It’s amazing what a television outlet would do to beat its competitors. Take Telemundo Puerto Rico’s Dando Candela, which earlier this week (June 13) promised viewers an ¡exclusive! ¡amazing! ¡historic! interview by reporter Yulianna Vargas with Kobbo Santarrosa, the TV personality being sued by WAPA-TV for breach of contract.
Turns out such “exclusive” interview was nothing but a rehashed audio from an interview by the same reporter that aired in October 26, 2012, about yet another court battle involving Santarrosa.
Watch the hosts of Dando Candela hype up the interview as if it were ‘news.’
The blunder quickly took over the local media, so the show’s producer was quick to respond.
Her response?…. It’s even more embarrassing than the snafu itself.
“We understood, as news producers, that it was pertinent to offer the story to our viewers. Our commitment is to entertain and look for information to give our audience with the greatest respect that characterizes us.”
Call me a mamona purist, but every time I see a Spanish-language commercial for Vonage, I cannot help but cringe, and wonder why the marketing forces behind this campaign didn’t come up with something more creative without trashing the Spanish language.
I guess they were “berry” excited to use a popular saying, so how about this: Vonage: Bueno, Bonito y Barato.
According to press reports, the show’s creator -and director- has promised “no gardeners, no gangs, no maids,” but apparently tons of cute kids confronting each other for the love of their very young lives while wearing prom king and queen costumes.
Watch here and judge for yourselves. Will you be watching?
If you have ever been to Mexico, chances are you’ve eaten or at least seen a Negrito, an ubiquitous chocolate sweet produced by Mexican food giant Grupo Bimbo and sold pretty much in every tiendita around the country.
I ate one as recently as last month, and while the taste has not changed a great deal, its advertising has.
As I reported a few days ago on Portada Online, Univision soon will debut Flama, a “digital destination that promises culturally relevant content targeting Hispanic millennials.”
So far so good. As most Spanish-speakers know, “flama” is Spanish for “flame,” which I think is a great name for a Hispanic media outlet. However, a simple Wikipedia search, informs us that FLAMA is also the acronym of:
The Frente de Libertação do Arquipélago da Madeira (English: Madeira Archipelago Liberation Front), a right-wingterroristparamilitary organisation from Madeira, whose main goal was to achieve Madeira’s independence from mainlandPortugal.
Wait. What?!
I’m sure Univision’s Flama has absolutely nothing to do with a paramilitary organization in Madeira, but just in case, it might be safer to be really “millennial” about it and just call it “Flame?”
Cumbia Ninja is the story of a group of cumbia musicians and a Chinese ninja who live in some unnamed Latin American slum.
What happens when an old Chinese ninja master meets a group of cumbia musicians living in a Latin American slum controlled by drug dealers?
Well, I’m not really sure but we will soon find out, as MundoFox last week announced the upcoming premiere of Cumbia Ninja, an original series set in a Latin American slum (we’re not sure which one, but I guess they’re all the same,) where a young idealist and his buddies come up with an unusual way to clean up the streets where they live.
I don’t know you, but anything that doesn’t include a septuagenarian dancing around with a group of scantily-clad Latinas on a Saturday afternoon or some evil twin trying to poison the hacendado in a primetime telenovela sounds very refreshing.
Miblogestublog CEO and a bunch of blurry people who insisted on taking a picture with her.
This is exhausting! In addition to covering this week’s Hispanic TV Upfronts for these guys and these guys, I had to save some juicy details for the not-so-serious side of the 3-day-marathon of parties, parties and parties, programming presentations, interviews and business meetings.
* Hispanic TV Upfront week started May 13 with two networks, Azteca America and Estrella TV, holding “intimate dinners” at the exact same time in two very distant places, presumably to keep me from attending either. But, as you all know by now, I’m a sneaky Mexican and managed to attend both.
* Estrella TV brought to dinner at Tao Restaurant its most recent acquisition, Myrka Dellanos, who looked amazing and who is now going to be news anchoring instead of selling toothpaste.
