Radio, TV Set First Spanish Simulcast With ‘Trial and Error’

At 8 tonight, CBS will begin airing a new comedy called “Trial and Error,” the story of two Latino friends in Los Angeles who have followed wildly different career paths--one is an attorney, the other sells T-shirts on Olvera Street.

And also beginning tonight, the Spanish-speaking communities in Los Angeles and six other major American cities will get a chance to enjoy the show: Through the cooperation of CBS, Columbia Pictures Television and Spanish-language radio stations in each city, “Trial and Error” will become the first network situation comedy to be simulcast in Spanish.

Participating radio stations include KTNQ-AM (1020) in Los Angeles as well as stations in Houston, Chicago, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Tampa and Tucson, all cities with large Spanish-speaking populations. The cost of the radio broadcasts will be absorbed by the show’s producer, Columbia, which has bought half-hour time blocks for the simulcasts.

Producing the Spanish sound track and purchasing radio time will add more than $100,000 to Columbia’s costs for making the eight episodes that CBS has ordered for now.

Eduardo Cervantes, vice president of current programs at Columbia Pictures Television, believes that simulcasting could provide advertisers a unique link with the growing community of Latino consumers. According to a recent study published by a Miami-based research corporation, there are 20 million Latinos in this country, and that population is growing at six times the rate of other ethnic groups here. They collectively spend about $134 billion a year.

“When there’s a group that’s spending that kind of money, and advertisers are looking to home in on their market for a particular product, any sponsor would be silly not to pursue it,” he said. “No conduit has been developed that is as strong as television. Right now there are a tremendous number of monolingual (Spanish-speaking) people who are not watching network television, or are watching it and not getting the full impact of it.”

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Gloria Molina sees in the simulcast effort a potential for better relations between the Latino community and other groups.

“I think it’s going to create a tremendous bridge for everybody,” she said in an interview at a party on Olvera Street hosted by Columbia and the Olvera Street Merchants Assn. to kick off the show. “They (CBS and Columbia) are respecting the fact that this is a bilingual community, and it’s success will show that there is a market for it. It’s bridging together a lot of people, and showing that there is really not that much of a difference between us.”

Despite the availability of a Spanish sound track, radio stations in New York City, Sacramento and Miami have refused to participate in the simulcast for one reason: In accordance with a directive from CBS, none of the show’s commercials will be translated from English into Spanish.

“We were approached about it, and we felt that it was inappropriate to send English-speaking messages to a Spanish-speaking community,” explained Herbert Levin, senior vice president and general manager of WADO-AM in New York City. “If they had (provided Spanish sound tracks for the ads), we would have been pleased to carry it.”

Edward Disdel, operations director for KTNQ, said his station didn’t like CBS’ position either but decided that the benefits of the simulcast outweighed the negatives.

“We don’t feel that we should penalize the audience by making them miss the entertainment value of a show that Paul and Eddie are working their tails off to do,” Disdel said, referring to the show’s stars, Paul Rodriguez and Eddie Velez. “We never penalize the audience because of somebody else’s problem. It’s very funny in English, and it’s just as funny in Spanish. It really is.”

Disdel added that he thinks CBS may solve the problem in the future. “Eventually, they’ll wise up,” he said.

David Fuchs, CBS’ senior vice president of corporate and broadcast affairs, said that the network would have broadcast the ads in Spanish if it were feasible, but maintained that the technical and financial requirements would make translation a logistical nightmare.

“Not every advertiser has a Spanish version of the commercial,” Fuchs said. “And you have to remember that though the show is on every week, the advertisers are not. You cannot demand that someone who wants to buy just one spot translate that commercial into Spanish. We have not been able to get to that yet. This is the first time out.”

Fuchs said the business of translating a TV show into both a different language and a different medium, radio, poses numerous problems even without the advertising.

“You have to have a complete translation that has the exact timing; two languages don’t always come out to the same number of syllables or whatever,” he said. “Every single scene and commercial has to start and stop at the same point, and you may have eight or nine different commercials in one show.” And, Fuchs added, “Commercials tend to be colloquial; they use words that may have a particular shade of meaning (that) the same word in Spanish may not have.”

WADO’s Levin suggested that Spanish-language stations could help CBS with translating the commercials into Spanish. But Fuchs said, “They would have to have a United Nations level of translation” available to make that practical.

Despite the advertising controversy, Columbia, KTNQ’s Disdel and leaders of the local Latino community remain buoyed by the possibility that the “Trial and Error” simulcast might open doors for greater cooperation between the Latino community and network television.

Although most cities with large Spanish-speaking populations offer Spanish-language programming, Cervantes said that, for financial reasons, most of it does not offer the quality or sophistication of network programming. He added that he hopes the success of this simulcast will lead to Columbia and other production companies providing Spanish sound tracks for a variety of programs, not just those with a Latino theme.

CBS’ Fuchs, however, remains cautious about predicting future Spanish simulcasts.

“I guess there’s no theoretical reasons against it,” he said. “This happened to be a much more obvious case, with Hispanic stars and a Hispanic setting. I’m not sure how far you could go with a complete bilingual network; it’s technically very difficult to do.”