The Faces of Hispanic TV
Who we’re watching in 2008
by Laura Martínez -- Multichannel News, 1/20/2008 7:00:00 PM
Growth was not exactly the buzzword of 2007 for Hispanic media. In fact, according to TNS Media Intelligence, Spanish-language television — which usually stands out as a bright spot among measured media — dipped 0.2% in the first nine months of 2007, compared to the same period of the year before.
Still, Hispanic broadcasters, cable networks and operators achieved some milestones last year that they hope will better position them in the increasingly competitive business of serving Hispanic audiences. Those accomplishments included new programming, increased distribution, higher ratings, the adoption of new technologies and platforms, and even incursions into the political arena.
As the new year gets underway, Multichannel News looks at some of the players in Hispanic television. The following is not a ranking, nor is it intended as a comprehensive list of players in the market. Here are some of the people who are helping shape the future of Hispanic television.
Network Heads
Joe Uva
CEO
Univision Communications
Almost immediately after taking the reins at Univision Communications in April 2007, Uva set out to convince national advertisers to invest more than the meager 3.5% of their budgets in Spanish-language media to at least match the 14% that Hispanics represent as a segment of the general population.
Uva has no previous experience in Spanish-language media, but he has an enviable Rolodex with contacts in the area that matters most to his network: the advertising community.
Prior to joining Univision, Uva spent five years as president and CEO of OMD Worldwide, one of the nation’s largest media-buying agencies, where he structured the industry’s first billion-dollar cross-media buying contract.
With less than one year on the job, Uva has wasted no time making his mark. He has made some noticeable changes at the network, starting with letting executives talk to the press, something his predecessor, Jerry Perenchio, was reluctant to do.
Also last year, Uva was at the forefront of Univision’s first massive multiplatform campaign to educate Hispanics in the U.S. and Puerto Rico about the transition to digital television.
The industry will be watching Uva very closely, as Univision heads to trial March 18 over long pending litigation with programming partner and supplier Grupo Televisa.
Cynthia Hudson-Fernandez
Executive vice president, chief creative officer
MEGA TV
Every time she has a chance, Hudson-Fernandez likes to say her mission in MEGA TV is to create a programming alternative to Univision and Telemundo, both former employers of hers.
The television veteran is now charged with overseeing the expansion and national scope of MEGA TV, the Spanish Broadcasting System-owned and operated station which launched in Miami in 2006 and in 2007 achieved national distribution through the DirecTV Más platform.
“The plan is [and always has been] to create an alternative to Univision and Telemundo,” Hudson-Fernandez told Multichannel News at the time of the national launch.
She is also responsible for incorporating the concept of “Radio en Televisión” with SBS radio shows such as El Cucuy from Los Angeles’s La Raza 97.9 and El Vacilón de la Mañana from New York’s Mega 97.9, to expand the radio brands onto television.
The Emmy-award winning writer and producer was also the creator of the first English-language telenovela Miami Sands, which was globally syndicated and distributed by Promark Entertainment.
Content Players
Mapi Montero
CEO
Mapi TV
Most Hispanics might not know who Mapi Montero is, but it is almost certain that they have seen some — if not most — of the television shows she has produced in over two decades as television producer, beginning with the original Sábado Gigante in her native Chile in the early 1980s.
Montero, who is based in New Jersey and owns her own production company, Mapi TV, is the creative force behind Azteca America’s upcoming reality show, Retador, a boxing reality show featuring eight Mexican and eight American boxers competing for the Retador Azteca main title.
“I pitched [Azteca America] a reality-show about sex, but they said they already had someone internally working in that,” said Montero about how the Retador idea came about. “And jokingly I said to them: 'What now? Do you want me to do a show about boxing?”
Azteca thought it was a great idea.
Although she had helped the network produce a couple of boxing shows in the past, Montero didn’t know much about the sport, much less the fact that in order to do a show about boxing one had to become a promoter. She did just that in 2007, becoming the first Latina to sign up as a boxing promoter in the U.S.
Montero moved to the U.S. from Chile in 1991, and has worked as an independent producer for Univision, where she produced some of the network’s most popular shows, including Sábado Gigante, Despierta América, Primer Impacto and El Gordo y la Flaca.
In 2001, she produced Estamos Todos Unidos, a live special from Ground Zero, which aired Sept. 15, 2001, and was hosted by Don Francisco in Miami and anchor Jorge Ramos in New York.
