On Friday, KUAT-TV will officially launch V-me, a national Spanish-only television network, in the Tucson area.

V-me, pronounced “”veh-meh”” and meaning “”see me”” in Spanish, features a large variety of Spanish-language programs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, said Dianne Janis, KUAT communications manager.

V-me programs

include news programs, movies, talk and entertainment shows and children’s programming during the daytime, Janis said.

The new digital radio program will feature news from BBC Mundo and is available on KUAZ-2, she said.

Spanish programming will include shows on technology, current events and the environment, as well as lifestyle and parenting programs, she said. “”Linea Abierta,”” a locally focused program, will feature news, interviews and discussions on issues specific to Southern Arizona and Mexico.

“”KUAT chose the V-me network because it displays every aspect of Hispanic culture,”” Janis said. “”After examining different programs, we felt V-me met our standards. It’s really high-quality programming.””

Janis thinks the digital programming will be well received.

“”The UA community, our surrounding community, is very directly influenced by a number of people that do speak Spanish,”” she said.

Professor Maggy Zanger heads the production of the journalism department’s bilingual newspaper, El Independiente, which focuses on news and issues concerning the South Tucson community.

The development of V-me is a smart choice and will probably be welcomed by local Hispanics, Zanger said.

“”It’s important for the UA to serve the community around it and address the very large Spanish-speaking community in Tucson,”” she said. “”It’s great that public television – a very different ballpark from commercial broadcast – is made available in Spanish.””

KUAT Communications Group is an educational broadcast and production organization owned by the UA. KUAT-TV is the PBS member station in Tucson. It broadcasts from the Harvill building.

Public broadcasting channels like KUAT have a mission to inform and educate, and are not, like commercial stations, focused on making money, Zanger said.

“”It’s important to broadcast, in Spanish, news about the more serious public information topics to the community here,”” she said.

Any kind of Spanish-language programming is a boon for the UA, said Ivan Jimenez, a co-founder of the UA chapter of Lambda Theta Phi, a Latino fraternity.

“”It’s an outreach the UA otherwise didn’t have,”” said Jimenez, a senior majoring in Portuguese and Spanish, adding that the network shows the university cares about reaching out to
Hispanic students.

“”We are a large part of this campus, we are a demographic that exists,”” he said. “”The Hispanic community here hasn’t reached its potential, partly because it’s not being reached out to enough.””

The new channel is a good move for the UA, because many people all over the city speak Spanish, said Leslie Bitong, a dance freshman.

“”I bet a lot of people will watch it,”” she said. “”My roommate is bilingual, and I bet she would watch.””

Danielle Heller, a microbiology sophomore, thinks the network can be used as an educational tool for students wanting to brush up on their Spanish skills.

“”I can understand some Spanish, so it would probably help me learn more of the language if I watched it,”” Heller said. “”As long as it’s not like those Spanish soap operas, I’d watch it.””