The show goes on: while fewer films are being made in Miami, the metropolis continues to shine as the Hispanic entertainment capital for music and television - Film & Entertainment

South Florida CEO, Jan, 2004 by Johanna Marmon

On a Wednesday night in September, more than 100 photographers set up camp outside the American Airlines Arena in order to snap pictures of the glitterati who flocked to the Latin Grammy Awards. The scene had all the trappings of a major Los Angeles awards show: huge searchlights, screaming fans, dramatic entrances by celebs emerging from stretch limousines. The show itself had an economic impact on the City of Miami estimated at $35 million.

Miami, it seems, has finally been recognized for the Latin music hub that it is. The show, which aired on CBS, pulled in 5.1 million viewers nationwide, representing a 21 percent increase in household ratings over last year's show held in LA.

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"In 2003, Miami did very well," says Gabriel Abaroa, president of the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which moved its headquarters in 2003 to the Miami Design District. "If we don't measure the business in money but in production, what happened here this year with the Grammies and the Latin Billboard Awards and the MTV Latin Music Awards--Miami must feel very energized."

Having said that, the local industry--long home to the Latin divisions of major labels such as Warner and Sony--has been under pressure from the troubled economies in Latin America. "In terms of music, there's a dramatic situation in Latin America," Abaroa says. "Fifty percent of the economy of the industry here depends on Latin America." The state-side issue of piracy is worse in Latin America, where there's less respect for intellectual property rights.

For 2004, however, Aboroa is sanguine. He says that as mergers and layoffs in the music business here happen (Sony is currently merging with BMG, and its Latin division recently took over Emilio Estefan's Crescent Moon Records), new independent labels crop up. "All those people who are going out from the companies will start new venues," he says. "We're going to be a little bit back to the basics in 2004, with lots of smaller, new labels, with promoters, new managers all catering to the different groups that are here in Miami."

Music is just one component of Miami-Dade's multi-billion dollar entertainment industry--though other parts are also linked to Latin America. Miami-Dade is home to a powerful cable TV industry, with players ranging from Discovery Communication's Latin America Iberia to Claxson's cable channels HTV, Playboy and Infinito. For them, 2003 was a turnaround year, after a dismal 2002. "Actually, in 2003 we began to see a recovery in the market, with some growth in Brazil and elsewhere," says Enrique Martinez, Discovery's top executive for Latin America. Region-wide. Martinez says cable advertising revenues grew 5 or 6 percent in 2003, but could grow up to 20 percent this year. The Latin American Multichannel Advertising Council predicts $289 million in Latin cable advertising for 2004, up from $248 million in 2002.

One strategy has been for both cable and broadcast companies to turn their focus to US Hispanic markets. "In the process of being hurt by the business [losses] in Latin America, the operations in Miami have focused on hard dollars, and the US Hispanic market has been the way to go," says Claxson communications director Alfredo Richard.

Indeed, companies which produce original content in Miami, such as Venevision International and Globecast, expect to see growing demand from both the US and Latin markets this year. "For us, the activity definitely ramped up this year and will continue in 2004," says David Sprechman, the CEO of Miami-based Globecast America, which has 130 employees in Miami-Dade. "We're seeing lots more television production, mainly because of the pickup in Latin America's economies."

What Miami probably won't see is a return to the high level of feature film-making it experienced in 2002, with the production of huge blockbusters such as "Bad Boys II" and "2 Fast 2 Furious." The year 2002 was "definitely unbelievable," says Jeff Peel, director of the county Mayor's Office of Film and Entertainment. "[2003] was more normal in retrospect." While not all the figures are in, Peel estimates that $175 million was spent in Greater Miami on permitted film and television shoots in 2003, down from $218 million in 2002. He expects 2004 to be similar to 2003, with television commercials making up the lion's share of local production.

"It's the backbone of the industry here, along with the Spanish-language television business," says Peel. "You can't count on the features." Peel says about half of Miami-Dade's 10,000-strong production workforce is in Spanish-language television shows produced locally by such entertainment giants as Univision and Telemundo.

On the television-commercial front, it doesn't hurt that the CLIO awards (the advertising industry's Oscars) were held here in May for the third consecutive year. "What better way for the industry to see Miami as a location to shoot commercials? That's tremendous in and of itself," says Bruce Orosz, president of Miami Beach-based ACT Productions, which produces the awards show. "Miami-Dade is definitely coming into its own. The maturity is certainly here."