(NECN/APTV/VTV) - Venezuelan cable television providers have dropped a TV channel critical of President Hugo Chavez after a government official said the network violated broadcast laws. Providers stopped transmitting the channel critical overnight on Saturday, after the government cited noncompliance with new regulations requiring the socialist leader's speeches to be televised on cable. The channel, Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), disappeared from TV sets shortly after midnight, just hours after Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela's state-run telecommunications agency, Conatel, said several local channels carried by cable television have breached broadcasting laws and should be removed from the airwaves. Cabello warned cable operations on Saturday evening that they could find themselves in jeopardy if they keep showing those channels. "They must comply with the law, and they cannot have a single channel that violates Venezuelan laws as part of their programming," he said. Several channels have not shown Chavez's televised speeches when he orders all media to air them - a requirement under new regulations approved last month by the telecommunications agency, Cabello said. RCTV did not broadcast a speech by the president to his political supporters during a rally early on Saturday. The station's removal from cable and satellite television prompted a cacophony of protests in Caracas neighbourhoods as Chavez opponents leaned out apartment windows to bang on pots and pans. Others shouted epithets and drivers joined in, honking car horns. The following story and information is from the Associated Press.