by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Calle Trece
THE WINNERS ARE: Top Latin music performers meet in Las Vegas for the 10th annual Latin Grammy Awards ceremony.
The ceremony returns to its 2007 site -the Mandalay Bay Events Center, and promises a stellar lineup of performers and presenters. Among the expected highlights, Puerto Rican urban duo Calle 13—this year’s top nominee, with five nods—will perform live for the first time with co-nominee Ruben Blades their nominated song La perla.
Spanish singer-songwriter Alejandro Sanz, a top Latin Grammy winner, will perform a song chosen by his fans from among several that won the award.
The list of performers also includes Mexican singer/songwriter Juan Gabriel, this year’s Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year. Other performers and presenters are Pepe Aguilar, Oscar D’Le6n, Omara Portuondo and Enrique Bumbury.
Alejandro Sanz
The ceremony, to be telecast live by Univisi6n, is to be held Nov. 5. A day before, the Person of the Year ceremony will include the likes of David Bisbaj, Indja, Juanes and La Quinta Estación performing some of the best-known songs by Juan Gabriel.
ALSO on Nov. 4, the Latin Recording Academy will hand out its Lifetime Achievement Awards to Cándido Romero, Beth Carvatho, Charly García, Tania Libertad, Marco Antonio Muñiz and Juan Romero.
LANGUAGE PREFERENCE: More Spanish-language speakers would watch TV programs dubbed into Spanish if the Second Audio Program or SAP technology was more readily available, according to a study released by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
According to the 2009 Hispanic Consumer Survey on SAP, as many as 64 percent of Spanish-language speakers surveyed said they would watch the dubbed programs if more were made available. And 48 percent said they watch programs they normally would not tune into, because they are broadcast on SAP.
While the SAG study does not indicate what percentage of English-language programs are dubbed for the U.S. market, it indicated the most watched shows on SAP are The Simpsons on Fox, Ugly Betty on ABC and CS/ Miami on CRS.
Three out of five of the dubbed programs are perfomed in Spanish by SAG members.
ONELINERS: Adonis Losada, an actor with a recurring role as Doña Concha on Univisión’s Sábado Gigante, pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. He was arrested in September and remains jailed without bail…Los Angeles Lakers center Paul Gasol will appear on the Nov. 16 episode of CSI Miami… Hispanic Link.
