Government–media relationships are both symptomatic and constitutive of a nation. In Venezuela the history of Hugo Chávez’s revolutionary government cannot be written without paying attention to its complex relationship with the media in a country in which political polarization defines national life. Existing scholarship about the Chávez–media saga provides analyses at the macro level. We lack, however, studies that illuminate the micro level of the everyday life of mass media in Venezuela’s changing context. Based on 12 years of research (1999–2011), this article examines government–media relations through the study of five successful telenovelas. Each show was written and broadcast at a time that defines a period in the history between Chávez and the media. These five case studies track changes in the legal framework, document instances of self-censorship, tease out the particulars of the difficult coexistence of government and private media, and illuminate the consequences for the writing, production, consumption and international sales of Venezuelan telenovelas, and for Venezuelan television in general.