LATV Shakes Up Exec Suite
Latino Network Ousts President, Affiliate Chief
by Laura Martinez -- Multichannel News, 12/16/2009 11:01:58 AM
Los Angeles-based LATV is undergoing major changes to its top management team, including the upcoming departure of founder and president Danny Crowe, whose contract, which expires Jan. 11, will not be renewed.
Also out from the
Hispanic-targeted network is Starrett Berry, the longtime affiliate-relations
executive who helped transform LATV from a three-hour programming block in Los
Angeles to a nationwide property distributed via multicast, reaching more than
40 million households in markets including New York, Dallas and Chicago. Berry, who was instrumental in reaching a multicast distribution deal for LATV with Tribune Broadcasting, was laid off on Friday, Nov. 13. Berry began working with LATV in 2003, first as a consultant and then as vice president of affiliate sales.
The company has not yet made a formal announcement about the executive changes. But in an interview with Hispanic TV Update, LATV chief operating officer Luca Bentivoglio said the economy and an overall bad year for business were mostly to blame.
"Starrett has done an incredible job at LATV," said Bentivoglio. "He was one of the pioneers of the whole multicast distribution trend." But he was also a victim of a company-wide effort to seek efficiencies and minimize costs, he said.
Berry's responsibilities will now be handled by American Latino Syndication (ALS), the team that handles syndication agreements for American Latino and LatiNation, the wholly-owned syndication properties LATV acquired in 2008 from AIM Tell-a-Vision.
Leading sales and distribution, as well as ALS, is David Morales, an LATV vice president and executive producer of American Latino TV and LatiNation.
The network, which earlier this year moved to an all-Spanish-language format, is also set to release national ratings for the first time, as Nielsen began measuring LATV national audiences on Sept. 28. The new data, said Bentivoglio, is expected to show "significant increases" for LATV.
Talkback
-
Yes, LATV's programing is awful. Luca was the catalyst in coming in and saving money by buying real cheap and bad programing from Mexico. The results were lay offs, bad ratings and an unwatchable channel. The winner is MTV3, Mun dos and TBS; other channels that have been able to capture the Latino audience.
Diana Chaidez - 12/18/2009 2:30:16 PM EST -
The reason for LATV's demise is 3:
1. They went from English language to Spanish and cannot compete with Univsion and Telemundo.
2. Their new programing is just bad.
3. Finally, they do not know their targeted audience. Is it the young reggatone audience? Banda? or the older Latino audience?
Ask an LATV staff, they don't know.
While TBS and other markets are chasing the young English speaking demographic, LATV has done the opposite and they find themselves with poor ratings, bad programing and no sponsors.
Jonas Marlowe - 12/18/2009 2:23:36 PM EST
No related content found.
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
