Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has begun a four-day broadcast of his national TV programme, Alo Presidente, to mark its 10th anniversary, BBC reported.
The programme will be transmitted from different parts of the country and include a series of guests and live satellite link-ups.
It has been the cause of some controversy about the control of the media in Venezuela.
It got under way in an electrical plant in the western state of Zulia.
In Alo Presidente's traditional format, Mr Chavez appeared at a desk in the middle of the industrial complex with an audience of loyal supporters and began talking about a vast array of topics.
Among them corruption, the global economic crisis and the importance of the electrical plant to the country's energy production.
Mr Chavez has also focused much on the country's privately-owned media and what he calls the battle of ideas in Venezuela.
The programme may have been on air for the past 10 years, but its core message remains the same.
"We must develop all the potential and human resources we've got in this socialist project," Mr Chavez said.
"We need to bring together the mayors and the local communities. I want to hear your ideas. We can't waste any more time."
Opponents of Mr Chavez have attacked the four-day long Alo Presidente as a publicity stunt.
They say that it coincides with a visit by the Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa, who is taking part in a seminar critical of Mr Chavez and the socialist revolution in Venezuela.
The government say the extended programme is merely a celebration of the past decade and say that Alo Presidente is a programme loved by most Venezuelans.
Either way, the move comes two years after an opposition television channel, RCTV, was denied a broadcast licence for its role in an attempted coup in 2002, and a bitter debate is currently being held about the alleged control of cultural life in Venezuela.
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