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At the V-me TV launch party (from left to right): Mario Baeza, V-me founder and executive chairman, Elliot Robinson, Syncom Funds, Neal Shapiro, president of WNET, Adolfo Carrion, Bronx Borough President, and Carmen DiRienzo, V-me president.
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V-me TV Launches With Fanfare
March 07, 2007
By Nancy Ayala
Wall-to-wall guests packed this week's early afternoon launch party for V-me TV, the national Spanish-language public television network based in New York City. As Bill Baker, V-me's director of the board and chief executive for the Educational Broadcasting Corp., said, "It's a rare thing when you can come to a New York event where more people show up than were invited."
V-me, which means "see me" and pronounced veh-me, debuted at approximately 1:15 p.m. March 5 in more than 60 percent of U.S. Hispanic households and will be carried in roughly 28 million homes, from New York to Los Angeles, Miami to Denver. The digital, multicast channel will be included in basic digital service of cable companies across the country.
The party got started last week during a pre-launch gathering in Chicago, also among the major Hispanic markets, where an estimated 300 top Latino business leaders attended the function. Like this week's official event in New York, guests were encouraged to invest in what V-me executives touted as "more than a cable channel."
Mario Baeza, founder and executive chairman of V-me, said the unique partnership between public TV and venture capitalists points to not only the future growth of the Hispanic network, but a reflection of a new business model for the entire broadcasting company. Formed under media production and distribution company V-me Media Inc., the network is a partnership of PBS flagship, Thirteen/WNET New York, and private investors The Baeza Group and Syncom Funds. The last two are majority holders that specialize in investing in media companies to reach underserved markets; funding also will come from corporate underwriting and sponsorships.
While the channel launches fully funded, there has been a lot of interest from untraditional outlets that want to build up their brand name alongside the new Hispanic PBS programming, Baeza said. "There's a lot of interest coming from Spain and France," Baeza told Marketing y Medios, pointing to potential new deals for underwriting. Without revealing names, he added that the network is moving forward with care to maintain the integrity of public broadcasting. "They've approached us, but we're only interested if there's a larger strategic value," he said.
Carmen DiRienzo, president of V-me, addressed the ways to get the news out for new viewers, who may find it difficult to find the network on an 800+ channel. She encouraged attendees to send out e-mails, promote the network and look for new sponsors.
Another way to reach out is attracting respected Hispanic TV personalities, such as Uruguay-born journalist Jorge Gestoso, a former longtime anchor at CNN en Español, who has been named host of nightly interview program Viva Voz. His first "get" is Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States. "Jose is a symbol of all of the Americas," Gestoso said. "We're finding a way of realizing the dream of quality programming [for Latinos] while promoting Hispanic culture."
The programming schedule also includes children's shows, lifestyle, factual, and movies and specials. "It's a channel that will represent and show where we came from," Baeza said. "But most important, it shows where we're going."
Correction: Jorge Gestoso was a former longtime principal anchor and senior correspondent at CNN en Español, not Univision, as previously reported. He has been named permanent host of V-me's nightly interview program Viva Voz.
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Copyright 2007 Marketing y Medios |
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