Montero has also worked for Telemundo, HBO Latino and Spanish Broadcasting System, where she was part of the team that launched MegaTV in 2006.
Guillermo Sierra
Chief content officer,
V-me TV
The former Televisa executive is on a roll, hopping around the world in search of a good programming mix for the newly created 24-hour Spanish-language network V-me TV, which launched in March 2007 and is now available in over 30 million homes nationwide.
But when it comes to securing the right programming for a partly public television channel, Sierra is adamant about one thing: telenovelas are out of the question, at least for now.
Instead, he has secured partnerships and content deals with some of the most recognizable TV properties in the U.S., including the Food Network, The Rachel Ray Show, National Geographic, Sesame Street and the BBC.
More recently, Sierra helped the network acquire The Fairies, a popular Australian show, which V-me plans to launch in 2008 with a series of adaptations geared for Spanish-speaking children.
V-me has made children’s programming a crucial part of its content strategy. The network currently airs five hours of children’s programming every day targeting kids ages 2-6.
A native of Mexico, Sierra has previously worked for Discovery Communications, and prior to joining V-me he was vice president of programming and production for Spanish Broadcasting System.
Luis Silberwasser
Senior Vice President, General Manager
Discovery Networks U.S. Hispanic Group
Discovery Networks veteran Luis Silberwasser has been key in consolidating what he describes “an outstanding year” for the company’s Hispanic group.
This includes delivering its largest audience of adults 18-49 to date with the premiere of Discovery Atlas: Mexico Revealed, a two-hour documentary, which premiered in December. With a rating of 1.02, the program outdelivered all reported Hispanic pay TV channels including Galavision, as well as broadcast networks Azteca and Telefutura.
Discovery en Español also received its first Emmy nomination for Objetivo: El Norte, a documentary on immigration.
For Colombian native Silberwasser, original programming has been key to reaching and engaging Hispanic audiences, but most importantly to become the fastest-growing channel in terms of ratings.
The content, he said, does not have to be limited the Hispanic world: “Part of our ratings success has to do with a combination of global programs from Discovery with original, locally-produced and relevant shows that talk directly to Hispanic audiences.”
Also in 2007, Discovery en Español launched a new channel, Discovery Familia in more than 1 million Hispanic homes.
The new network targets mostly Hispanic children, women and families, and launched on the DirecTV Más platform, as well as on Cox Communications and Charter Communications.
For 2008, said Silberwasser, “we are continuing with our current efforts, which means doing more original programming and offer alternatives to the usual fare on Hispanic television.”
Patricio Wills
President
Telemundo Studios
Ask Patricio Wills to talk about telenovelas and he could go on for hours. But in a nutshell, as he likes to put it, “a telenovela is all about a couple who wants to kiss and a scriptwriter who stands in their way for 150 episodes.”
And he knows what he is talking about. Wills has worked in television since 1978, starting in his native Colombia as production manager and working his way up to president and shareholder of Radio y Televisión Interamericana, the network that was eventually bought by Telemundo as part of its strategy of producing its own content.
Wills has been behind the production of 35 telenovelas, game shows, reality shows and documentaries.
But these days, in addition to overseeing the bulk of Telemundo’s productions in Miami, Mexico and Colombia, he is also charged with working closely with writers, producers and brand marketers to incorporate branded content and other product placement into the plots of the network’s telenovelas. “It is not easy but it’s something we are perfecting,” he said.
In 2007 Telemundo premiered Pecados Ajenos, with the support of some big brands, including Kraft Foods, Toyota, Best Buy and S.C. Johnson.
For 2008, Wills and Telemundo will work hard to bring to fruition its most ambitious plan ever: a commercial-free, youth-oriented telenovela, which it hopes will be entirely supported by advertisers. “We are still in the planning stages because we want to do it, but we want to do it right,” said Wills.
Youth-Oriented Networks
Lucía Ballas-Traynor
Senior Vice President, General Manager
MTV Tr3s
Lucía Ballas-Traynor claims her current job as senior vice president and general manager of MTV Tr3s was tailor-made for her. After more than 17 years at Galavision, watching the trends and feeling misrepresented as a Latina, she began toying with the idea of bilingual programming targeting a young, underserved audience. And that is exactly what she does now.
Her network, which relaunched in 2006 from MTV en Español, celebrated its first anniversary in September 2007 with a boost in its subscriber base, more than doubling in one year to 6.2 million Hispanic television households.
