Cable Show 2009: Univision Takes 'Al Punto' To NCTA
Tapes Show For The First Time Outside Its Miami Studios
Laura Martinez -- Multichannel News, 4/2/2009 5:02:58 PM
Washington — Complete Cable Show 2009 coverage from Multichannel News
Univision Communications Inc., which this week reached retransmission-consent deals with Time Warner Cable and satellite provider Dish Network, capitalized on Cable Show '09 being held in the nation's capital to tape a segment of its weekly Al Punto program, right next to the Broadband Nation exhibit.
It was the first time Al Punto was taped outside its Miami studios since it launched in September of 2007.
Jorge Ramos, host of Al Punto and co-anchor of Noticiero Univision, hosted a morning Q&A session with Sen. Bob Menendez (D.-N.J.) and Raul E. Cisneros, chief of the U.S. Census Bureau Media Relations Branch, who took the opportunity to talk about the upcoming 2010 Census and the importance of mass media to alert Spanish-speaking Latinos.
"Now that we have secured distribution with the biggest operators, we thought it was time to stress the importance of the Hispanic market and make sure we will be properly counted this time," Ramos told Multichannel News after the taping session.
The taping of Al Punto at Cable Show '09 came on the heels of this week's launch, also in Washington, of the "ya es hora, ¡HAGASE CONTAR! Campaign," a multiplatform effort involving several Latino-oriented organizations to inform and motivate the nearly 50 million U.S. Latinos to fully participate in the 2010 Census.
Counting the Hispanic population accurately is crucial to the nation's Spanish-language broadcasters. On April 1, NBC Universal-owned Telemundo kicked off a company-wide campaign to raise awareness among Spanish- speaking Latinos about the census, an initiative than encompasses all of Telemundo's properties and even includes some census-awareness plugs into its popular prime-time telenovelas.
The efforts aim to provide a true tally, because, according to National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund (NALEO), Census 2000 did not count some about 3% of that population base, or some 1 million Latinos.
Most of the under-counted Latinos are thought to be among the undocumented crowd (estimated at about 12 million, per the Pew Hispanic Center).
At the April 2 taping, both Menendez and Cisneros said television is going to be crucial in informing Latinos that they must be counted and that they should complete the 10-question questionnaire with "full confidence," regardless of immigration status, knowing the U.S. Census does not share information with other government agencies.
Asked about his expectations of the 2010 Census, Ramos says it hopefully will uncover a huge "invisible population" of migrants.
"2010 is going to be a big surprise," he said.
