New Picture for Forgotten Latinos

Nely Galan, already an influential television executive at 30, realized at an early age that there was virtually no television programming aimed at English-speaking Latinos born in the United States.

Watching Spanish-language television, she found that “the stories had nothing to do with us,” and she saw few Latinos on mainstream English-language shows.

“You grow up and you say to yourself, something’s wrong with this picture,” says the Cuban-born Galan, whose family moved to Teaneck, N.J., when she was 4. “We’re not on American TV. We’re not on Spanish TV. We’re like the lost generation. Nobody sees us anywhere.”

After beginning her television career at 18 as host of a PBS teen-oriented news show, Galan turned this realization and her knowledge of the Latino market into an entertainment industry success story. By 22, she was the station manager of WNJU, a New Jersey Spanish-language television station. Now, through Tropix, her joint venture with HBO, she’s producing programming for U.S. and Latin American stations and helping determine the creative direction for ESPN’s and Fox’s Latin American cable channels. She also hosts E! Entertainment Network’s “The Gossip Show.”

Tropix’s first English-language program, “Loco Slam!,” which will showcase Latino comics the way “Def Comedy Jam” showcases black ones, will premiere at midnight June 3 on HBO. An as yet untitled anthology series about three immigrant families--one Cuban, one Puerto Rican and one Mexican--is set to go into production for HBO late this summer. Tropix will also produce programming for network television, and now has two situation comedies in development at ABC.

“The unifying theme is that we’re all second-generation Latinos,” says Galan of the programming she plans to produce. “(We’re) children of immigrants, and the comedy comes from that.”

Despite Galan’s status as one of television’s youngest powerful executives, her office in HBO’s Century City West Coast headquarters is anything but traditionally corporate. A bright plastic nine-foot palm tree sits in the corner, and Mexican milagros crosses hang on the wall with “The Day of the Dead,” a colorful painting by Chicano artist Mark Sanchez. On her bookshelf, such corporate takeover stories as “Barbarians at the Gate” share space with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

The young mogul talks excitedly about Tropix’s new projects and her plan, which is currently being negotiated, to produce “The Gossip Show” in Spanish for Fox’s Latin American cable channel. She takes three sugars in a late-afternoon espresso and admits that she rarely takes time to relax.

Much of what little free time she does have, she says, is spent attending Latin American cultural events. “It’s my obsession,” she says of her culture. “I really do live my life like this. I really do love to go to Latin music events. I really do read Latin American literature.”

Galan was producing mainstream television documentaries for CBS in Boston when she took the job with WNJU in New Jersey, partly, she says, because the move would give her an excuse to get a divorce (she has not remarried). At first apprehensive about working for a small station, she had what she calls “a religious experience,” finding Latino programming more rewarding.

When WNJU was sold three years later, Galan left the station and hosted “Bravo,” a talk show for CBS. She then worked at what she jokingly calls her “waitress job”--hosting such network programs and specials as NBC’s “House Party,” Fox’s “Good Day New York” and PBS’ “Amigos.” While consulting with HBO about its Latin American ventures, Galan got a call from Chris Albrecht, the president of HBO Independent Productions, about developing original programming aimed at the Latino audience.

“I said to myself: If you put all this together in a company, it makes sense,” says Galan. “If you launch a channel, that channel needs programming; then you produce the programming for that channel. If you do a sitcom in the United States, you have a place to sell it in Latin America.”

Galan then started Tropix, which she brought to HBO as a joint venture at the end of 1992. According to Albrecht, HBO has been pleased with Tropix and the work done by its principals, Galan and Augusto Failde.

“I think Nely has fantastic instincts for what people want,” said Albrecht, who is also a senior vice president of HBO. “She has an instinct for quality, and yet she also understands commercial needs.”

Galan hopes to produce quality programming that speaks to her audience and she’s aware that it’s an audience advertisers very much want to reach. “My dream is to create Motown Latino,” she says, referring to her desire to be both culturally significant and financially successful. “That’s my mission in life.”