US operations in the country (Globovision announcement, teleSUR announcement). Fascinatingly, the two channels diverge sharply after the conclusion of this message.

On teleSUR, programming abruptly switched to wall-to-wall coverage of the operation and the government's response over the following hours.

In contrast, Globovision immediately reverted back to its scheduled programming for 15 minutes, replayed the message, then back to its programming for another 15 minutes. It then continued with its previous programming for another 30 minutes until 4:32:44AM local time when it finally switched to continuous coverage, displaying statements, social media posts and other communications over the coming hours.

It is fascinating that it took Globovision a little more than an hour to preempt its scheduled programming, suggesting there was initial confusion and hesitation from the government in how to utilize media channels across the country to respond, while the channel itself struggled with how to best cover the evolving events, while teleSUR simply switched to continual coverage.