Networks See Benefits of Becoming Bilingual

NEW YORK — Acknowledging a burgeoning Latino population, some English-language broadcast networks are slowly learning to speak Spanish. For those who do, the effort is paying off.

ABC’s upcoming telecast of the theatrical movie “Selena,” on Sept. 25, will have a Spanish soundtrack that many viewers with stereo TV sets can access with a flip of a button. The film about the slain Mexican singer is an obvious choice for a Spanish soundtrack, but only the first of what ABC says will be a number of movies it hopes to air this season with alternative Spanish feeds.

The movie effort follows ABC’s foray into Spanish-language programming last fall when it added a Spanish soundtrack for “Monday Night Football.” The effort drew nearly 100,000 more Latino households per game, according to Nielsen Media Research, a 14% jump, even though ABC didn’t promote the service and had a three-week gap without the Spanish announcers because of a technicians’ strike. Moreover, ABC saw the gains even though only 60% of all Latino TV households could get the Spanish version; ABC’s affiliate stations in such major Latino cities as Miami, San Diego and San Antonio don’t have the technology to offer it.

Fox, too, is expanding its Spanish offerings. Many of its football games this fall will be available in Spanish for the first time, following successful Spanish telecasts of Major League Baseball games. And, in prime time, “America’s Most Wanted” soon will get a Spanish track; last season, “Cops” had one for the first time. Both baseball and “Cops” telecasts got a 5% ratings bump from Latino viewers, not insignificant at a time when networks are scrapping for every eyeball.

The technology allowing TV stations to broadcast a second channel of audio, known as SAP (for Secondary Audio Programming), arrived a decade ago, along with stereo sets. But it has taken time for the TVs to trickle into homes and for local stations to invest in the $5,000 technological upgrade needed.

Some English-language local stations in heavily Latino markets do air Spanish soundtracks extensively. But the broadcast networks have rarely used SAP, partly because of the costs and time crunch of providing a translation. ABC, in fact, built a separate studio in the early 1990s for a “World News Tonight” simultaneous translation into Spanish, but abandoned the idea when the cost proved prohibitive.

As the Latino population booms, however, and stereo TVs proliferate, networks are starting to reconsider. Latinos, poised to become the nation’s largest minority group by the year 2005, already account for 8.3 million TV households. About 50% have SAP-capable sets, ABC estimates. The rapidly expanding Latino population has recently given Spanish-language network Univision an enviable growth rate, even as the major English-language broadcasters decline.

“We aggressively pursue mass audiences; that’s what we do as broadcasters,” says Alex Wallau, ABC’s president of operations and administration. “You cannot go after mass audiences without going after the Hispanic audience.”

Fox provides SAP “to service our viewers who want to . . . listen in Spanish,” says Larry Jacobson, Fox Television Network president. “Anything in network television to make the experience easier and more enjoyable is worth doing.”

CBS and NBC have had much more limited SAP offerings. CBS, which says it continues to explore the technology, aired a 1994 boxing match and three years of the Miami 300 auto race in Spanish. It also tried a Spanish soundtrack with “Four Corners,” a short-lived 1998 sitcom featuring several Latino characters, and offers Spanish-language closed-captioning text for “60 Minutes.”

NBC since 1994 has offered a Spanish soundtrack for some National Basketball Assn. games; it also has provided Spanish feeds for certain baseball games and the 1998 Super Bowl. But fewer than 20 of its affiliates have the technology, and a spokesman says NBC sees SAP as “a service as opposed to a revenue producer.”

Wallau says ABC would do the soundtrack even if it didn’t result in larger audiences, “just because we think it’s a way to create a better connection to the Hispanic community.” But for the upcoming season of “Monday Night Football,” ABC signed up National Car Rental as a sponsor for its Spanish telecast; that revenue will come close to covering costs, which Wallau says are in the “five figures” per game. Fox is looking for a similar football sponsor.

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Providing SAP isn’t without hurdles. For sports matches, the announcers often don’t go to the games, doing commentary off a live picture fed to a studio. The technology also makes more sense for games televised nationally, rather than regional matchups, which have smaller audiences. Networks must also be sensitive to expectations of diverse Latino ethnic groups; ABC’s football announcer team, culled from sister cable outlet ESPN, is Roberto Abramovitz, a New Yorker raised in Mexico City, and Alvaro Martin, who was born in Puerto Rico.

Branching out into movies was an obvious, easy choice for ABC, because most movies already have a Spanish translation for foreign sales; ABC is negotiating for those rights for a number of films, Wallau says. But other genres are more difficult. News shows, in particular--which have numerous voices of people being interviewed and which often air live--are complicated and expensive to translate. “You can do it with one voice, but it is just silly, and not the way we want to represent ‘World News Tonight’ or ‘Nightline,’ ” Wallau says.

As for entertainment series, ABC will “aggressively pursue” offering Spanish feeds for the 2000-2001 season, Wallau says. But series have their own complications; outside producers frequently deliver episodes just days ahead of air, leaving little time to get Spanish translations made, notes Fox’s Jacobson. But Fox is exploring Spanish tracks for its numerous animated shows, which record voices before the actual drawings are done.

The growing number of Spanish-language feeds by the networks will soon be easier for viewers to find when TV Guide begins its weekly Spanish-language insert in late October.