• by Paul Gough , May 1, 2003

After years of putting the needs of multicultural audiences on the back burner, the cable industry is realizing that its growth depends in large part on how they serve America's growing tapestry of languages and cultures.

That's the message that NBC Cable chief David Zaslav is hearing loud and clear from cable operators, who are more concerned about what Telemundo and Mun2 can do to reach an Hispanic audience than the latest iteration of CNBC or Bravo.

If you're a cable operator, he said, "You're not going to drive your penetration level by launching Bravo 2, Bravo 3." Today, NBC Cable considers Telemundo and Mun2 - the bilingual service aimed at 12- to 24-year-old Hispanics - as a helper for CNBC World and Bravo.

Zaslav spoke at Horowitz Associates' third annual forum on the State of Broadband and Cable, "America's Multicultural Youth: The Next Generation." The half-day conference was held Thursday morning in New York. About 200 people attended the event, which was held at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

He said that when times were good in the cable industry, operators were content to have 30 or 40 channels. But with the advent of direct-broadcast satellite, cable operators began to expand their infrastructure to expand their offerings. In the cable industry, retaining subscribers and growing new ones have been top priorities since DirectTV and Dish Network grew so fast in the late 1990s. MSOs wanting to find new markets have discovered that multicultural audiences like Asians and Hispanic Americans have been underserved and that there's a business opportunity in putting together programming packages for them. Zaslav said that these are the channels that are driving talk in cable circles and he's always being asked about Telemundo and Mun2.

He points to the fact that in 1997, three years after NBC's Spanish-language news channel debuted, Echostar was carrying three foreign-language stations: ART in Arabic, RAI in Italian and Antenna in Greek. He said that today, there are more than 60 foreign-language channels. And it's become profitable for providers to carry them. Echostar, for instance, has added 650,000 subscribers over the past few years due to its Hispanic programming. Zaslav said that the interest is in multicultural channels now, with niche channels that appeal to, for instance, chess or racing enthusiasts on basic cable not moving the needle. "There's not an operator in America who believes that a basic channel aimed a traditional America today is going to drive their penetration levels," Zaslav said.

When NBC bought Telemundo about two years ago, the mostly English-only broadcasting and cable company was in for an education. NBC's cable operations had tried a 24/7 Spanish-language network in 1994 but it didn't catch on and eventually folded. "As it turned out, I think we were too early," Zaslav said. Between the failed cable channel and today, the industry changed and NBC wanted to be part of it. Although Zaslav said NBC or its corporate parent General Electric generally shied away from spending a significant amount of money in a property - instead opting to invest in a company like CourtTV, partner like MSNBC or grow its own cable channel - the company shelled out $3.2 billion for Telemundo.