* As it has been the case before, I crashed the People en Español party at Marquee, which was OK, but not nearly as as glamorous and/or fun as previous years. However, beggars can’t be chosers, so I shut up now. Besides, I must continue to be nice to them, especially to Elvis Lizardo, who famously calls me “The Mexican glue that keep us all together.”
Marlon Moreno and Hernán Lopez, uno más guapo que el otro
* After surveilling the venue for some famous bellos, I realized celebrities are not the only beautiful bunch, so I proceded to propose People en Español Editor ArmandoCorrea a co-production of “Los 50 ejecutivos más bellos del mercado latino,” a list that would be curated by @miblogestublog -of course, and published and promoted by Time Inc. or someone with that kind of money. I’m thinking MundoFox’ Hernán López should go on the cover, while Telemundo’s Peter Blacker will take the back cover, though I’m still not sure. Other execs being considered: Mundo Fox’ Oswald Mendez, Telemundo’s Emilio Romano and Fusion’s Miguel Ferrer. [This blog is accepting submissions now.]
* Tuesday events kicked off at 11:00 am at The New Amsterdam Theatre, where Univision held a lavish presentation for over 1,600 guests.
* Pretty much all those 1,600 guests then walked or took buses to Univision’s after party, which took place at ESPACE, where there was not a lot of “espace” nor food to feed all those hungry mouths. At some point, many attendees grew restless and angry as waiter after waiter kept passing in front of us with trays full of food, but destined to “VIP’s only.” That didn’t stop me, however, so I quickly managed to get a hold of a VERY VIP name tag (above) in order to secure some mini-burgers.
* The stunt didn’t work and I had to settle for a peanut butter cookie that surely contained about 5,325 calories.
* Since it secured me no food whatsoever, my Randy Falco name tag made a second appearance later that night at the Telemundo upfront in Lincoln Center, where it was not as well received as I had imagined. I still wore it to go say ‘hi’ to NBCU’s Chairman of Hispanic Ventures Joe Uva, who requested my immediate removal from the premises. [I stayed.]
* The marathon continued Wednesday with a noon presentation by Fox Hispanic Media at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. The presentation included FHM’s four networks: Fox Deportes, Fox Life, Nat Geo Mundo and Mundo Fox. It attracted some big talent, including Bárbara Mori, Marlon Moreno, Mario Lopez and Oscar de la Hoya, who came onstage not wearing fishnet stockings but a pair of cowboy boots.
* After a presentation that seemed to last hours, most of us headed East towards Vme’s upfront at the Instituto Cervantes. Under new management, Vme hosted a small, intimate, sit-down presentation in a dark basement with no cellular signal whatsoever, making it the perfect setting for a much needed afternoon nap. (I caught several executives and members of the media happily snoring away, but I decided not to publish their names, mostly because it wouldn’t be fair and because I was also fast asleep.)
The Elevator’s Daniel Salcedo and me, before my Vme nap
* The marathon ended Wednesday night with a much-needed, circus-themed party hosted by Viacom’s Tr3s and headlined by Daddy Yankee, who made even the most stiff media executive shake his/her hips. EXTRA BONUS POINT for Tr3s, which spared us the power points and the data on Hispanic TV audience growth, etc. etc. etc.
This is Daddy Yankee in a very bad photo taken by @bathtubmedia
Yet, my favorite moment this week came at the Tr3s party when I was able to capture the following shot, featuring the great Eduardo Caballero, the father, grandfather, godfather of Hispanic media, and Ari Madrid, probably the craziest -and smartest- millennial I’ve ever met and one of the youngest entrants to this business.
Caballero changed the media world once. Ari will change it forever.
Media revolucionarios. Eduardo Caballero & Ariadna Madrid
This blogger is so tired from all this partying busy this week, that a proper upfront round-up will not come until the weekend (sit tight.) However, I thought you’d like to know that barely minutes after Univision wrapped its upfront presentation under the theme “One for all,” NBCU found it amusing to park a van right outside Univision’s party venue using the exact same tagline but touting NBCU, not Univision, as the company that reaches 90% of all Hispanics.
