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Debt nearly cancels local Hispanic TV station
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Phyllis Bancroft and Jose Luis Villegas, owners of WJEA-TV 12, arrived in Charleston five years ago from Hartford, Conn., with a dream of creating the Lowcountry’s first Spanish-language television station to serve the region’s growing Hispanic population.
It has been tough going. Getting bank loans, finding affordable rental space (Bancroft and Villegas have moved their offices four times), attracting advertisers and experiencing fallouts with local cable TV outlets provided a bumpy road. Then a local Latino concert the tandem put together flopped at the gate and threatened to crash the upstart network, which lost $250,000 in the debacle.
“We wanted to file for bankruptcy, but bankruptcy lawyers told us we were too poor,” Bancroft says. “They said it would cost us between $10,000 and $20,000 to file for bankruptcy. I told them if we had that kind of money, we wouldn’t need to file for bankruptcy.”
To keep the network alive, Bancroft cashed in her stocks and her individual retirement account, and paid penalties for doing so. To save on their North Charleston office space, the broadcasters were prepared to work from home until they struck a deal with a North Charleston property owner who offered to trade his office space for their office space. Bancroft and Villegas accepted the trade. But several months after they moved to their new, rent-free quarters, the owner sold the property, and the new owner wanted Bancroft and Villegas to pay rent. The broadcasting team ended up working from home.
They stayed financially afloat by producing shows for local Spanish-language radio station WAZS 980 AM. While doing radio work, they found advertisers for their television station.
The duo’s perseverance paid off. Now they have something they never had before: a television program airing three nights a week, a sponsor for the show and dedicated advertisers aiming to reach the Lowcountry’s estimated 50,000 Hispanics.
On the July 4 weekend, the broadcasting duo launched “Treinta Minutos,” or “Thirty Minutes,” a half-hour program airing on Knology cable and featuring news, weather, sports, health issues and immigration topics. The show is broadcast Friday from 7 to 7:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 to 11 a.m. West Ashley Toyota sponsors the show.
“We’re looking for three more sponsors,” says Bancroft, adding that she and Villegas are talking with several local companies.
The show’s dozen advertisers include South Coast Community Bank, Pfizer, McDonald’s and a mix of other restaurants, Hispanic stores, auto dealerships and other entities, mosty located in North Charleston where the bulk of the Lowcountry’s Hispanic population resides.
Advertisers around the country are paying more attention to the nation’s 40 million Hispanics, whose spending power is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2004, Hispanics in South Carolina spent more than $2 billion and are projected to spend upwards of $3.5 billion by 2009, according to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.
Because the Lowcountry comprises 40% of South Carolina’s Hispanic population, local advertisers have a hefty market to tap, Bancroft says.
Viewer response to “Treinta Minutos” so far has been “great,” Bancroft says. After the show’s first weekend, her voice mail filled up with encouraging messages. Firmer proof of viewer support would come from Nielsen ratings, she says, but since the show only recently began, it will be about a month before its rating numbers arrive.
After landing in Charleston in September 2000, the duo spent a year looking for a station to buy. Through a cable TV magazine, they found one in Mount Pleasant. However, getting a bank loan for the station proved to be a task. Bancroft and Villegas got turned down by one bank after another. Finally, Villegas sold his car, Bancroft took out a home equity loan and the two were prepared to buy the station.
“But then the owner backed out,” Bancroft says.
Bancroft and Villegas then found broadcasting space in West Ashley. The tandem called their company BV Broadcasting.
BV Broadcasting’s inaugural show, “Lunes Latinos” (“Latin Mondays”), a weekly half-hour program covering everything from public affairs to entertainment, debuted on Comcast cable 34 minutes late on the evening of Monday, Feb. 12, 2001. The next show did not air until Thursday morning of the following week. Later, Comcast did not air some shows at all. Bancroft and Villegas began losing advertisers.
BV Broadcasting had better luck getting “Lunes Latinos” aired on TimeWarner, but the cable company’s territorial coverage was smaller than Comcast’s.
But all of this changed in January 2002, when Bancroft and Villegas bought their own television station in North Charleston. Ten banks had turned them down for a loan to purchase the station before the 11th bank, Southcoast Community, approved them. BV Broadcasting became WJEA-TV 12, a TeleFutura affiliate. The station aired documentaries, sports, educational programming, local and international programming, and a re-vamped version of “Lunes Latinos” on Knology cable.
Then, on Dec.7, 2002—“Our ‘Day of Infamy,’” Bancroft notes—disaster struck.
WJEA sponsored a Hispanic concert, “Vive La Musica Latina,” in which 10 Hispanic bands from across the country performed at the North Charleston Coliseum. Tickets cost $36. Bancroft and Villegas expected the event to draw several thousand Latinos. Instead, roughly 250 showed.
Some of the bands did not get paid. Additionally, Bancroft and Villegas owed the Coliseum, their bank, the caterers and others who helped them arrange the concert. The $250,000 crippled WJEA.
“We really weren’t ready to do a concert,” Villegas admits. “We tried to walk before we could crawl. We’re paying back the money little by little.”
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.
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