Switching Channels

The night of September 9 appeared to fulfill all the promise underlying NBC Universal’s ambitious $2.7 billion acquisition in 2001 of Telemundo, the second-largest Spanish language television network in the U.S. On that night, the NBC sibling carried President Obama’s important healthcare address to a joint session of Congress—on a slight delay to allow for dubbing into Spanish—followed by its highest-rated program ever, which reached more than 5 million viewers.

Then again, perhaps the network’s big night also reinforced some of NBC’s unrealized aspirations for its Spanish outlet. Its ratings blockbuster, after all, was a World Cup qualifying match between Mexico and Honduras. Seven years in, it’s the best the “Must-See TV” wizards of American broadcasting have done with their Spanish channel.

With epiphanies like these, it is hard to reach a verdict on whether NBC Universal’s Spanish immersion has been a success. In terms of ratings, Telemundo remains a distant second to the Univision powerhouse, the top U.S. Spanish network that has long relied on its exclusive access to Televisa programming. Televisa of Mexico is the world’s leading Spanish media company, and having a lock on its proven hits provides Univision with a tremendous leg-up in a country where two-thirds of the Hispanic audience hails from Mexico. Univision’s 3-to-1 lead over Telemundo has remained constant since the merger, and its sister network Telefutura is actually growing faster than Telemundo.

A rising tide, however, lifts all yachts. The Hispanic population in the United States is slated to grow by 35 percent in this decade alone, and according to the Nielsen ratings service, the number of Hispanic television households has risen from 10.2 million to 12.7 million just in the time NBC has owned Telemundo. As a result, Telemundo has been able to comfortably grow its audience even without eating into Univision’s market share.

Telemundo won’t comment on its bottom line, but SNL Kagan, an independent financial analyst firm, estimates the network earned $83 million last year on $315 million of revenue, giving it a far healthier profit margin than its English-language parent broadcaster. These figures may not justify the price NBC paid in 2001, but these are tough times for all advertising-driven media. And given how difficult it is to start a network from scratch, NBC’s 2001 move will likely seem even smarter after the 2010 census, which is expected to underscore the dramatic growth of Hispanic America.

Still, NBC hasn’t quite delivered on its revolutionary vision for Telemundo, and it is not certain that it will ever be able to cash in on its multi-billion-dollar bet—or that a growing demographic that is eager for sophisticated Spanish language programming more relevant to their lives in the U.S. truly exists. NBC made clear it wasn’t interested in merely maintaining a bridge to the old country, but there remains a disconnect between the expectations the network established and its continued reliance on futbol and telenovelas, regardless of where they may be produced.

Indeed, analysts at the time of the merger gushed about the possibility of NBC using its new platform to double down on existing content, showing dubbed episodes of Friends and ER. Don Browne, the president of Telemundo who was an NBC executive involved in the decision to acquire the Spanish network, says this was never part of the plan. “A lot of people reduce it to language, but the real issue here is culture,” Browne says. According to Browne, NBC was eager to reach Latino audiences in the United States in new ways. This entailed investing heavily in the network’s production capacity to generate its own programming and create a homegrown American Spanish-language TV industry.

Telemundo now claims to be the second-largest producer of Spanish TV content in the world, exporting its telenovelas to dozens of countries, much like Latin American producers have done for years (Mexican telenovelas are hugely popular in Eastern Europe).

Browne concedes NBC/Telemundo’s strategy is predicated on a belief that second- and third- generation Latinos will seek out programming in Spanish well after previous waves of immigrants (including previous generations of Latino immigrants themselves) have cut ties with their mother-country tongue. “There has been a phenomenal change in the attitude toward being Hispanic in the United States. Even the second and third generations that are acculturated return to their ethnic identity and heritage, including their language,” he says. “There’s a swagger to it.” To capitalize on the ease with which young Latinos inhabit both languages, Telemundo has launched Mun2, a channel and website that is primarily in English, if not Spanglish.

There is nothing political about NBC’s avowed strategy, but it echoes some of the claims made in a very different context by opponents of comprehensive immigration reform—that the recent tsunami of Mexican immigrants isn’t like previous waves of immigrants into this country. They aren’t assimilating into American society the way Italians, Germans and the Irish once did, so goes the argument, but are instead forming a fifth column to advance Mexico’s reconquista of lost territories. They are reluctant to learn English.

They root for Mexico, and against the Americans, when the two countries play soccer. They send all their money to the old country. And so on. The view is heard daily on talk radio and the reputed political scientist Samuel Huntington provided a more polished version of the indictment in his 2002 book Who We Are.

Edward Schumacher, the director of Harvard University’s Immigration and Integration Studies Project and a former newspaper executive with experience in the U.S. Spanish-language market, is skeptical that there is a growing audience of second-generation immigrants yearning for more sophisticated Spanish content. “The children of Latino immigrants born in this country do hold on to their Spanish”, he says, “but it’s mostly conversational and eventually they lose it.” As for their media preferences, “It’s a universal fact that whichever language someone learns in school when they are young will be their preferred language in media.”

According to a 2002 study by the Pew Hispanic Center, 72 percent of foreign-born Latinos are “Spanish-dominant,” while the remainder is bilingual or even “English-dominant.” But move down the generational ladder and the numbers point to linguistic assimilation, as a mere 7 percent of second-generation and practically zero third-generation Latinos are Spanish-dominant.

Telemundo claims that by producing its own telenovelas, its programming is edgier, timelier and more relevant to a U.S. audience than Univision’s Mexican imports. “This is not your father’s Spanish TV,” Browne says.

It would be easier to laud Telemundo’s avowed strategy of creating more sophisticated programming for more assimilated young Latinos if the programs it aired reflected that ambition. The reality is that the company still falls short of this lofty objective; there is nothing coming out of Telemundo approximating an English-language network’s quality sitcoms or dramas, not to mention shows like Mad Men produced by smaller cable channels. There are plenty of gritty themes ripped from the headlines, but more topical overwrought telenovelas don’t cease being overwrought telenovelas. The network’s most successful show ever was Sin Senos No Hay Paraiso (Without Breasts There is No Paradise), which told the volatile tale of a young woman gripped by the drug trade (See Senos sidebar).

To be fair, Telemundo is injecting social messages in the shows it produces. In one innovative product placement, a current telenovela taking place in New York—Mas Sabe el Diablo—features a census worker as a character, which allows the network to partner up with Uncle Sam to spread the word on the importance of being counted in 2010. Another current telenovela, Ninos Ricos, Pobres Padres, shot at Telemundo’s Florida studios in collaboration with a Colombian network, is about the travails of a family deported back to Colombia, a theme resonant in both societies. The circularity of immigration is something Telemundo, which also airs now on cable in Mexico, can exploit in coming years as people in Latin America indulge their nostalgia for their immigrant experience in the United States.

Carlos Bardasano, a former head of entertainment at both Telemundo and Univision, says NBC made a virtue out of necessity by investing in Telemundo’s production capacity, given Univision’s lock on Televisa’s output. He believes that Telemundo’s control of its own programming will prove a big advantage going forward. But he notes there are no sweeping distinctions, as of yet, between telenovelas produced here and those filmed south of the border, especially as they often involve the same talent and crews. And while Anglo audiences might find three-hour blocs of nightly soap operas a dubious primetime strategy, Bardasano compares the telenovela genre to soccer—a global craze that most Americans just don’t get.