All the News, in 40 Languages

Programmers of KSFV, a new San Fernando Valley television station, call themselves the foreign-language version of CNN, the 24-hour Cable News Network. Analysts describe KSFV as novel and timely, but also highly risky.

KSFV debuted last month on UHF Channel 24. Owned by Venture Technologies Group in Calabasas, KSFV features foreign-language news, 24 hours a day, from more than 45 countries. Some programs are broadcast live via satellite from countries such as Italy and Taiwan, while news shows from Armenia and Sweden, for example, are transmitted by tape. In all, the station boasts news programs in 40 languages.

KSFV managers say the international news format is intended to reach the growing ethnic communities in the Valley. The station can be received by residents through most of the Valley, except in Burbank and Glendale.

Lawrence Rogow, KSFV’s managing director and co-owner of Venture Technologies, believes a foreign language is spoken in a majority of the households in Los Angeles, including the Valley.

“By providing foreign-language news,” he said, “we’re providing something for which there is a demand.”

Industry analysts agree that the Los Angeles area is a potentially rich market for foreign-language television programming. Still, KSFV faces numerous hurdles, including legal questions about rebroadcasting licensed footage from overseas, having a low-power transmitter and competing with an established station that also broadcasts foreign programs.

KSFV’s signal is broadcast on UHF--a band that historically has drawn a small audience compared with VHF. And while KSFV’s signal reaches most of the Valley, its picture is fuzzy in some areas. The reason: KSFV’s transmitter in the mountains of Lopez Canyon has relatively low power, only about 50,000 watts.

By comparison, KSCI Channel 18, a Los Angeles-based station that has aired foreign-language programming for 15 years, has a transmitter with 3 million watts.

Indeed, besides the several Spanish channels on UHF and cable, KSFV’s biggest competitor appears to be KSCI. Owned by the International Channel Network in Los Angeles, Channel 18 broadcasts and produces 24 hours of news, dramas and other programs in more than 16 languages. KSCI is carried by about 90 cable systems and its reach exceeds 5 million households in Southern California.

Rosemary Danon, KSCI’s general manager, questioned whether a 24-hour news format offered by KSFV was what the audience wanted.

“We believe they also want to be entertained,” she said. “We believe in balanced programming.” Yet KSCI in recent years has also added news shows. It currently has about six hours of foreign news each day, Danon said.

If KSFV can get cable systems to carry its programming, that would help solve its transmission problems and broaden its audience.

Charles Lohr, KSFV’s general manager, said his station is now carried by Calavision, which Venture Technologies owns, and Valley Cable in San Fernando. But those cable systems combined have only about 6,000 subscribers.

Greg Mackney, general manager of Comcast Cablevision in Simi Valley, which has 26,000 subscribers, said he would “definitely look” at carrying KSFV, especially since KSFV is making its program available for free to cable companies. Still, Mackney said he had only 40 channels available, and 39 of them are in use. He and other cable operators also wondered whether there was a strong enough demand for foreign-language broadcasting.

“The demand will be growing in the future” for foreign programs, said Tom Belcher, regional manager of CVI Cablevision Industries in Chatsworth, which has 94,000 subscribers and already carries KSCI. “But at this point, the minorities are still very much in the minority” among cable subscribers.

KSFV’s Lohr said his station could modify programming to include other shows. But Lohr, who was KSCI’s station manager from 1984 to 1987, said KSFV was committed to airing mostly news.

“The No. 1 popular program is the news show,” he said.

Lohr declined to say how much advertising KSFV has sold, but he said the station’s ad rates would vary from $20 per 30-second spot to as much as $100. KSCI’s ad rates range from $100 per half-minute slot to $500, said Danon, who noted that KSCI is profitable.

KSFV also hopes to be profitable, but its managers concede that it may take two years before the station breaks even.

“We believe we have adequate resources” to see the project through, said Garry Spire, a lawyer and co-owner, along with Rogow of Venture Technologies.

Venture Technologies, which is privately held, operates television stations in Phoenix, Toledo, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pa. It also owns two cable companies, including Calavision in Calabasas and a mobile phone operation in Chicago. Spire said Venture Technologies had revenue of $2.4 million last year.

Venture Technologies also hopes by year-end to start two similar foreign news stations in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. But there, as in the Valley, they would face competition.

Rogow and Lohr, who are in the their late 30s and went to Fairfax High School together, said they spent about 10 years and several hundred thousand dollars getting a federal license and building the facilities for KSFV. All of it was financed through internal funds, they said.

Venture Technologies also faces some potential legal problems. WTN, a New York television news agency that sells footage to foreign stations, thinks KSFV is rebroadcasting foreign news shows that are using WTN-provided pictures.

“To the extent they’re airing pictures they don’t have rights to, it is a problem,” said Terry O’Reilly, WTN’s vice president for North and South American operations. “It is our intention to protect our copyright.”

O’Reilly, however, said that the two sides were talking and that he hoped to reach an agreement with KSFV. Rogow said KSFV planned to negotiate agreements with whomever it had to.

Sherrie Mazingo, chairwoman of broadcast journalism at USC, said KSFV’s program appeared to be unique, timely and ambitious. But she said the station faced an “uphill struggle” partly because of the numerous ethnic communities KSFV is trying to reach.

“The usual approach is to target your audience,” she said. But because KSFV is going after everybody, she said, “it’s very risky.”