Latino programming on public television is in a state of crisis, due in large part to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which defunded the National Latino Communications Center (NLCC). Established in 1974, the NLCC operated as a consortium that funded, distributed and promoted Latino-themed programs on public television. The recent defunding raises questions about NLCC itself (for which it must stand accountable); but the way in which CPB has handled the situation suggests a far more troubling fact: Latinos remain excluded from public television across the board. In addition to the persistent underrepresentation of the Latino community, CPB has now held up Latino production funds for two years while it has rebuffed requests from the Latino community and its producers to enter into a dialogue about establishing a new or reformed consortia. CPB is operating as if Latinos were not part of the public that provides its funding and makes up its audience base, let alone produces its programming!

How we got to this impasse goes back nearly a decade to the Public Telecommunications Act of 1988, which increased minority funding and created the Independent Television Service (ITVS), both as a result of an aggressive lobbying effort by independent producers for greater access and more diverse programming. In particular, Congress earmarked $3 million per year out of the CPB Television Program Fund for the production of national minority programming, while it also required that CPB file an annual report on its provisions of service to minority and diverse audiences. Starting in 1991, then, one third of these production funds went to the minority consortia ($200,000 each), which had previously received only administrative support from CPB, and the remaining $2 million went to a Multicultural Program Fund. Overnight, the consortia went from program syndicators dealing with individual stations and regional groups to program producers working with PBS and other national organizations. But the production funds for each consortia amounted to less than the budget for a one hour documentary; the consortia mission was systemic, but the resources meager. Congress also established ITVS — against the wishes of CPB and PBS — with a $6 million annual budget for independent productions for public television. But, as Patricia Aufderheide notes, “it also replicated traditional organizational problems by putting CPB in charge of ITVS, ...and by perpetuating public television’s financial agony.” These limited concessions, then, signalled a “crisis of mission” within public television that would only get worse. With its share of annual minority production monies, the NLCC established a program development fund that included a re-grant program with the New York-based Latino Collaborative as well as a Latina screenwriters grant. But by the mid-1990s, with increasing loss of federal funding, the NLCC looked for “self sustaining streams of revenue,” staking a claim as an “investor” in its funding and distribution activities. NLCC Educational Media created a video distribution service that not only became self-sustaining, but rapidly expanded at a time when other distributors were downsizing or folding. The NLCC Video Collection targeted both the educational and home markets, bringing together Latino-themed documentaries, short narratives, independent features, and forgotten “classics” from the Hollywood studio era. NLCC Educational Media also became involved in merchandising, most notably around the four-part NLCC documentary series, Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement (1996), selling a CD-ROM, educator’s kit, companion book, T-shirts, baseball caps, and a poster. NLCC also established an archive with over 5,000 videotapes and 200 reels of film, including the KMEX-TV collection documenting the past three decades in Los Angeles.
The pressure to privatize reflected a conflict within CPB toward the minority consortia: on the one hand, CPB wanted to minimize if not eliminate the impact of the consortia on its budget; on the other hand, CPB wanted to maintain control over the consortia rather than have them become autonomous or semi-autonomous entities as in the case of ITVS. Most CPB monies go direct to PBS and stations; the remaining monies (six percent of the total budget) cover the general program fund and minority consortia. In other words, the consortia allocations represent a significant percentage of the funds which CPB itself controls. In 1994, the minority consortia negotiated with Executive Vice President Robert Coonrod (now President) for a $5 million allocation that would increase production monies and allow the consortia to build “capacity” or infrastructure. In the process, the Multicultural Program Fund was shutdown in protest after failing in its mission to fund minority-themed programs. Starting in 1995, its $2 million allocation was turned over to the consortia, thereby tripling their production monies ($650,000) and nearly doubling their administrative support ($350,000). But the consortia never received the monies to develop capacity.

For its part, NLCC’s production of the Chicano! series during its rapid expansion resulted in both merchandising opportunities and managerial challenges. In the end, NLCC alienated its constituency — in part due to a lack of follow-up and services, in part due to personality conflicts — while the day-to-day operations ran into financial mismanagement. In Fall 1997, the CPB Office of the Inspector General conducted an on-site audit that resulted in the grand jury indictment of NLCC’s former business manager, who then pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud during 1995. The audit documented various inappropriate expenditures as well as conflicts of interest with respect to the board, then presented twenty procedural recommendations to be implemented by the executive director and board. But CPB’s response appeared more predatory than procedural. In March 1998, NLCC shut down since CPB had withheld funding for over a year. CPB then made reinstatement of funds contingent on the firing of Jose Luis Ruiz as executive director. Even after Ruiz was removed, however, CPB continued to withhold funds, placing Latino production funds in limbo throughout 1998.

In the interim, a Latino producers coalition approached CPB seeking the release of the production funds that had been frozen for nearly two years. Another group addressed the need to reform the NLCC (as “our own institution”) and to reclaim the $1.2 million infrastructure support that CPB had committed for NLCC but never delivered. These two groups represented nearly one hundred independent producers, station producers, curators, media advocates, policy analysts and academics. But CPB did not respond to either group; nor did it seek input from other Latino organizations. Then in November 1998, CPB selected Edward James Olmos as head of an interim organization. Olmos, a celebrity-actor with good intentions, commercial ambitions, and limited experience with public television protocols, represented a third option between independent producers and “our own institutions.” CPB’s option: a publicity coup that denied Latino producers equitable participation in public television. Since that time, the two Latino producers groups have joined in protest of CPB’s failure to engage and support Latino producers, establishing political alliances and calling a national conference to be held in San Francisco in June 1999. The conference will establish the parameters for an institution defined “by” Latinos rather than “for” Latinos.

If I end here with a glimmering of hope, it is that producers have an opportunity to enter the larger political and policy arena within which public and commercial media operate. Oddly enough, that arena has become somewhat more representative than the media itself. There are more Latino political actors than dramatic ones! And the roles might be better, too....

Sources:

• Aufderheide, Patricia. “Public Television and the Public Sphere.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 8 (1991): 168-183.
• Baxter, Kevin. “Groups Voice Concern Over Funding for Latino Programming.” Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1999, F2, F15.
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Reaching Common Ground: Public Broadcasting’s Services to Minority Groups and Other Groups. A Report to the 103rd Congress and the American People Pursuant to Pub.L. 100-626. July 1, 1994.
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting Office of Inspector General. Operation Audit of the National Latino Communications Center. Audit Report No. 98-02. March 31, 1998.