Part of MTV Tr3s’s penetration success has to do with a hybrid distribution format that includes affiliate relations with Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and Dish Network, in addition to a growing broadcast presence, including full-power stations in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
Also in 2007, Nielsen Media Research began reporting ratings for the bilingual music channel as part of the Hispanic subscriber-sample of its National People Meter panel, marking the first time the network’s ratings are reported externally.
Ballas-Traynor, a native of Chile, started her career in Hispanic television 18 years ago at Univision, where she held a succession of positions, including general manager of Galavision.
She was named one of 10 “Women to Watch” by Multichannel News in 2002.
Danny Crowe
President, Co-founder,
LATV
Danny Crowe presided over some important milestones at the bilingual station he co-founded in 2001. Launched originally as a local broadcaster in Los Angeles, LATV now has national distribution via digital multicast reaching over 8 million households.
The increased distribution was possible through an agreement inked in January 2007 with Post-Newsweek stations, which placed LATV programming on its digital multicast channels in Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, Fla., and Miami.
In addition to giving LATV much-needed national exposure, the deal also became the largest multicast agreement to date in the Hispanic market. Later in the year, Post-Newsweek invested an undisclosed amount for a minority stake in the bilingual channel.
Crowe has also worked hard in securing programming and operations talent for LATV. Around the time of the Post-Newsweek deal, Crowe tapped the former E! Networks executive Howard Bolter as president and chief operating officer.
LATV currently has affiliate agreements with 26 stations, of which eight are in the top 25 television markets and 16 are in the top 25 Hispanic TV markets.
John A. De Armas
Vice President, WorldDirect,
DirecTV
De Armas couldn’t be better suited for the task of handling a multicultural division that groups over 100 channels in 18 languages. Born in Cuba, but raised in Colombia, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and the U.S., de Armas is now charged with finding and securing the best content for the multicultural audiences that subscribe to DirecTV.
Among these audiences, Hispanics are closest to his heart, since he knows them well from his days as president of the Hispanic Shopping Network: “Hispanics don’t buy a product; they buy a relationship,” said de Armas, who has a hands-on approach to finding the right content for the right audience. “We don’t have the bandwidth to just put on whatever; we have to be very selective and very careful with what we choose.”
The DirecTV Más platform, previously known as the DirecTV Para Todos, now boasts 45 Hispanic networks and, according to de Armas, will see “significant” growth in its channel offerings in 2008, although he declines to give specifics. He stressed the importance of looking for programming that offers more than the regular entertainment fare. “I have a moral obligation to make sure that the content I offer has a positive impact on the Hispanic community,” he said.
Alex Pels
General manager,
Mun2
As a producer of youth-oriented content, Alex Pels loves to push the envelope. This became clear early last year when his network launched a humorous (and controversial) campaign prescribing a dose of Mun2 to prevent young Hispanics from becoming too much like gringos. “It was supposed to be irreverent and non-conventional,” he said. “We like to talk to our audiences in a way nobody has talked to them before.”
While the ad campaign had a lot of people in the industry talking about the network, it also got more people watching. In 2007, Mun2 reached 17.5 million U.S. TV households, up from 10.6 million the year before. And in the third quarter of last year (the latest figures available) it saw a 23% growth in ratings compared to the same period of the year before.
But since launching in 2001, Mun2 has seen its niche market get more crowded, with the launch of newer networks targeting the exact same demographic (young, bilingual and bicultural Latinos). But Pels says he isn’t worried. “I would be worried if there weren’t anybody else in this space,” he said. “The arrival of more channels only shows the potential of this audience.”
The NBC-owned network is set to debut two shows, Hola Mun2 el Show and The Mun2 Hook-Up, in February and May, respectively. The network also expects to boost efforts to encourage young Latinos to register to vote with a TV and online effort dubbed “Vote for your future.”
Javier Saralegui
CEO,
Univision Online
When Univision Communications decided to venture onto the Web in 2000, it turned to Javier Saralegui, the longtime Galavision executive who had helped position the cable network as the leader in Spanish-language cable.
Despite its late entry into the online space, and under the leadership of Saralegui, Univision.com has grown in strides, becoming the most-visited Spanish-language Web site in the U.S., averaging over 15 million unique browsers and 400 million page views per month, according to Univision.com Traffic Analytics June-November 2007.
