Translating No-Nonsense News Into High Ratings

First Madonna became a mother, then Michael Jackson learned he was about to become a father. In Los Angeles, stories like those are generally enough to drive television news crews into a frenzy.

But while KNBC-TV Channel 4 followed form by topping its 11 p.m. newscast with the Jackson story in November, Spanish-language station KMEX-TV Channel 34 took a different tack and led with a breaking report about a suspect in a sexual-abuse case fleeing to Mexico, holding the Jackson story for a spot between the weather and sports reports.

It wasn’t a rare break with tradition. While many stations have taken the chatty “happy news” concept to seemingly high levels of triviality, KMEX has distinguished itself with a scrappy, no-nonsense newscast that is short on entertainment but long on information.

And that approach has proved successful: Among the demographic group of 18- to 34-year-olds that advertisers covet, KMEX’s 6 p.m. newscast has dominated the ratings among all stations in its time slot for nearly three years. And, says news director Jairo Marin, one reason KMEX has set itself apart in the ratings is because it has set itself apart on the air as well.

“A good day for us is when we are leading our newscast with a story that the Anglo media is not leading with,” he says. “We feel very happy with those days.”

Happy days, then, have become commonplace in the KMEX studios, because the station’s fast-paced newscasts regularly vary from those of their English-language competitors. In a recent two-week span, “Noticias 34,” which can be seen daily at 6 and 11 p.m., averaged more than 13 stories per newscast--and frequently featured as many as 17--in addition to sports and weather reports. A 30-minute newscast on some English-language stations may have no more than 10 reports.

To accommodate those extra reports, many KMEX stories are read by an anchor rather than delivered by a reporter in the field. And packages filmed on location are frequently less than two minutes long, short by industry standards--and nearly invisible in comparison to such reports on some Latin American newscasts, which can drag stories out to near documentary length.

Even the weather is squeezed: no fancy maps or satellite photos, just temperatures for today and forecasts for tomorrow.

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“Why are we going to dedicate more time to do the weather?” Marin asks. “The weather is pretty stable in Los Angeles.”

There’s no time for aimless chatter between stories, either. Although KMEX’s anchors are gregarious off camera, they are uncommonly grim-faced and businesslike on the set.

“We take the news very seriously,” says Jesus Javier, co-anchor of “Noticias 34’s”11 p.m. newscast. “It just seems like when there are so many issues that are of importance to our everyday survival, that every minute of the newscast is important. And because there aren’t that many alternatives in Spanish-language television, the people who do work in communications feel a very deep sense of commitment to convey meaningful, important information.

“So when you talk about the time limitation within a 30-minute span, we want to use it to its optimum.”

But what really makes “Noticias 34” different is not just the sheer number of stories but the way those stories are played. When the Material Girl became the Maternity Girl in October, for example, the story dominated English-language newscasts for two days. But on KMEX, the story merited just a mention from an anchor at the end of the 11 p.m. newscast.

“While Madonna was having her baby . . . we [had] thousands of new citizens that [were] going to vote for the first time in their lives,” says Marin, who was promoted to news director in August after four years as a producer at KMEX. “We prefer to invest that time in giving people the information that they really need and that they can use in their daily lives.”

Which is not to say KMEX ignores pop culture. In November the station dispatched a crew to Universal Studios to document a visit by Cristina Saralegui, host of a popular talk show for Univision, KMEX’s parent company. But the same newscast also included a lengthy report about the Mexican army’s new presence along the U.S. border and a story about restrictions in federal housing aid for undocumented immigrants.

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Officials at KMEX say the newscast was given a new emphasis in 1992, when Hallmark sold the Univision Television Group to Hollywood investor A. Jerrold Perenchio, Mexican media baron Emilio Azcarraga and a Venezuelan-based communications company.

The new owners authorized the station to upgrade its news operation by adding a weekend newscast--a first for a Spanish-language outlet in the United States--and by purchasing two mobile satellite trucks and the sleek, all-black Aguila Uno helicopter.

The additional resources quickly changed the station’s focus. Rather than settling for the top spot among Spanish-language newscasts, the station actively pursued the area’s growing bilingual population as well. But it did so without sacrificing its core audience.

As invaluable as the new ownership has been, many at KMEX say the real reason for its news operation’s success is an intimate understanding of its audience.

While English-language stations typically greet the onset of winter with reports on snow conditions, for example, KMEX recently aired a feature that explained how to light a gas furnace. Many immigrants from Mexico and Central America, after all, have never seen one.

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“We know what their needs are. And as the community changes, our stories change,” says Rosa Maria Villalpando, a veteran reporter who co-anchors KMEX’s weekend newscast. “It’s not just translated [news]. And I think that’s an edge that we have. We are identified with the viewers.”

To keep that edge, the station routinely convenes focus groups to grade its newscasts. And while not all the feedback has been helpful--one viewer was appalled that a female reporter wore high heels in a live shot from a rainstorm--the comments have helped news director Marin establish priorities.

Just about anything touching on immigration, education, jobs, health and fraud prevention gets on the air, for example, while phone numbers have become frequent story tags, leading viewers to other sources of help or additional information.

“We are providing a service that people who do not speak English otherwise wouldn’t have. We are their only source,” co-anchor Nancy Agosto says. “And if you think about it, it’s a big responsibility.”