Ethnic Fight Heats Up at Latino Station

Sometimes unwritten words are more potent than any printed on a page.

That appears to be the case with the controversy that erupted after employees at all-Spanish KMEX-TV Channel 34 in Los Angeles recently submitted a petition to their incoming general manager requesting that he fill a news director’s vacancy with a person “who reflects the interests . . . experience and culture of the Los Angeles TV audience.”

The petition’s language seemed harmless enough. Few station managers would ever admit to hiring a news director without weighing local audience needs.

Yet many of the 80 station employees--more than half KMEX’s 150-person work force--who signed the petition insisted in interviews that the document really was a coded warning that viewers of Mexican decent may be losing their voice in Spanish-language TV, an industry upon which they have always had a special emotional claim.

The employees and their supporters assert that Univision, the nation’s largest Spanish-language network with nine owner-operated, full-power stations, including KMEX, is not serving its Mexican and Mexican-American audience. (Almost two-thirds of the nation’s Latino population is of Mexican heritage.)

Examples cited include:

* Network plans to consolidate production operations in Miami, a city whose cultural and economic life is dominated by former Cuban refugees.

* New shows that feature Cuban or Cuban-American hosts or producers.

* A historic failure to produce enough TV programs in Los Angeles, a market that accounts for more than half Univision’s station revenues.

* A lack of meaningful Mexican or Mexican-American representation in top network management, and a similar lack of positive Mexican or Mexican-American on-air role models.

All this fuss might seem odd for non-Spanish-language viewers accustomed to the bottom-line dynamics of English-language TV. But Latinos of all nationalities see Spanish-language TV as more than industry or mere entertainment.

For them, decisions made at KMEX or Univision headquarters in New York represent jobs, a cultural lifeline to their homelands and a powerful political and educational vehicle for pushing their immigrant population into the mainstream. This industry also represents an arena where Latinos of vastly different histories and outlooks compete for recognition and power.

That’s why the petition’s signers and their sympathizers say they feel compelled, even at the risk of endangering their careers or being labeled gingoists, to make their voices heard.

Their voices, however, can be confusing, even contradictory.

KMEX news staffer Sergio Olmos, for example, claims that Cubans are taking over the network’s key decision-making jobs, on-air assignments and production contracts. Some other employees and outside observers disagree, asserting that it isn’t nationality or ethnicity, but geography and social class that are creating a gulf between Univision and some of its viewers.

They point to a recent slippage in ratings as evidence that the network’s upscale managers in Miami and New York have made programming decisions that alienate their less-educated, more working-class Mexican or Mexican-American viewers in the Southwest.

According to Miami-based Strategy Research Corp., a TV ratings firm specializing in Spanish-language media, Univision, while still dominant in its field, suffered a 14% ratings drop in its average weekly audience (between 9 a.m. and midnight) from November, 1988, to February, 1989.

Even some prominent Latinos who early on favored Hallmark Card Inc.’s purchase of the Univision network and its stations now claim that the network is drifting away from its viewers.

“They are in danger of losing touch with the Latino community in general,” said Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a national civil rights group that supported Univision’s purchase by Hallmark.

“Although the network has (created) a lot of new programs produced in the U.S., most of them are filmed or taped in Miami,” she said. “If the programming is going east and the population growth is in the Southwest, then they (Univision) . . . are losing a window of opportunity.”

Univision officials strenuously deny these allegations, claiming that their managers--whether Latino or not--and their programs--regardless of who produces them and where--remain responsive to viewers.

Still, J. William Grimes, president and chief executive officer of Univision Holdings, the parent firm of the network and its stations, acknowledged that the recent KMEX petition does reflect some legitimate employee concerns.

“I will share some of the blame for this,” Grimes said. “It indicates to me that we have not brought people up to speed on what we are trying to do with our (local) news,” such as plans for increasing news programming. “When I spend my next day in Los Angeles, I will get everybody together and update them on what we are trying to do out there.”

