If you happen to land on Galavision while surfing through the various cable channels one Sunday evening, and you hear people speaking English on that Spanish-language network, don’t mess with your TV’s SAP (second audio programming, a feature that allows you to hear shows in Spanish if they’re being broadcast that way).
The network offers two hours of English-language programming starting at 8 p.m. every Sunday, including an hour of original shows.
“There’s nothing wrong with being bilingual. There’s nothing wrong with programming that way,” said Jeff Valdez, who is producing “Funny is Funny,” a half-hour standup comedy show, and “Cafe Ole with Giselle Fernandez,” a half-hour talk show featuring the “Access Hollywood” co-host.
Galavision already has some success in offering English-language programming with “Que Pasa USA,” a 1970s PBS comedy featuring a multi-generational Latino family, which has aired on the network for about a year. Two episodes of “Que Pasa” will be shown Sundays between 8 and 9 p.m., followed by “Cafe Ole” at 9 p.m. and “Funny is Funny” at 9:30 p.m.
“Cafe Ole’ will feature Fernandez, a former WBBM-Ch. 2 anchor and reporter who went on to work for CBS and NBC’s news operations, doing one-on-one interviews in front of a live audience with celebrities both Latino and non-Latino, in the world of movies, television and music.
“Funny is Funny” is hosted by comic Carlos Mencia, who has appeared on “The Tonight Show” and “Def Comedy Jam,” and features standups who were taped in August during the Latino Laugh Festival, a three-day comedy cavalcade of Latino talent that has been based here for the last two years.
Galavisin , the Spanish-language cable network of Univision Communications Inc., considers the new programs an “experiment,” said Michelle Bella, director of marketing and communications for the network, which is currently in more than 7.5 million homes.
But Bella noted that initial response has been “great…there is something for Hispanics that speak English, or that are English-dominated or bilingual, to watch on this network now.”
Both new shows are produced under the umbrella of Si TV, which was co-created by Valdez to provide bilingual programming. Si TV is an offshoot of the comedy festival that Valdez started in 1996, a dream of his since the early 1990s when he used to perform standup comedy at the Improv and Funny Firm in Chicago.
Valdez’s goal with Si TV is to produce programs for an audience that is not “hearing any of their stories,” he said, a plan wholly embraced by Alex Nogales, chair of the advocacy group National Hispanic Media Coalition. The stories that are told now simply don’t reflect that segment of the population.
“We are the stereotypes, the negative stereotypes in some cases, that have us doing menial things,” Nogales said. “We are good at selling oranges under freeways, we are good at gardening, we are good at taking care of children. But when it comes to being police officers, when it comes to being lawyers, when it comes to being businessmen, somehow we don’t fit that stereotype.”
Valdez added: “As a Latino American, or an American of Latino descent, or whatever label we’re putting on…we want to hear our stories. And that’s a wonderful opportunity. I mean, it’s an untapped market. And it’s also smart business.”
The reason Valdez, 38, considers his venture to be smart business is because a huge portion of the Latino population in America is either bilingual or only speaks English. Valdez cites figures that state that 20 percent of the culture speaks only English, while 60 percent is bilingual. That translates into 80 percent of an audience that can be targeted for Si TV shows. (Nogales said Latinos currently make up 10 percent of the U.S. population.)
“Our objective is to reach the youth audience more than anything,” Valdez said, “because the immigration into this country is slowing down now…the youth that are here are becoming more and more assimilated and going into the American groove — buying jeans and living the American dream.”
Valdez has had success with Latino-flavor, English-speaking shows before. The writer and producer created “Comedy Compadres” in the mid-1990s, a comedy variety series featuring Latino talent for Los Angles television station KTLA. It had some of the highest ratings in late-night on Fridays while on the air.
There may be some who question why Latino programming has to be made in English and not Spanish. That is a notion Valdez and others don’t comprehend.
“I think we live in the United States of America,” said Fernandez, 36. “English happens to be our predominant language here. But when you go to Europe, there are many languages spoken. And I think here we’ll use both Spanish words here and there…and I think there are ways to incorporate both.”
The 30-year-old Mencia added that “it doesn’t even matter if you don’t speak Spanish, the realities are we’re a very diverse culture, and we can’t ignore a part of our culture because of the language. Where we live is where we live. We live in America. That’s the reality.”
Valdez’s reality is “Cafe Ole” and “Funny is Funny.” But his dream is to build on those programs to the point where they’ll form the basis of their own network.
Bruce Barshop, Valdez’s producing partner in Si TV, said plans include creating a kids’ show and a music program. “Hopefully, we’ll expand from one hour to two hours to four hours,” he said. “We see maybe other products besides television, other entertainment products or merchandising. It can go into all sorts of things.”
Said Valdez: “The objective is to grow the shows until they reach critical mass. Keep expanding the block. You know, the same way that Fox launched, the same way (The WB Network), UPN and BET launched. Start out with one block of programming…
“They created the model; we’re just following that model.”
