Fred Cantu Has a New Co-Anchor
Veteran Austin broadcaster Fred Cantu is now the confirmed co-anchor for the new local Spanish language newscast.Conteo Noticias, on KEYE TV’s Telemundo 42.2 at 5 and 10 p.m. weekdays beginning October 1, 2009. His co-anchor will be new to Austin. She is Karla Leal coming here from the Telemundo station in Bakersfield, California. Joining them will be reporter Erika Gonzalezjoins Conteo Noticias from the Rio Grande Valley where she was an anchor on XRIO-TV, Fox 2 News and reported for Univision 48.
“We are very excited that our new partnership with Telemundo allows us to serve Central Texas’ growing Hispanic viewer base,” said Amy Villarreal, KEYE TV president and general manager. “We are equally honored to have such reputable on-air talent as Fred, Karla and Erika onboard as the core of the Conteo Noticias Telemundo 42.2 news team. We are confident that their commitment and strong ties to the Hispanic community will be invaluable assets to KEYE and we look forward to having Conteo Noticias serve as the community’s source for local news, weather, sports and traffic.”
Fred Cantu, known as “Uncle Fred” and the resident “Gadget Guy,” has been an anchor in Austin for almost 20 years, beginning his career at TV KTBC-TV in 1990. Cantu was in radio news in Austin before that. He has anchored at KEYE since 2002 and has a large local following from radio to television among the Hispanic community. Until recently, he was co-anchor of KEYE TV’s morning news. When KEYE committed to making the morning team of “JB and Sandy” of Mix 94.7 radio the morning broadcast, it was widely speculated that Cantu would become the Telemundo anchor.
Karla Leal was lead anchor and reporter for KKEY-TV, Telemundo 11. She received Emmy nominations for the “El Arte de la Charreria” reporting series in 2008 and the “El Sueno Mexicano” series in 2007 and began her career with CAN-TV-TV in Chicago, IL in 2004. Ms. Leal earned her BA from Columbia College in Chicago with an emphasis in broadcast journalism in June, 2005. Leal also did TV weather earlier in her career.
Erika Gonzalez joins Conteo Noticias from the Rio Grande Valley where she was an anchor on XRIO-TV, Fox 2 News and reported on Univision 48. She began her career at XRIO-TV in McAllen, TX in 2007.
Telemundo, a U.S. Spanish-language television network, is a leading producer of high quality content for Hispanics in the United States and is recognized for its originally produced primetime novelas, news, and weekend primetime movie showcases. Beginning October 1, KEYE-TV 42.2 viewers will also be able to tune in to Telemundo Sports which includes in-depth soccer coverage including Futbol Liga Mexicana on Futbol Estelar and Futbol Telemundo, as well as the most Mexican League Soccer broadcasts including, the home matches of Atlas, Tigres, Monterrey, U.N.A.M., Atlante and defending champion Toluca.
© Jim McNabb, 2009
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5 comments:
Not to rain on their parade, but I wonder if segments will be "En venta" or for sale like other KEYE news products seem to be. Good luck to them.
So what is the current count on spanish language stations in Austin. Do too many of these thin out the viewer base?
Best of luck, but I would bet things won't look the same in a year.
Well, I hope KEYE is sucessful with the Telemundo news broadcast.
Thoughts on another subject.
How would KVUE-TV do in retaining viewers if it lost its affiliation with ABC and the network's programming?
Cash-strapped Belo, the owner of KVUE-TV and 19 other stations, says some of the networks with which its stations are affiliated have stated their intention to require as a condition to the renewal of affiliation agreements, elimination of network affiliate compensation, and in some cases, cash payments to the networks.
If KVUE or any other Belo station loses its network affiliation, it would need to find alternative sources of programming, which may be less popular and more expensive.
Is Belo in a position to be pouring extra dollars into programming? Very doubtful, since it and other TV broadcast companies are suffering from a sharp decline in revenues.
In the meantime, Belo is preparing to sell $600 million in debt securities. Belo warns that it already has a large amount of debt.
Editor's Note: Regarding the number of Spanish language broadcasts: KEYE 42.2 and Univision are the only doing local news. Of course, Univision was the first. KVUE TV.2 is broadcasting Estrella programming. Patti Smith, KVUE President and GM, told me that she anticipates a news broadcast sometime in the future. Telefutura belongs to KBVO, and KBVO belongs to the LIN family of stations. No word on what they're going to do. Azteca Austin, KADF TV, booms in on UHF Channel 20. KADF TV is a "low power station". They don't have to switch to digital yet. I think that is all. Considering the fact that only two will have local news, I don't know if they've reached the point of saturation yet.
Regarding local stations losing network affiliations, that's a future post. Jim
Wonder whether LIN TV will escape delisting from the New York Stock Exchange.
In January, the stock exchange notified LIN that the company is not in compliance with one of the continued listing standards, Specifically, the NYSE’s notice states that the company is not in compliance with the listing standard that requires that the company’s average global market capitalization over a consecutive 30 trading-day period equal or exceed $75,000,000.
LIN believes delisting of the company's common stock from the NYSE could "hinder the ability to sell, or obtain an accurate quotation from the price of shares of our common stock."
LIN says delisting could also adversely affect the perception among investors, which could lead to further declines in the market price of the company's common stock. Delisting, LIN insists, would also make it more difficult and expensive for the company to raise capital.
LIN submitted a plan to the NYSE to come into compliance with the exchange's listing standards, and the NYSE accepted the plan.
Quarterly performance reviews will be done through mid-2010 to determine whether the company is meeting the goals of the plan, or whether the company should be delisted.
Cross your fingers that LIN is successful.
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