ABSTRACT
This chapter begins in Mexico, providing background essential to understanding U.S. Spanish-language television’s origins. Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta (1895–1972), a pioneer in Mexican radio, film and television, began exporting programs to other Spanish-speaking countries in the 1950s. He proposed a TV network that would serve the information and entertainment needs of Hispanics across the United States, dispatching an employee, Reynold (“Rene”) V. Anselmo (1926–1995), to investigate prospects. The middle portion of this chapter describes Azcárraga’s expansion into the U.S. with a binational investor group that purchased/built its first two stations in San Antonio, Texas (KWEX), and Los Angeles, California (KMEX), and launched the Spanish International companies, a network and a station group. On the strategic and technology fronts, the group initiated relationships with advertisers and audience research companies, promoted set-top UHF converters that TVs required to receive signals, and began laying the groundwork for a satellite distribution system.
