V-me and HITN on satellite: Two’s a crowd?

Originally published in Current, Dec. 3, 2008
By Katy June-Friesen

Both of the big satellite TV providers not only carry V-me — as of April, when they picked up the channel — but also HITN-TV, another long-established noncommercial channel in Spanish. But lately the firstcomer has been worried that the sky won’t be big enough for the two of them.

Jose Luis Rodriguez, HITNDirecTV gave cause for worry in April when it said it would pick up V-me and drop HITN-TV from its lineup. Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, the nonprofit operator of HITN, responded with a petition to the FCC questioning V-me’s nonprofit status — and therefore its eligibility for carriage under the 4 percent nonprofit, public-interest programming set-aside imposed by Congress on direct broadcast satellite TV licensees.

The other satellite TV provider, Dish Network, picked up V-me without bouncing HITN.

The 25-year-old nonprofit HITN, which has a potential audience reach of close to 23 million households, contends that V-me’s inclusion, because of its investor participation, amounts to “commercial intrusion.” V-me and its operator — WNET’s licensee, Educational Broadcasting Corp. — have both defended their setup to the FCC, which has not yet ruled on the issue.

HITN President Jose Luis Rodriguez, who founded the New York-based company in 1981, stresses that his petition is not anti-V-me. Cable and satellite should have room for two Spanish channels and more, he says.

“I think the most important thing here is that we’re trying to protect the spaces that have been hard-fought and hard-won for the noncommercial and nonprofit sector,” says Rodriguez, who calls the 4 percent set-aside space an “island in the telecommunications landscape.” The set-aside was added to satellite TV legislation through lobbying led by the Association of Public Television Stations in 1998.

For HITN, satellite carriage is not just an added bonus. It has very little cable carriage. “For us, it represents over 90 percent of our coverage,” Rodriguez says. “We’re concerned that if we don’t take action, we might lose that space.”

Rodriguez also believes HITN, with its mostly instructional programming, would have been a logical partner for pubTV. Its content is “geared to develop the Latino community, not necessarily to entertain them,” Rodriguez told Current. “Our content is very consistent with most of the public broadcasting family objectives,” he says. “That’s why I was a little taken aback that some members of the public broadcasting system decided to address our community through a commercial venture.”

In its petition to the FCC, HITN charged that for-profit V-me—not nonprofit EBC, the minority partner — controls V-me’s programming and is the “programmer” of the channel. V-me, as a for-profit entity, would not be eligible to gain carriage in the satellite capacity set aside for public service.

DiRienzo disputes HITN’s interpretation. “They were really not aware that EBC was the contracting party and the distributing party — the responsible party — to EchoStar (Dish Network) and also to DirecTV,” she says. V-me’s comments to the FCC go further: “EBC retains ultimate editorial control of V-me’s programming, supplies substantial quantities of programming for adaptation of some of WNET’s most prominent series, selects key V-me personnel, provides office space and production facilities to V-me, actively participates on V-me’s board of directors, and holds a significant minority interest (20 percent) in V-me. Consequently, EBC cannot be fairly characterized as being merely a front for V-me’s commercial gain, as HITN suggests.”

To Rodriguez, V-me’s argument is weak. “We have to be careful that we don’t use gimmicks to threaten spaces that have been won for noncommercial purposes,” he says.

So far the FCC has not ruled on HITN’s petition, and both channels are on satellite.                                  

Web page posted March 3, 2008
Copyright 2008 by Current LLC

EARLIER ARTICLES

The FCC reserved 4 percent of capacity for education on the two direct broadcast TV satellite providers.

Planning proceeds at WNET for national channel largely in Spanish, then working-titled Viva, 2006.

Mario Baeza, a board member at WNET, heads Baeza Group, the major investor in V-me Media Inc.

LINKS

HITN: Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network website in Spanish or with portions in English.

 

Selections from the newspaper about
public TV and radio in the United States