Pablo Urquiza of Time Warner Cable Deportes: We’re the first regional sports channel in Spanish

Time Warner Cable Deportes launched in Los Angeles just over a year ago. The learning curve has been great given that it is the first regional sports channel in Spanish.“This Spanish-language regional sports network is the first one of its kind in the U.S. There are 52 channels in English, but this is the first one in Spanish. Melinda Witmer of Time Warner Cable and “Jerry” Buss came up with the idea. They wanted to give L.A. Lakers fans, a large number of whom is Latino, a channel where they could watch their team. The same happened with the L.A. Galaxy (soccer),” said to PRODU, Pablo Urquiza VP of Time Warner Cable Deportes.He points out this is the first time in NBA history that a channel broadcasts the entire Lakers season in a language other than English. “This is the first time that the 90 games are available fully produced in Spanish,” he added.Urquiza is proud of the great production effort of the first year. “We’ve created with Time Warner Cable Sports (the English-language signal), special access programming, with behind-the-scenes content. We have Lakers Confidencial and Galaxy Confidencial. We’re given our fans that access they can’t get anywhere else. As a fan of these teams, to me, this is a plus,” said Urquiza.