Called ‘Primary Vehicle’ for Social, Current Events : KMEX Has Become a Powerful Force in Community

KMEX-TV, which lost its operating license because of Wednesday’s ruling by a Federal Communications Commission administrative law judge, has become in recent years a powerful force in Southern California’s Spanish-speaking community.

Recently, Channel 34 has staged telethons to raise millions of dollars for victims of Mexico City’s 1984 natural gas explosion and last year’s earthquake, as well as for survivors of the volcanic eruption and mud slide in Colombia last November.

The station also provides Christmas gifts and food baskets to needy families.

“It’s become a primary vehicle for the (Spanish-speaking) community for not only news, but also for social services and current events,” said Myrna Gutierrez, a public relations specialist who has worked with several grass-roots organizations in East Los Angeles.

Audience Has Grown

KMEX has been broadcasting out of Los Angeles since 1961. In the last two decades, its viewing audience has grown rapidly, reflecting the area’s growing Latino population.

The station claims to reach 87% of the Latino households--or nearly 3 million viewers--in seven Southern California counties from Los Angeles to San Diego.

Out of its studios on Melrose Avenue, just across the street from Paramount Studios, KMEX broadcasts a full day of programming in Spanish, including news programs from Mexico City and Los Angeles, local talk shows, a wide array of Latin American soap operas and musical variety shows.

Station director Danny Villanueva refused to comment on the FCC ruling and instructed station employees not to talk about it to news reporters.

Business as Usual

At the station’s studios and offices, the announcement did not appear to affect operations. For most of the station’s 135 employees, it was business as usual.

A few admitted initial concern about the news of the FCC ruling but said they had been reassured by management that neither their jobs nor programming at the station would be affected. Others said they were taking a wait-and-see attitude but were optimistic that the ruling would be appealed.

Despite its public service activities, KMEX has its critics within the Latino community.

“Channel 34’s programming is often bad, catering to the Cuban population rather than the Mexican. . . . They ignore such community issues as voter registration, the gang problem,” said Chicano historian Rodolfo Acuna, a professor at California State University, Northridge. He added that, politically, the station is generally regarded as “ultra-conservative.”

‘Minimum Coverage’

Former KMEX reporter Alberto Aguilar, who works as news and public affairs director at radio station KALI, criticized what he called the “minimum coverage” given to Latino communities across the country in Channel 34’s newscasts.

However, on the question of over-involvement in the station by Mexican media tycoon Emilio Azcarraga--the issue on which Wednesday’s federal ruling turned--at least one local Latino analyst took a more tolerant view.

“Azcarraga basically did to the United States what American companies have been doing to Latin American countries for years, using the names of nationals to head U.S. firms,” said Dr. Felix Gutierrez, a USC professor who has studied Azcarraga’s influence on Spanish-language television programming in the United States. “It’s taken the federal government 25 years to catch up with reality.”