"Cool. Mexicans will stop anything for soccer." And then he lists the pop and rock singers he'd book for the music show. The new network launch by the well-financed, publicly traded Univisión raises the profile of the U.S. Latino community. And it underscores its diversity and its unusual process of fusing the Latin and American cultures. Many of those who are immigrants are quickly melding their culture with that of the United States, particularly the younger Hispanic such as Mr. Altamirano. And while many native-born Latinos are bilingual, a good portion watch mainly English-language shows.

With a Hispanic population that is now 35 million strong, Spanish-language networks are turning up the heat on efforts to get the viewership and the advertising dollars that go with them. And Dallas, where Univisión owns and operates two television stations, is one of the top 10 Hispanic markets. Ray Rodríguez, Univisión's president and chief operating officer, admits that the broadcaster needed to offer up more choices. "The Hispanic market is so huge and so underserved," he says. "If you don't like novelas and you are watching in prime time, you have no other choice but to go back to English language." But with a new network, he boasts, "Telefutura could be bigger than Univisión."

Univisión is now based in Los Angeles but it got its start in San Antonio as the Spanish International Network. It already operates the network that carries the parent company's name, the cable network Galavisión and a growing music company. Here, Univisión can be seen on KUVN-TV (Channel 23) and Telefutura will be seen on KSTR-TV (Channel 49), starting Monday. Both compete against the smaller rival broadcast and cable networks operated by Telemundo, a Florida-based company. Telemundo recently agreed to be purchased by NBC, the television network owned by General Electric Co. Underscoring the competition in the local market, Telemundo swooped in last year to buy KXTX-TV (Channel 39) when financing began to falter in a deal with another fledgling Spanish-language broadcaster. Telemundo owns and operates that station, giving it control over revenue flows that it wouldn't have with an affiliate.

"Any additional Spanish language in the market raises the visibility of Hispanics," says Jack Hobbs, senior vice president at Hispanic Broadcasting Inc., the Dallas operator of the nation's largest chain of Spanish-language radio stations.
But Mr. Hobbs worries that the new competition could slice into available advertising dollars to the existing Spanish-language outlets, especially in a recession that has rocked fortunes at many a media company. Bigger pie Others say a rising tide of Spanish-language programming will lift all advertising boats with more revenue. "Their whole goal is to grow audience, to grow the whole pie," says Victor Ornelas, owner of a Dallas-based advertising agency that bears his surname.

Hispanic Business magazine estimates that advertising in the Hispanic market topped out at $2.38 billion, a fourfold increase over the last 10 years. The consumer group now has buying power estimated at nearly $500 billion. But the advertising expenditures are still less than 3 percent of the total amount spent in advertising. Ultimately, success will come down to programming, experts say.
And Telefutura risks cannibalizing into its existing audience on its Univisión network, a fact that even the network's executives acknowledged last spring when announcing the launch in New York. To contain this, Telefutura will counter-program against its Univisión network by showing Hollywood double features such as Mambo Kings and Back to the Future when soaps are being shown on Univisión during prime time.

They also will pull in hits from other Spanish-speaking countries, including Spain, where the cinematic heartthrob-of-the-moment Penelope Cruz has had a string of hits. A music show called La Cartelera Pepsi, or Pepsi Hit List, will attempt to capitalize on the huge growth of the Spanish rock and pop industry. While many Hispanics watch English-language television, rock en espanol and Latin pop music are growing industries with crossover appeal. "For 15 years, both Univisión and Telemundo have been trying to figure out a way to attract the more assimilated Hispanic," says Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based pollster and television commentator. One way: a full-court press on the Latino sports enthusiast, say Mr. Ornelas, Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Bendixen. The Fox network and ESPN already offer sports shows in Spanish.

Telefutura plans to do just that. Its sports show, Contacto Deportivo , or Sports Contact, will be seen daily. Friday night boxing and weekend soccer also will be fixtures, the network says.Tanda Machos, or the Macho Matinees, are another bid for the hearts and minds of male viewers who like Western movies. On its website, Telefutura courts these viewers by calling them the "mero mero machos," or real machos. Though the title may seem cartoonish to some, Mr. Altamirano, a copywriter at the Slingshot advertising agency, applauds the christening. "I don't know if I want to watch Westerns but it's a good name," he says, laughing.

Focus on males
All this programming is a deliberate effort to build up the male audience. Right now, women are the predominant viewers of Univisión's prime-time bread-and-butter soaps, known as novelas. Unlike Hollywood, in novela-land, men tend to play supporting roles, or love interests, while women take the big, operatic roles. That novela formula has given Univisión its ratings dominance – often above 75 percent for prime time, for example, which is unheard of on English-language television. Such formulas lifted Univisión's revenue for years. For 2000, Univisión raked in $863 million in revenue, a 25 percent jump from the year before. The corporate parent has said it expects 2001 revenue will be slightly less, due to the weak economy.
But Mr. Rodriguez is expecting Telefutura to bring in $100 million in revenue the first year and break even.

In addition, advertisers have been enticed into buying into a package deal on both networks based on the Univisión name alone, some analysts said. Among Telefutura's charter takers: J.C. Penney, Sears, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota and Pepsi. "Because of its association with Univisión and that there seems to be a feeling that whatever they touch turns to gold, Telefutura will at least be able to take off and get their chance to see if people watch," Mr. Bendixen says. "I am not sure they could make it, if they weren't associated with Univisión." And at its launch, Telefutura's network will be seen on some three dozen television stations around the nation. That will include the largest Hispanic markets, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston and Dallas.

Viewing habits
Not only is numerical celebrity on the side of Hispanics, so also are their viewing habits. Nielsen Media Research, the New York-based ratings service, says that Hispanics watch more television than the general population, especially in prime-time hours. But Nielsen Media Research also says that about half of those households identify themselves as English-dominant.

Further research by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute found that among Latinos 18 years of age or older, television viewing was evenly divided among the English-language networks and the Spanish-language networks.

That suggests that English-language networks would do well by just offering Latino viewers the opportunity to see more Latino characters on English-language television. Or it could also mean that any network has half a chance to crack the Latino market, or, at least, the market over 18 years of age.

Hoopla about the Hispanic market tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, says Felipe Korzenny of Cheskin Research of Redwood Shores, Calif. "In many ways, once you get more competition, the market almost grows by its own impulse," he says. "Many people who don't watch much Spanish-language television say if they had more choices they would watch more. You may see almost a renaissance in the Spanish media market."