RIO DE JANEIRO, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian Senate has approved a bill to create a state television broadcaster, the so-called TV Brasil, in a tense voting session that ended Wednesday morning.

    The new broadcaster, a merger of two public communication companies Radiobras and TVE, has been on air since Dec. 2 thanks to an executive order, but its definitive creation still lacks approval by the National Congress.

    The bill was passed from the Chamber of Deputies where it has been voted on. Members of opposition parties in the Senate Wednesday tried to block the voting and left the plenary in protest. But senators eventually approved the entire text of the bill, which relieved it from being passed back to the Chamber of Deputies.

    The approval however does not mean the bill will remain as it is. Sen. Renato Casagrande, reporter of the bill from the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to veto some items when signing the promulgation.

    One item probably to be changed would grant TV Brasil the right to broadcast sports events that other networks abstain from broadcasting. This means that private TV networks that purchase broadcast rights for sports competitions would have to allow, for free, the state-owned network to broadcast the games that do not fit in their schedules.

    The proposal faced opposition from some sectors, especially radio networks, which would have to compete with a TV broadcaster in transmission of those games. Some senators argued that the item interfered in private agreements, and therefore was unconstitutional.

    Nonetheless, the bill is believed to have sparked a debate on the controversial issue that sports events are not transmitted by their broadcast-right holders. Three bills regarding the matter are expected to be voted on by the Chamber of Deputies' Tourism and Sports Committee.