Sour Sweetheart Deal for Spanish-Language TV?

Earlier this year, when the federal government moved to break up the nation’s premier Spanish-language television network, Latinos cried foul, claiming that 18 million Latinos would be deprived of a unique and valuable community resource.

I wasn’t convinced. Now some recent actions by its owners and executives are supporting my doubts that the Spanish International Network will vanish from U.S. screens, or even change very much from what it is now.

SIN broadcasts on more than 300 TV stations and cable systems in this country. But its chief source of wealth and influence is the stations that it owns in major cities with large Latino populations --including Los Angeles’ KMEX, Channel 34.

The main cause of SIN’s problems with the government is its close relationship with Televisa, Mexico’s biggest television network, which is owned by media magnate Emilio Azcarraga. After investigating the complex financial ties between SIN and Televisa for several years, a Federal Communications Commission judge concluded in January that Azcarraga also controls SIN. Federal law prohibits foreigners from having more than a 20% share in a broadcast license. So the FCC moved to revoke the license of KMEX and the other SIN-owned stations.

It was at this point that prominent Latinos, including Rep. Robert Garcia (D-N.Y.) and Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-East Los Angeles), rushed to defend SIN by pointing to all the good works that its stations do, like broadcasting telethons for worthy causes and promoting voter-registration drives.

That well-intentioned praise overlooked the real weaknesses of SIN. Its programming is lightweight, with the emphasis on maudlin soap operas and tacky variety shows. For all its stature--and profits--in this country, it neglects the best kind of community service: news coverage.

The news departments at SIN stations are badly understaffed and underfunded. KMEX had more than two hours of local news a few years ago. Now it has only an hour each evening. And its main newscast, 24 Horas , is produced in Mexico.

That program has long been a sore point with U.S. Latinos. Its pompous anchorman, Jacobo Zabludovsky, is as famous in Mexico as Walter Cronkite is in this country, with a big difference: Hardly anyone gives credence to what Zabludovsky says. That is because Zabludovsky and his Televisa bosses like Emilio Azcarraga are notoriously close to Mexico’s political leaders and the increasingly corrupt system that they control. Fairly or not, Mexicans regard any news item broadcast on 24 Horas as the version of events that the Mexican government wants to get across. U.S. Latinos share that cynicism.

Last week Zabludovsky surprised his viewers by announcing that he is moving to New York. There, sources in SIN say, he may become SIN’s news director in the United States. The prospect of a man considered to be a shill for the Mexican government running SIN news has caused nothing short of panic in SIN news operations from Miami to Los Angeles. “The man is not a journalist,” a SIN news executive told me angrily. “He’s a vendido (sellout), and everyone knows it.”

Zabludovsky’s announcement is only the latest move by Azcarraga and other executives of SIN that arouses suspicions as to whether they are trying to maintain control over Spanish-language television broadcasting in this country. A few weeks ago, for example, Azcarraga also announced that he is moving to New York City from Mexico to oversee SIN’s “international” operations.

Another example: Not surprisingly, many U.S. Latinos joined the rush to buy the broadcast licenses that SIN was forced to give up. They were stunned when Azcarraga announced a few weeks ago that the buyer would be Hallmark Cards, Inc. One group of Latino bidders, who offered more than the $301 million that Hallmark paid for the licenses, has sued to block the sale. Others have asked Congress to force a sale to Latino buyers.

Amid all this activity, Latinos who once rushed to defend SIN are asking why it was going to a Kansas City greeting-card company instead of to “our community”?

Allow me to suggest an admittedly cynical answer: Azcarraga has hit on a way to obey the FCC and still keep SIN’s influence dominant here.

If U.S. Latinos held the licenses for stations like KMEX they could, probably would, be independent of Mexicans like Azcarraga. Hallmark, a staid firm from mid-America with minimal knowledge of Latinos, represents no such threat. As long as SIN programming turns a profit, Hallmark can be expected to stick with it, whether it is from Azcarraga in New York or in Mexico City. Hallmark probably also will retain the pliable management that Azcarraga put in charge of stations like KMEX. It’s worth noting how quickly KMEX general manager Danny Villanueva, who used to boast that Latinos owned SIN, became a staunch Hallmark defender.

I can’t help but wonder if SIN’s agreement with Hallmark isn’t a sweetheart deal arranged to allow Azcarraga to remain the czar of Spanish-language television in the United States. I could be wrong, of course, but there’s one way to find out: The FCC should pursue its case against SIN more aggressively than ever, to determine if its executives are trying to evade the intent--if not the letter--of federal law. After all, making certain that U.S. citizens control Spanish-language broadcasting in this country is a matter of concern not just to the Latino community.