Latino Group Challenges TV Licenses

The National Hispanic Media Coalition, citing what it claimed were dismal records in the hiring and promoting of Latinos, on Tuesday filed petitions to deny the license renewal applications of Los Angeles television stations KCOP Channel 13 and KCET Channel 28.

The boldest attack, however, was saved for KTTV Channel 11. Some coalition members said they had created a new company that will try to wrest the operating license from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Inc.

Licenses for all three stations expired at the Federal Communications Commission in September. Tuesday was the deadline for filing petitions to deny or challenge license renewals.

Coalition leaders told a news conference that the organization had based its complaints against KCOP and KCET on a comparison of employment figures for 1983 and 1988. They and other local TV stations were found to employ Latinos at a level far below their representation in the local population, which coalition chairman Armando Duron put at about 32%.

FCC records showed that KCOP’s overall Latino work force only increased from 8.5% in 1983 to 12.6% this year, said coalition legal counsel John Huerta, while the representation of Latinos in top management positions went from 7.5% to 10.9%.

Huerta said that noncommercial KCET, which had registered the largest workforce increase among Los Angeles stations--from 137 employees in 1983 to 253 in 1988--was among the slowest when it came to hiring and promoting Latinos.

FCC records showed, he said, that KCET’s Latino workforce increased from 11% in 1983 to more than 12% this year, while Latinos in top management positions rose from 7% in 1983 to roughly 9% this year.

The worst offender, from the coalition’s perspective, was KTTV--not only for its employment practices but also for its programming.

“We feel very strongly that KTTV is not responsive to the Hispanic community in Southern California,” said Esther Renteria, president of Rainbow Broadcasting Inc., the organization that formally filed a petition to challenge Channel 11’s license.

Rainbow Broadcasting described itself as a group of “experienced Hispanic broadcasters and civic leaders.”

KTTV’s Latino workforce climbed from 9.1% in 1983 to 14.1% this year, Huerta said, while the figures among top management positions went from about 8.8% to 9.4%.

Huerta said that coalition members had recently met with the station’s management in an effort to persuade Channel 11 to set some definite employment and promotion guidelines for the station.

“We tried to be thoroughly flexible in these meetings,” Huerta said, but he claimed that KTTV said it was “proud of their numbers, even as bad as they are.”

Duron said, and KTTV acknowledged, that the station had been warned by the FCC in 1983 to make improvements in its minority hiring.

Dean Ferris, KTTV’s senior vice president for employee relations, said Tuesday that Huerta’s characterization of his station as recalcitrant was unfair and accused the coaltion of making unreasonable demands.

“First of all, we dispute those allegations,” Ferris said. “I don’t know where they get the idea that there is outrright recalcitrance. It certainly is not indicative of our attidute toward the hiring of Latinos and any other minorities.”

Barbara Goen, KCET’s director of public information, said that her station had been ambushed by the coalition.

“We were very surprised and disturbed by the action that was taken. We have been involved in several productive conversations with the coalition. Both conversations were very fruitful and friendly. We told them that we had identified the issue of Hispanic employment within our company. We have made a commitment to that.”

KCOP officials were unavailable for comment.