The Cuban National Television News experienced a power outage on Tuesday during its broadcast, in an episode that brutally ironically highlights the extent of the energy crisis affecting the island: the state channel that reports on power cuts could not avoid them.
The journalist Daniel Benítez documented the incident in a video where he described what happened: "They were without electricity for about 15 minutes and had to play music and other news segments."
The channel's signal was interrupted and replaced with musical content until the electricity was restored.
The blackout in the news report occurred on the same day that a failure at the Apolo Substation in Havana caused the shutdown of units 6 and 8 at the Mariel Thermoelectric Power Plant and unit 3 at the Renté Thermoelectric Power Plant, further exacerbating the national electricity deficit.
That same day, the Electric Company confirmed that residents of Holguín would have only three hours of electricity per day, while in some municipalities across the country, power outages of up to 50 consecutive hours were reported.
The day before, Cuba had only 1,160 MW available against a demand of 2,689 MW, with a projected deficit of 1,940 MW during peak hours.
The collapse of the electrical system is not new, but it has worsened steadily in recent weeks.
On May 14, the worst deficit of the year was recorded: only 976 MW available against a demand of over 2,600 MW, which forced simultaneous cuts of up to 70% of the island.
On May 31, Jeannette Juaristi Torres, a director associated with the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television and Canal Habana, posted a denunciation on Facebook that went viral: “We are dying alive” due to the blackouts, also rejecting the notion that the U.S. embargo was the main cause of the crisis.
This Wednesday, a Cuban mother declared that she had been without electricity for 30 hours and that she saw her children suffering the consequences.
This is not the first time the energy crisis has directly impacted state television: in August 2024, the Cuban television signal experienced a 59-minute outage due to technical problems, and Canal Habana collapsed that same month due to a lack of electricity.
The blackout yesterday on the National News —the main news outlet of the Cuban state— thus becomes a symbolic image of a crisis that, after 67 years of dictatorship, has left the country unable to guarantee electricity even to its own propaganda outlets.
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