Alex von Lichtenberg, general manager of Boston's Univision affiliate, WUNITV.
(David L. Ryan/ Globe Staff)
On the Hot Seat
Filling the gap in Spanish language news
Alex von Lichtenberg, general manager of Boston's Univision affiliate, WUNITV.
(David L. Ryan/ Globe Staff)
As general manager of Boston’s Univision affiliate, WUNI-TV (Channel 27), Alex von Lichtenberg straddles two worlds on a daily basis. He oversees New England’s only live local daily Spanish-language newscast and the station’s 30 employees. Behind the scenes, von Lichtenberg reaches out to businesses and organizations that may not be aware of the growing local Hispanic market and its spending power. Entravision Communications Corp. owns the Needham broadcast station and launched its Boston Spanish-language newscast in 2003. Despite his last name, von Lichtenberg is a Spanish speaker who grew up in Brookline and whose father was a Mexican citizen. Von Lichtenberg recently sat down with Globe reporter Johnny Diaz.
Why did Entravision launch a local live newscast in Boston?
When Entravision bought this station (in 2000), it was a stand alone. Once they got the station operating properly, they decided to launch local news because that’s a service to the community and this market certainly needed a live local TV newscast. Without it, there is a big gap in the Spanish language media market here in Boston and Entravision recognized that . . . it’s been a great success for us both in terms of the service we provide to the community and the ratings we see for our local news broadcasts.
Do you think that English-language advertisers may not understand the power of the Hispanic dollar in New England?
I tell people that the development of the Hispanic market or the Hispanic population, from my perspective, is a three-phase development. The first is just awareness that the population is there. There is no question that the 2000 Census made a lot of people aware that even here in the Boston designated marketing area, there was a significant Hispanic population.
The second phase is the awareness of the economic opportunity. OK, there are plenty of people there and they’ve got money to spend and if we sell our service and product into that community, there is an opportunity for us to make money in the business that we are in.
The third phase of the development of the Hispanic population is a political one. You get to the political power of the community. We give this community a voice. I don’t have to go and tell people anymore that there is a large Hispanic community here in Boston. What I am beginning to see now is this political issue where people are becoming aware that there are a lot of Hispanic voters out there.
Didn’t you have some political ads airing recently for the Senate race?
We did. Mike Capuano invested in getting his message out to the Spanish-speaking community on our station. I’d like to think it helped him, too. While he didn’t win the race, he certainly had a much more favorable showing as a result of it. When the Census numbers finally come out in 2011, I think a lot more people will see that not only is the population there, but it is growing. It is the growth engine for the population here in Massachusetts.
Your newscast is mostly women and led by a news director who is also female. How do you think that benefits your station in this market?
It benefits my station in that they are all wonderful, well-trained, intelligent, fair, and balanced news writers and reporters. I don’t know that it matters to our viewers that the faces they see are female. We do have a male sports anchor.
How would you describe the typical viewer of your newscast?
First of all, I can tell you that the typical viewer speaks Spanish. They are either Spanish dominant or bilingual. I know that we get a significant bilingual viewership because our news regularly does somewhere in the range of a 25 percent share of viewing in Spanish-speaking households. We know it cuts across the very wide spectrum of potential viewers. . . . I firmly believe that it’s a wide range of Spanish-speaking immigrants and Americans who are watching our news.
With increased competition for viewers and advertisers, what do you think is the future of local TV news?
News is becoming more and more 24-hours/365 (days a year). With that in mind, one of the recent developments in the last year and a half, Entravision helped us to launch a local website, WUNITV.com, and we put local news stories up on that website. It was the first local Spanish language website in the market with constant news updating. We’ve seen our audience to the website grow substantially. We have plans to dedicate more resources to our website to enable us to provide even more local content.
What are some fires that you put out daily as a general manager?
The biggest challenge that we have in this market is to convince people that we are a viable alternative for businesses, the government, and nonprofit organizations to get the word out about whatever it is they want to inform the Hispanic community about. I still think there is, in some circles, a misconception that the Spanish language viewer can be reached strictly through English language television. I think our ratings in the market show that there is a significant population being missed if people aren’t utilizing our station.
How much television do you watch?
I’ve got four sets right in front of me, all day long. I monitor my Spanish language competition. I monitor the local broadcast stations and local cable stations to see who is advertising in the market.
What do you watch at home?
Like many American males, I watch a fair amount of sports, although I watch soccer and rugby the most. I do tune in in the mornings to watch the morning shows.
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