MTV: And Now the ‘M’ Also Stands for Musica : Television: Spanish-language rock is expected to get its biggest boost yet with the launch of MTV Latino in 2 million homes in Latin America and some parts of the United States and Puerto Rico.

Thirty-one years after the recording of the first rock en espanol album, Spanish-language rock is finally getting its own TV channel today with the launch of MTV Latino.

The 24-hour-a-day cable channel, fed by satellite out of Miami, will be available throughout Latin America and in some parts of the United States and Puerto Rico. It will be rock en espanol’s biggest international boost to date, featuring artists who have been successful for years in Argentina, Mexico and Spain.

“MTV Latino will be in Spanish, but the mission is the same as MTV’s: to provide a channel for young people that they feel is their own,” said Sara Levinson, MTV executive vice president.

MTV said the service will initially be available in 2 million homes in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile. (MTV already has a Portuguese-language channel in Brazil.)

The availability in the United States is much more limited--no cable systems in Southern California will be carrying it today--but MTV expects to make significant inroads before the end of the year.

“MTV Latino has more subscribers than we had when we launched MTV Europe, MTV Asia, MTV Japan or even MTV U.S.,” Levinson said.

Following MTV’s familiar English-language format of music-video showcases and programs on social issues, sports and fashion, MTV Latino will at first offer eight hours of programming each day. These will then will be repeated twice, featuring rock en espanol’s latest hits and the work of some major English-language bands. Eventually, when the number and quality of the videos produced in Latin America allow it, MTV Latino will air mostly Latino videos.

“When we started ‘MTV Internacional’ six years ago,” Levinson said, referring to the one-hour weekly program that MTV produces for the Spanish-language Telemundo network, “we had a tough time getting videos, but eventually things got much better. We think that a 24-hour-a-day service like ours will encourage and stimulate the production of videos, because MTV Latino will be a good outlet for the record labels.”

MTV Latino’s first three VJs--selected after several months of auditioning in Miami and Latin America--are Ruth Infarinato of Argentina, Gonzalo Morales of Mexico and Alfredo Lewin of Chile. Daisy Fuentes, the host of “MTV Internacional” who was seen on MTV this summer, will be the host of MTV Latino’s “Top 20 MTV,” which will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Tom Hunter, senior vice president of MTV, said that the Spanish-language service will be available in the United States today only in parts of Boston, Miami, Tucson, Fresno and Sacramento. He said many other systems have shown interest but are delaying adding it because they do not yet have channels available or have been busy making changes in channel lineups and billing practices ordered by the Federal Communications Commission.

The only Southern California system that has committed to it so far is Tele-Communications Inc., which serves about 30,000 subscribers in the Hacienda Heights area. It will be on by Dec. 1, TCI marketing manager Alan Kraslow said. “All you have to look at is the original MTV formula when they first began,” Kraslow said. “They created the demand, and I guess you don’t tamper with success. If it worked once, why not do it again?”

Besides what it offers viewers, however, MTV Latino’s greatest significance may be in the potential it has to change the structure of the Latino music industry.

For one thing, many of the 57-member staff for MTV Latino in Miami have been in touch with the rock en espanol genre for years--particularly senior producer Alex Pels, a former producer and programmer for “MTV Internacional.”

“I’m not very fond of the label rock en espanol, “ said Pels, who witnessed Argentine rock’s beginnings in the late 1960s and the somewhat similar new Mexican rock of the mid-’80s. “Rock is an attitude, and we’ll play anything that reflects that attitude. Some of (Mexican pop singer) Luis Miguel’s and (Dominican merengue star) Juan Luis Guerra’s material, for example, could very well be played in MTV Latino. If other stars who are not traditionally considered rockers come up with something original, fresh and young, they’ll have their place with us. To limit ourselves with rubber stamps would be to go against what MTV is all about.”

In addition, MTV Latino will function as a stimulus for record labels to release their products internationally--and simultaneously. At present, work by most rock en espanol bands is initially released only in their own countries, and the few U.S. releases come as much as a year later.

MTV Latino will urge that if a record label demands that a certain group’s video be aired on a rotation basis, then the record should be available in stores throughout Latin America.

“The effect of a band like, say, (Mexico’s) La Lupita will be wasted if there is not a proper record distribution in the whole region,” Pels said. “Our job is to show what already exists, but it has to be a joint effort between MTV Latino and the record companies.”

MTV Latino is also expected to raise interest in rock en espanol and could help some Latino departments at major record labels who long have battled the reluctance of Spanish-language radio to play rock en espanol regularly.

“I’m fascinated by all this,” said Mariluz Gonzalez, West Coast promoter for EMI Capitol Latin. “ ‘MTV Internacional’ has been a great friend of rock en espanol, and this will make things much easier for us.”

For Alexandra Lioutikoff, West Coast promoter of the newly opened Polygram Latino office in Los Angeles, the success of MTV Latino will depend on its authenticity.

“If what they want is a Latino channel,” she said, “it has to be truly Latino--no Americanized, Spanglish-type of VJs. If they do it the right way, it’s going to be great for us because it will force the radio stations to play rock en espanol .”