The newest entrant trying to grab the attention of L.A.’s Spanish-speaking population has an advantage; it’s already a household name.
Atlanta-based cable news network CNN has chosen KBEH (Channel 63) in Westchester as the first station in the country to air its eight-hour block of Spanish-language programming called CNN Latino.
Scheduled to debut next month, the programming will include lifestyle, documentary and news shows, along with a locally produced debate show. About two to three hours of the daily programming will be produced in Los Angeles.
Bob Behar, chief executive of the station’s parent company, Hero Broadcasting in Hialeah, Fla., said he saw an opportunity to bring CNN’s fare into the market.
“This is going to be live, interactive and address the needs of the Latino community,” he said.
But KBEH faces increasing competition as other corporate media have taken notice of the growing importance of reaching Hispanic audiences. MundoFox, a Century City broadcast network backed by News Corp., is already producing a Spanish-language news broadcast in Los Angeles. Next year, Univision News and ABC News will unveil an English-language news network based in Miami.
Hero has operated the station for several years as an affiliate of Viacom’s MTV Tr3s, which offers Latin American music and pop culture programming, along with reality shows and other content aimed at young bicultural viewers.
By switching to CNN, Behar said the station will appeal to a broader 18-54 demographic, which will help improve the station’s ad sales. As is typical of affiliate relationships, KBEH will keep the revenue from selling local ad inventory; CNN will take the national ad sales revenue.
“We believe we can do a much better job of selling this than we were able to sell MTV Tr3s,” he said. “This is the demographic that is sought after by advertisers.”
Digital Transition
Cinefamily in the Fairfax district is one of the only places in town to see a Czech New Wave film or to hear a comedian talk back to the screen during the screening of a romantic comedy.
It’s also one of relatively few theaters that still use a 35 mm film projector; in fact, film is the preferred format.
But Cinefamily, which shows revival fare and new movies, faces the inevitability of adding digital projection as some studios cease producing and shipping new 35 mm prints.
Hadrian Belove, a co-founder of the non-profit theater, said he’s all but forced into the transition. Already this year, he lost out on showing some new releases, along with some digital re-releases, including “White Christmas.”
“It’s not our choice,” Belove said. “The whole death of film thing is real.”
Although Cinefamily already has a digital projector, it doesn’t handle the standard format. So the theater is going to the masses to raise money for the upgrade.
Last week, Cinefamily launched a monthlong crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.com to raise $144,000. The money would allow the theater to upgrade its projector and audio system and to do other work, including patching a leaky roof.
Per Kickstarter’s rules, if the entire sum isn’t raised by Jan. 2, the theater will not get any of the pledged donations.
This weekend, Cinefamily will stage a 24-hour live telethon event to raise awareness. It will include a Q&A session with Robert Downey Jr. as well as performances from Jason Schwartzman, who will eat dinner on stage at the theater, along with other events. The event will be streamed online.
The theater has been up and running for five years and has shown about 2,000 films during that time. This week, the theater is showing films such as “The Dark Crystal,” a 1982 fantasy that used animatronic puppets and was co-directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz.
Meanwhile, larger theaters that show more commercial fare have gone digital by taking advantage of a deal in which studios subsidize much of conversion costs by making payments when they distribute movies digitally.
But Belove said that arrangement doesn’t work as well for his theater. That’s partly because he doesn’t want to take out large loans and partly because he often works with smaller distributors who might not want to pay that fee.
Some compare the environment with the sea change that took place with the transition from silent to sound films in the early part of last century – ironic considering that Cinefamily’s venue was formerly the Silent Movie Theater.
“When I was at the art house convention, everyone was in a panic about it,” he said.
Staff reporter Jonathan Polakoff can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 226.
