Monday, February 2, 2009

V-me Oh-vey

My PBS station broadcasts come from Orlando. About 2 years ago they proudly announced they would be the first PBS station in the US to have a channel completely in Spanish - called V-me (pronounced V-meh). I found it interesting this hadn’t been launched in a market like LA, NYC, or Miami. But maybe in those markets they already have a goodly number of Spanish language stations available (here we have all four on basic cable) and understand the target audience is probably more interested in football (soccer), telenovelas, game shows, talk shows, etc. No different than the English speaking audiences. Anyway - since they launched V-me their fundraising programming has gone from a couple of weeks a year to an average of one week out of every four. And they keep showing the same darn programs every time.
I guess the Spanish speakers aren’t watching and if they are they seem to not grasp the concept that they should have to donate to a TV station. Gee, maybe they think, “Isn’t that what commercials are for?” Seems to me they pretty well grasp the concept of the free market. Maybe better than we do.

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