Latino Support Sought for Purchase of Channel 68

Hispanic Christian Communications Network, a Burbank-based television ministry, appealed Tuesday for the support of the Latino community in the organization’s efforts to win federal approval for its proposed purchase of KEEF-TV Channel 68.

“We really need the community to back us up,” public relations director Walter Contreras said at a news conference, stressing that the bilingual programming would be non-sectarian.

Hispanic Christian Communications Network officials explained that they are attempting to buy the station for $2.3 million from its current owner, Black Television Workshop, and that all but one of the board members of the workshop has approved the deal. The proposal is pending before the Federal Communications Commission.

Black Television Workshop has been beset by in-fighting and lack of money and was only on the air for four months in 1987 before the FCC shut it down because of questions about ownership and management practices. Under terms of the proposed sale, the group would be allowed to produce some programming on the station.

The Hispanic Christian Communications Network is currently on the air on KVEA Channel 52, Monday through Friday from 7-9 a.m., with a call-in program offering Christian ministry and social service information. It hopes to operate KEEF for 12 hours daily (from 6 a.m. to noon and 6 p.m. to midnight) with educational and inspirational programming, said its executive director, the Rev. Raimundo Jimenez.

“We not only preach to the people, we want to help the people,” Jimenez said. “We plan to offer social assistance and to minister to needs such as food, clothing, employment. HCCN is a ministry of community aid.”

In the three years that the Hispanic organization has broadcast on KVEA, it has raised enough through community donations to purchase KEEF, Jimenez said. The group expects to have raised $2 million by the end of the year, according to financial administrator Eduardo Ildefonso Jr., and it raised $1.1 million in 1988, he said.

The network’s attorney, Vincent J. Curtis, said that, once in operation, the station would function much like other public broadcasting stations: financing station costs through community support.

At the news conference Tuesday, Hispanic Christian Communications Network officials denied allegations by a Spanish-language publication, Nuevos Horizontes, that it defrauded supporters by obtaining donations through false pretenses. In an August article, the publication said that the organization was soliciting contributions from its viewers to help with the expenses of the sale, knowing that the sale would not go through. Hispanic Christian Communications Network attorney Terran T. Steinhart said that he plans to file a defamation suit against Nuevos Horizontes this week.