by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Coro Hispano de San Francisco and Conjunto Nuevo Mundo, with special guest Los Lupeños de San José, Friday 26 and Saturday 27 of June, at 7 p.m., at the Presidio Officers Club (Moraga Ave. and Arguello), at the Presidio of San Francisco. Free.
SWITCHING CHANNELS: While the two major U.S. Spanish-language networks had few surprises at their upfront presentations last week in New York, a number of providers are vying for a young Latino audience with alternative—and sometimes bilingual— programming.
Univisión, the top-rated Spanish-language network that consistently beats English-language networks with its prime-time telenovelas, presented no original programming at its annual presentation before advertisers.
Instead, the network will continue to depend on its exclusive deal with Mexican producer Televisa and air its soap operas and reality shows, several of which are already airing in Mexico.
The network’s 2009-2010 season will include exclusive broadcasts of the World Cup soccer tournament from South Africa. All 62 games, June-July 2010, will air live on Univisión or its sister network Telefutura.
Most games will be rebroadcast on Telefutura and cable outlet Galavisión.
In contrast, second-rated Telemundo boasted a slew of original programming, including a previously announced telenovela version of the novel La reina del sur, from Spanish authorArturo Pérez Reverte. Telemundo also announced an expanded alliance with Televisa that will create a new cable outlet for the Mexican market. The network, part of NBC-Universal, said that it will air some of its original programming first on the Telemundo Cable Mexican channel, to build audience recognition akin to what Univisión has with its Televisa programs.
A few days before the upfront, Telemundo announced that, along with Colombian producing partner RTI, it had acquired rights to the book Operación Jaque, about the Colombian government’s rescue of 15 hostages kidnapped by guerrillas. There were no details of what format will be given to the adaptation of the book by Juan Carlos Torres, or when it will air.
At its upfront, Telemundo announced new original programming for Mun2, its bilingual cable outlet geared at the 18-49 audience.
Also geared at the young bilingual market is MTV Tr3s, which announced three new series for the 2009-10 season.
They include Isa TKM, a telenovela for the younger audience from producers Nickelodeon and Sony Pictures that was a big hit in Latin America and will air here beginning June 22. MT’V Tr3s will also air Quiero mi boda, a spinoff of the popular Quiero mis quince and El click, an interactive music show. Hispanic Link.
