As part of its ongoing commitment to strengthen the local profile of its owned stations and better serve the Hispanic communities in which they operate, the Telemundo Station Group today announced that it will increase local news and public affairs programming at the stations by more than 25% in an expansion initiative to be completed by January, 2012. The initiative will involve the launch of morning news programs in Los Angeles and Houston; local weekend news programs in New York, Dallas, and Puerto Rico; weekday news programs in Denver; and local public affairs programs in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and Puerto Rico. These programs, all of which will be launched by the end of January 2012, will contribute more than 1,000 hours of additional news and public affairs offerings at the stations.
Also by January, new half hour local editions of weekend news will launch in Dallas (KXTX) and Houston (KTMD). These weekend news programs will air at 6pm and 11pm on Saturdays and Sundays and will offer local news, weather and sports.
Clearly Spanish language local news is a hot property - especially in Houston. In June, I blogged how well KXLN did in the May ratings book.
"Houston is a key Hispanic market no question, and it makes sense to have a Spanish local morning show," Ray Fohr with public relations and marketing agency Fleishman Hillard in Houston told mikemikemcguff.com back in March.
You read here just last week that Houston's 55 KTBU switched formats to Spanish language network Mega TV.