He and his associates dispute many of the critics’ specific complaints, however.

A Univision spokeswoman in New York said that five of nine general managers heading full-power Univision stations are Mexican or Mexican-American, including Emilio Nicolas Jr., KMEX’s new general manager.

The same official said that all of the Univision network’s eight highest ranking executives are Latino: Four are Cuban or Cuban-American, three are of South American heritage and one is Mexican-American--Emma Carrasco, senior vice president of marketing.

While Univision lists Carrasco as the No. 2 person in the network hierarchy, many employees and observers question whether her title matches her authority. They also view Grimes as Univision’s real decision-maker because he--not network president Joaquin Blaya--has the last word on budgetary and financial matters.

“I kind of lament the perception that Anglos are making the decisions,” Grimes said. “I’m the token Anglo. The two people who are picking the programs are Hispanic--Blaya and (Rosita) Peru,” Univision’s vice president of programming.

In the past six months, network officials maintain, Blaya has helped boost the amount of U.S.-produced programming on Univision from 22% to 30.8% of its schedule. (The rest of Univision’s programming comes from Latin American countries.)

KMEX officials noted that some of the new programs, including “Portada” (“Front Page”), a “20/20”-style news magazine, are already being produced on the West Coast. Other new shows produced in Miami--such as “Cristina,” an “Oprah Winfrey”-style talk show, and “TV Mujer,” a morning women’s program--have scheduled live shooting in Los Angeles.

But KMEX’s Olmos doesn’t feel reassured by these new shows. He said “Portada” and “Cristina” are hosted by Cubans or Cuban-Americans while Miami-based “TV Mujer” tends to draw heavily from its resident Cuban population for guests.

These programs not only ignore the needs of the majority Mexican audience, said Sari Bermudez, a West Coast correspondent for “TV Mujer,” they tell Mexican and other non-Cuban viewers that they aren’t as important, as educated or as successful as their Cuban counterparts.

Univision officials contend that their programs offer many positive Mexican and Mexican-American role models, including network news anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas.

KMEX officials characterized the comments of staffers such Olmos as the “irresponsible,” divisive ravings of disgruntled employees. Nicolas, the station’s new general manager, suggested that these complaints border on discrimination.

“I am a Chicano,” he said, “but I don’t discriminate. The key factor is reflecting the needs of the audience. Not everyone has to be Mexican to do that.”

Univision’s critics worry that the plan to consolidate network production operations in Miami sometime next year will further entrench Cuban influences at the expense of Mexican viewpoints--in news as well as other programming.

Leobardo Estrada, a UCLA professor of urban planning who sits on the network’s broadcast advisory council, said that while Univision may have legitimate financial and logistical reasons for moving to Miami, “it would be a major mistake to reconcentrate” production there when more than 60% of the nation’s 20 million Latinos are of Mexican descent. “Good TV is good TV,” Univision’s Carrasco said. “We will always have a balance in our (programs) because we understand that our product has to be relevant to all our audience. We are very much interested in staying in business.”

Rafael Prieto, a Spanish-language media consultant and former newspaper editor, puts the problem of declining Mexican influence on the doorstep of KMEX’s recently departed general manager, Daniel Villanueva. He “made the station a lot of money, but very little of it was invested locally in produced programs and news,” said Prieto.

“Now, everyone is complaining that the Cubans have taken control of Univision,” Prieto said. “But the reason (Cubans have climbed up the network ladder) is very simple. WLTV (in Miami) invested in local program production and their news department.”

WLTV employs about 52 people in its news department and fields 11 news crews that produce more than 10 hours of news a week. KMEX has about 40 people in its news department and seven news crews producing eights hours of news a week.

Villanueva did not return calls from The Times. But in the Los Angeles Spanish-language paper La Opinion, Villanueva was quoted as saying he was not able to invest additional resources for years because, as the network’s biggest revenue-earner, KMEX’s profits were used to keep its sister stations--including WLTV--afloat.