NBCU does indeed reach a large percentage of Hispanics as it owns not only a bunch of English-language networks that are popular among Latinos, but also mun2 and Telemundo.
The stunt was the most talked about subject during both, Univision’s and Telemundo’s parties, during which this blogger drank only cranberry juice and an occasional glass of water.
As this blog dutifully reported it almost one year ago, Lifetime Television has finally set a date for the premiere of Devious Maids, a 13-episode series featuring a bunch of Latino women who work as -what else?- maids.
Devious Maids is being executive produced by the one and only Eva Longoria, la “prieta faya” and this blogger’s favorite retroacculturated Latina, who this week came out in full force to defend the series. [Oh, she also starred in this other cinematographic masterpiece.]
Judging from the trailer [below] I can see Devious Maids will touch on some of the hot-button issues that keep my people at night: Earning the minimum wage; working 80 hours a week for a bunch of ungrateful, rich bastards; getting by without health insurance and living in constant fear of deportation.
Then came Telemundo’s own remake of the series, which was slightly changed to Sin senos no hay paraíso (substituting the word ‘tetas’ with the boring, yet anatomically correct senos (breasts.)
But that was then.
Last week UniMás proudly announced the upcoming premiere of Sin ellas no hay paraíso… and yes, it is the exact same telenovela, except this time the offending moniker (tetas) has being awkwardlysubstituted by the word ellas (them.)
I said it then, and I repeat it today: When it comes to Hispanic television, one thing is to show tetas feminine attributes all day long, and another one is to call those attributes by their rightful name.
mun2 on Tuesday unveiled its 2013-2014 programming line up at a morning press conference in Manhattan. And just to make sure this blogger would get out of bed so early in the morning, it brought in tacos and the taqueros who make them.
The event, which featured appearances by Larry Hernández and the Horóscopos de Durango, included an early morning pachanga that included tacos, champagne and coffee inexplicably served in a burro-themed cup.
The real party is tonight, so I will let you know if they ended up bringing out the strongest beverages and if they were still served on burro-themed cups.
Latino celebrities are a resourceful bunch. Not content with having the main role on a telenovela, host a network’s most successful TV show or sell out music venues worldwide, they can easily switch gears to sell bottled water, flavored chips and/or their own fragrances.
The turn is now for the sculptural Bárbara Bermudo, host of Univision’s Primer Impacto, who this week announced with great fanfare the launch of CAMI, a clothing, shoe and fashion line inspired on her two daughters (Camila and Mía.)
If you know Bárbara Bermudo you’d agree with me that she is known almost as much for her curves than for her intellectual stamina. So it is no surprise her clothing line will be sold at Puerto Rico’s famed Pompis Stores. [NOTE FOR THE MONOLINGUAL CROWD: I urge you to look up the word “pompis” so you can appreciate the true scope of this venture.]
With the launch at Pompis Store, Bermudo and her bundles of joy are joining yet another “pompous” Latina: Maripili, whose Maripili Jeans are a thing of beauty.
Univision was so happy that its flagship Spanish-language network beat NBC in the February sweeps, it launched an English-language TV spot to spread the news. The ad features some of the network’s most popular shows; a mix of music, soccer and telenovelas and –of course– a few bikini-clad señoritas.
Taco Bell, the food chain that brought you the Dori-Taco and other inedible stuff, charmed millions -me included- with a hilarious TV spot that broke during last night’s Super Bowl. Created by Deutsch, Viva Young features a group of ‘viejitos’ having a wild night: Getting tattooed, making out in bars, breaking into other people’s swimming pools and driving around recklessly… all this to the tune of a heavy-accented Spanish-language version of Fun’s We Are Young.
Viva Young spot was, by far, this blogger’s favorite from last night’s commercial parade. If only Taco Bell’s food could be as good as their TV spots…
MI BLOG ES TU BLOG 