Coming soon: Amas de casa desesperadas and Perdidos
Monday September 12, 2005
The wildly popular "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" will be broadcast with a supplemental Spanish soundtrack on the U.S. television network ABC starting later this month. Using either subtitles or dubbing, ABC will become the first major U.S. TV network to make all its prime-time shows accessible to Spanish speakers.
ABC will be providing Spanish-language soundtracks to these shows: "Desperate Housewives," a Sunday-night comedy-drama-soap opera; "Lost," an action-adventure; "George Lopez," a family comedy that already has attracted a large Hispanic audience and has a character who speaks only Spanish (her lines have been shown in subtitled English); and "Freddie," a new comedy starring Freddie Prinze Jr.
The shows will still be broadcast in English, of course. To hear the Spanish soundtrack, it will be necessary to have a television equipped with Second Audio Program capability, which is included with most newer televisions. Spanish-language subtitles for the rest of the prime-time lineup will be available through closed captioning. The closed captioning will be in addition to the English closed captioning; many newer TVs allow the viewer to select among closed-captioning channels.
The network also plans to provide dubbing for many of the major movies it will be showing.
The network has not announced the names of actors who will be providing the voices for the dubbed shows.
Of course, the network's motives for adding the Spanish translations aren't altruistic. "We wanted to move beyond toe-dipping and really dive in," Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, was quoted as saying this past week. "Almost half of the 41 million Hispanics in this country watch only or mostly Spanish-language television, and we want to bring that audience to ABC."
ABC, like the other major networks, also has seen audience erosion from Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo. Both of those networks have broadcast outlets in major cities with large Spanish-speaking populations, and most cable systems throughout the United States carry at least the former. In some major markets, such as Los Angeles and Miami, it is no longer unusual for a Spanish-language show the receive the highest ratings in some time slots.
ABC will be providing Spanish-language soundtracks to these shows: "Desperate Housewives," a Sunday-night comedy-drama-soap opera; "Lost," an action-adventure; "George Lopez," a family comedy that already has attracted a large Hispanic audience and has a character who speaks only Spanish (her lines have been shown in subtitled English); and "Freddie," a new comedy starring Freddie Prinze Jr.
The shows will still be broadcast in English, of course. To hear the Spanish soundtrack, it will be necessary to have a television equipped with Second Audio Program capability, which is included with most newer televisions. Spanish-language subtitles for the rest of the prime-time lineup will be available through closed captioning. The closed captioning will be in addition to the English closed captioning; many newer TVs allow the viewer to select among closed-captioning channels.
The network also plans to provide dubbing for many of the major movies it will be showing.
The network has not announced the names of actors who will be providing the voices for the dubbed shows.
Of course, the network's motives for adding the Spanish translations aren't altruistic. "We wanted to move beyond toe-dipping and really dive in," Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, was quoted as saying this past week. "Almost half of the 41 million Hispanics in this country watch only or mostly Spanish-language television, and we want to bring that audience to ABC."
ABC, like the other major networks, also has seen audience erosion from Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo. Both of those networks have broadcast outlets in major cities with large Spanish-speaking populations, and most cable systems throughout the United States carry at least the former. In some major markets, such as Los Angeles and Miami, it is no longer unusual for a Spanish-language show the receive the highest ratings in some time slots.
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