Following up on the latest trends, Univision.com in 2007 launched a new video channel in partnership with Maven Networks, and it premiered Mi Adorada Malena, its first Web telenovela, a Unilever-branded six-episode series starring former Miss Puerto Rico Cynthia Olavarría. Citing its online success, Univision brought Mi Adorada Malena to the TV screen as a one-hour broadcast special on Dec. 22.
Saralegui is the cousin of Univision TV personality Cristina Saralegui, who last year received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Multichannel News and its sister publication Broadcasting & Cable.
On-Screen Talent
Alex Cambert
Host,
“Más Vale Tarde” Telemundo
NBC-owned Telemundo took a big chance in 2007 when it launched its first late-night talk-show, Más Vale Tarde, an hourlong weekly program targeting acculturated bilingual 18- to 34-year-olds.
For the task, the network tapped Alex Cambert, a Cuban-American comedian who previously co-hosted the Golden Globes pre-show and served as the entertainment and lifestyle correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America.
Cambert, who has been dubbed the “Latino Leno” and the “Hispanic Seinfeld” by the general market media, says he just wants to be himself, and hopefully shake things up a little in Hispanic television. As host and co-writer of Más Vale Tarde, which premiered Nov. 29, Cambert ventured into bilingual territory, crafting a show that mixes interviews with celebrities in English and Spanish, something that hadn’t been done in Hispanic broadcast television.
Convinced that Hispanics are by no means a monolingual crowd, Cambert has designed what he said is a show that mirrors more accurately the experience of Latinos in the U.S. and are constantly exposed to both cultures.
Leila Cobo
Host,
“Estudio Billboard” V-me TV
A native of Cali, Colombia, Leila Cobo is the Latin Music editor of Billboard magazine — the first woman to hold that position — and she is considered by many in music and publishing circles as the ultimate Latin Music insider.
Last year, Cobo made her television debut as executive producer and host of Estudio Billboard, a weekly music show and interview series developed by fledgling Spanish-language national network V-me in collaboration with Billboard.
Estudio Billboard is produced in Miami and shot in high-definition before a live audience.
Since its premiere last October, Cobo has interviewed some of the most popular Latin artists, including Ricardo Montaner, Juanes, Maná, Franco de Vita, Daniela Mercury, José Feliciano, Gloria Estefan and Daddy Yankee.
Oscar Haza
Host,
“A Mano Limpia” América TeVe
Dominican journalist Oscar Haza is the host of A Mano Limpia, a daily hourlong news analysis show that has consistently brought América TeVe a ratings advantage over the local affiliates of Telemundo and Univision.
On Dec. 13, for example, A Mano Limpia (8-9 p.m.) garnered a rating of 12.4 among Hispanic households, topping Telemundo’s 11.6 and Univision’s 11.5, according to the Nielsen Hispanic Station Index.
Although the network pitches A Mano Limpia as a forum for “different voices and political opinions,” it has been embraced by the local Cuban-American community mainly because of its strong focus on issues that touch Cuban politics in the island and among exiled Cubans in South Florida. Haza has even been dubbed “honorary Cuban” by Miami’s Cuban-American community.
During his 4-year run hosting A Mano Limpia, Haza has interviewed personalities rarely seen on Hispanic television, including secretary of state Condoleezza Rice; former president of Poland Lech Walesa, former president of Spain José María Aznar and Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa.
Haza is a former television and radio correspondent, having worked in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
He is also a dual Emmy award winner who has served as an international correspondent for Univision and Telemundo.
María Elena Salinas
Jorge Ramos
Anchors
Univision Network
María Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos made history — and plenty of headlines — in 2007 by hosting the nation’s first-ever Spanish-language presidential debates on the Univision Network, first with the Democrats on Sep. 9, followed by the Republicans on Dec. 9.
Both debates were conducted in Spanish, with candidates answering in English and those answers translated into Spanish.
While the unusual format drew some criticism from political and media analysts, both forums delivered solid ratings for the Univision network, outperforming the average of the English-language debates in key demos, according to Univision with data crunched from Nielsen Media.
The Democratic presidential debate averaged 2.2 million viewers, while the Dec. 9 Republican forum drew an average 1.8 million viewers.
Salinas and Ramos have become two of the most recognizable faces of Spanish-language television, informing viewers about everything from world events and political campaigns to immigration and Latin American politics.
In addition to their duties as Univision news anchors, both Salinas and Ramos author syndicated weekly columns that are published in Spanish-language newspapers nationwide.
Since September, Ramos has also hosted Al Punto, a new Sunday morning political analysis show on Univision.
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