Media & entertainment: whether it's Latin music, magazine publishing, cable television, radio or advertising, Miami is at the epicenter of pan-regional media and entertainment for the Americas

Latin CEO: Executive Strategies for the Americas, August-Sept, 2002

When television's Emmy awards were announced this year, nobody expected any individuals in Miami to win anything. US television is mostly a California product, after all, and what's left ends up in New York.

There was one exception, however, and it was telling: Miami firm TM Systems picked up the engineering award for a new translation process it had developed, one which enables programmers to slash production time. While the technology was important--a split-screen process that allows for simultaneous dubbing--just as significant was the recognition for Miami as a center for multi-lingual film and video production.

TM Systems is far from alone in Miami, even in its business of subtitling, which is also conducted by companies such as The Kitchen (Claxon Communications dubbing and subtitling outfit) and Coral Pictures, which specializes in subtitling and dubbing the Spanish-language soap operas called novelas.

Even these companies are just the tip of the iceberg of Miami's Latin entertainment industry, which runs the gamut from music recording studios to cable production and broadcast companies.

For starters, Miami is the home to Telemundo, the No.2 US Hispanic television company, which was purchased last year by NBC for $2.7 billion. The largest US Hispanic television network, Univision, is headquartered in Los Angeles, but its network operations are in Miami, where all production is handled. As for companies that pump their signals straight into the region, Greater Miami is the capital of Latin American cable TV, with the regional operations of such networks as Claxson (formerly the Cisneros Television Group), Discovery Channel, HBO, Disney, The Weather Channel, MGM and MTV Latin America, which will host the first MTV Latin music awards in Miami in October.

"Part of our success has been to find the right staff," says Ralph Haiek, COO of Claxson's Pay TV division. "Almost all [of our employees] are from Latin countries. It's the immigration from these countries to Miami that has helped us be state-of-the-art and excellent in our field."

In addition to the programming and broadcasting of cable television, Miami is also growing as a production center for the Americas. Venevision International is a perfect example. Quietly headquartered in Miami-Dade County for 30 years, it was the worldwide distributor of TV programming produced by the Venevision broadcasting network in Venezuela. Now Venevision International, with $120 million in annual revenues, is filming five hours a day of telenovelas in Miami, and branching out into theater production. CEO Luis Villanueva says Miami is the perfect platform to reach the entire hemispheric market, not just Latin America. "From Miami, you can move into the [North] American market and still keep the idiosyncrasies of your business," he says.

On the print side, Miami is the dominant city when it comes to regional magazines for Latin America. Just outside of Miami International Airport, for example, are the headquarters for Editorial Televisa, the largest publisher of Spanish-language magazines in the world. The company produces 45 titles distributed in 19 countries, magazines such as Vanidades, Cristina and the Spanish language versions of Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, National Geographic, Maxim, PC and Popular Mechanics, Closer to downtown Miami is Ideas Publishing, which produces the Spanish language version of a dozen titles that are sent into Latin America, such as Glamour, Newsweek and Discover.

In the realm of music, Miami is also an epicenter, the headquarters for more than a dozen top labels, such as Sony, EMI and BMG. It is here that Estefan Enterprises hangs its hat, managing the careers - and crossovers--of such performers as Shakira, Gloria Estefan, Picky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and Jon Secada.

"Miami is definitely the Mecca of the Latin Music industry in this country, and for most of the Hemisphere," says Jorge Plasencia, former senior vice president of Estefan Enterprises. "Most Latin artists, musicians and song writers make their music in Miami. This is truly the base where it all happens." Adding depth to the industry, Miami is where the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (LARAS) is located, along with the Latin American office of the Recording Industry Association of America.

Miami is also home to the top national Hispanic radio networks in the US, Radio Unica and Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS), where Plasencia currently serves as vice president of communications. "On the radio side, we're the third-largest Hispanic media market in the country, but we have the biggest buying power in the country because we are the wealthiest Hispanic market in the country." Latino Broadcasting, the largest syndicated service for Hispanic radio (115 stations) in the US, is also based in Miami.

In terms of marketing, Miami is the place where the concept of Hispanic Media was born, and where most of the top transLatin advertising and public relations firms are located. Miami based firms such as The IAC Group, Publicis Sanchez & Levitan, The Jeffrey Group and Zubi Advertising--the largest independent Hispanic ad firm in the US--have been pioneers in developing both US Hispanic and pan-regional markets. In Miami they are joined by the Latin American divisions of top national ad shops such as Foote Cone and Belding, Young & Rubicam, Ogilvy & Mather and McCann Erickson.