This is the RBR TVBR In Focus podcast.
Here's your host, radio and television business report editor in chief, Adam R. Jacobson.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the In Focus podcast.
It is presented by.fm, streaming social podcast or broadcast.
Got a.fm domain name by heading over to get.fm today.
And joining us today on this podcast is Stephanie Valencia.
She's the president of newly formed Latino Media Network Valencia, co founded L.M.N.
with Jess Morales Roqueto.
And on June the third announced that it is launching in a big way to find out more about
what's happening with L.M.N.
Let's get right to the conversation with Stephanie, who joins us today from Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where L.M.N. will be headquartered.
It's great to chat with you and welcome.
Thanks so much for having me, Stephanie.
You've been described as a social entrepreneur, a public servant and an author.
Now you'll be leading a group of radio stations dedicated to super serving the US Hispanic
market.
We're wondering why you and Jess decided to go the radio industry route by investing
some 60 million dollars in radio properties that your group is acquiring from Televisa
Univision.
Is there something in the power of radio connecting with the Hispanic community today and in 2023
and beyond that excites and interests you?
Absolutely.
We call radio the constant companion of the Latino community.
Whether you are driving your kids to school and listening to the local traffic and whether
in the morning show or you're working at a construction site or in an office, chances
are you are listening to radio.
Latinos listen to radio more than the average population and more than radio.
They're also listening to other really important audio content, whether that is streaming or
podcasting.
Among Latinos is significantly higher and has seen a lot more growth among Latinos in
the last several years.
It is about radio, but it is also about audio.
You have many companies who are probably looking at the next shiny object of streaming and
other things, which is also really important to reach Latinos.
I will say YouTube, up to 67% of Latinos that we've seen are using YouTube to get news
and information about politics and elections.
There is a really important, these are all really important platforms that all can cross-pollinate
and work together in a multi-tiered distribution strategy.
All that is to say that radio is attractive to us because it's reaching its scale and
Latinos are still very much attracted to using and relying on it.
But what we are trying to build is much bigger than radio and has much broader reach than
I think the initial set of assets that we are acquiring from Televisión.
Among the investors, board members and advisors for Latino Media Network are such radio industry
veterans as Tom Castro, who many may remember as the CEO and co-founder of the former Board
of Media Partners, who is today a board member on Cumulus Media.
Will these individuals, such as Mr. Castro, take an active role in the day-to-day operations
and leadership of LMN, or is that something that you and Jess will be taking on, or perhaps
other individuals that are yet to come into the picture?
All of the above.
Tom has been an incredible mentor and advisor on this project and more broadly helping us
navigate and think about the power of radio in reaching the Latino community.
He has been an important part of the team that did the diligence on this deal, along
with other veterans from Univision that we were able to work with.
We have assembled a really phenomenal team of board members and advisors and investors
that really run the gamut of people like Tom who have deep experience in the industry to
others who have other content creation and news and journalistic credentials like Maria
Lennas-Salinas and Julica Lantigua-Williams, and people who have experience in other parts
of the media industry like Monica Lozano, the former publisher of La Opinion, or Kristi
Habager, the founder and former CEO of Latino Magazine.
All that is to say Latino Media Network is just getting off the ground and we want to
build a really strong team that can understand the power of radio, but also a multi-platform
audio approach.
We are just launching today.
We are going to be building and hiring a leadership team over the coming months.
Obviously, in some of these cities and markets across the country, we'll want to be rebuilding
and expanding some of the local teams.
We'll be looking for local voices to participate and helping to build new content that is more
locally focused.
From soup to nuts leadership to the local markets, we are really just kicking the separate
on and I would encourage people to visit latinomedianetwork.com to express interest or get in touch with us
because we do want to attract the best and brightest that share our values.
Using this as a platform to provide critical and important information to the Latino community,
helping them make sense of the world and their place in it.
Again, creating culturally competent and culturally relevant content that helps people to navigate
this sea of information that we find ourselves in every single day.
I'm glad that you mentioned those names because among the board members, investors and advisors
is Eva Longoria and one Al Cardenas, a lot of people in politics are familiar with that
name because he's the former longtime share of the Republican Party of Florida and a former
chair of the American Conservative Union.
This of course begs the question, as far as the content that LMN will be placing on the
majority of these radio stations, which are spoken word AMs under the Televisa Univision
banner, will we be looking at something under La Politica, for example?
Is this meant to be a spoken word operation?
Are you going to be doing music in some of these markets because you are gaining all
of the Univision radio stations in Fresno, Las Vegas, the Rio Grande Valley, or is that
just too early to answer right now?
I think it's fair to say that we're looking to experiment in a lot of different ways with
these stations.
There are some where obviously music for stations that we don't plan to change because people
want to listen to great Latin music, whether that's Tejano or Reggaeton or Cumbia.
On the other hand, with the AMs, we also see a ton of possibility with that kind of talk
airtime to be able to provide such a platform for the community on really critical issues,
whether it be what we saw during the pandemic and the need, thirst for information, good
information, real information about the pandemic and about COVID, to things like information
about being a small business owner and being an entrepreneur.
There are Latinos are driving growth of the economy in part because we are creating small
businesses at a higher rate than any other community.
And ultimately, information about how to be a savvy small business owner, thinking about
resources that the SBA or other that we might have access to is really important information
to disseminate.
And then thirdly, think about parenting and education and parents who are trying to navigate
the world of being a good parent and ensuring their kids have access to good education.
And so these are really important platforms not to be political, but to really, again,
just provide really good quality information to Latino consumers who are trying to make
sense of all of it.
The transaction terms call for a one year transition agreement between Televisión
y Univision and LMN, which is expected to include in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Does that mean it will be a little bit more than a year until you guys take over?
Or is there an LMA that is going to allow you to take control of the stations in terms
of programming and operations ahead of that closing date?
So first things first, we will be submitting for FCC approval in the next couple of weeks.
Obviously, that will take its own timeline and its own due course, which we expect to
take a few months.
And then we will enter into an LMA with 18 different radio stations.
And as we build this company and build the leadership of this company and the programming
strategy, we'll slowly roll off those 18 stations over time.
And so by the end, no later than the end of 2023, Latino Media Network will be in full
control of those 18 stations.
In terms of the content, right now, they're mostly, if not all, in Spanish.
Will you be considering any English language content that is super serving the Hispanic
community and these markets?
Well, I think that's certainly another area we want to explore and experiment and want
to be research and data driven about it.
The more the community grows, the more bilingual and bicultural we become.
But that being said, Spanish language radio plays a really important role in our community.
And so we want to continue to preserve that real estate for Spanish language dominant
consumers.
At the same time, we also want to think about and experiment with content that could speak
to another set of an audience, which is the bilingual, bicultural consumer.
And I think there are a lot of people who kind of move back and forth between those
two worlds.
And so we want to create a space also for them too.
So there's a lot of experimentation and again, a lot of research we want to do to better
understand these markets and dig into them more.
But that language and programming language will certainly be one area that we will test
and explore.
Stephanie, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your day to speak with
the Radio Television Business Report for this InFocus podcast.
It really was a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you as well.
And remember, you can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeart
Radio, or wherever you prefer to consume your podcasts.
And with that, this is Adam R. Jacobson for the InFocus podcast, a presentation of.fm,
streaming social podcast or broadcast.
Get a.fm, donate me by heading over to get.fm today.
We'll see you next time.
Bye bye.