16218: (Hermantin) SunSentinel-First 24-hour cable TV channel aimed at Haitian-America (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

First 24-hour cable TV channel aimed at Haitian-Americans is launched


By Doreen Hemlock
Business Writer

July 28, 2003

When film producer Claude Mancuso founded Haitian Television Network of
America 15 years ago, he struggled to raise the cash and staff to offer a
few hours of programming weekly on Miami-Dade County's cable TV.

But today, with the number of Haitians in Florida nearing 1 million and
Haitian-Americans holding 13 elected offices in Miami-Dade alone, he has
launched the first 24-hour cable TV channel in Haitian Creole and French in
the United States, with plans to expand soon from his Miami base across
Florida and nationwide.

"It's time for Haitians to have their own channel," Mancuso said, pointing
to growing economic and political clout for more than 2 million
Haitian-Americans, many second- and third-generation U.S. residents. "It's a
market too large to ignore."

New technology is simplifying Mancuso's task. Today's high-speed,
high-capacity digital equipment allowed HTN to expand to a 24-hour format
that even offers live satellite broadcasts from Haiti, with an investment of
less than $1 million -- a fraction of what it would have cost in the 1990s.

Plus, ethnic marketing is so hot these days -- witness the boom in
Spanish-language media -- that many investors, advertisers and creative
talent are willing to bet that a 24-hour HTN can succeed.

Haitian TV talk show host Elisabeth Guerin, sometimes called Haiti's Oprah,
even moved from her Caribbean homeland to join HTN as programming director.
The trilingual 36-year-old said she's been bowled over with results from a
new show featuring young South Florida artists -- with many finding
sponsors.

"Now, we get calls from Africans, Dominicans, and Jamaicans -- people who
don't speak Creole -- asking that I promote them too. And why not?" Guerin
said. "We're all family."

Mancuso, who was born in Morocco of Italian parents, raised in Miami and has
lived back and forth in Haiti since the '70s, launched the 24-hour channel
with help from U.S. cable TV veteran Sam Harte, who learned the power of
ethnic marketing by launching Jewish Federation TV in Miami-Dade.

The duo also enlisted support from Roger Jaar, a Haitian of Arab descent who
owns the Coca-Cola plant in Haiti and firms in Montreal; Fred Beliard, who
owns a hotel in north Haiti; plus other investors.

Harte said HTN should break even on operations by this winter, after
starting around-the-clock March 28. Revenues should top $1 million the first
year, building on the base of 300-plus advertisers HTN developed over 15
years with more limited programs.

Haitian community leaders are enthusiastic, hoping the channel can expand
soon beyond the quarter-million homes it now reaches in South Florida.

"This is a significant milestone in the mainstreaming direction," said
Gepsie Metellus, executive director of Sant La, the Haitian Neighborhood
Center in Miami's Little Haiti.

Indeed, some contributors are so proud of HTN they're willing to wait for
salaries.

Gerard Latortue, a former Haitian foreign minister and U.N. official,
commutes twice a week from his Boca Raton home to downtown Miami to tape his
two hourlong shows: the Week in Review on international affairs and The
Guest, featuring Haitians in business, education and other fields.

"We're trying to identify role models," said Latortue. "The idea is to make
people in South Florida see that Haitians are not only boat people."
Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail