State Gets a Local Spanish-Language Station
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, Conn.
Jul. 22–NEW HAVEN î Super Max WEPA Radio founders have launched the state’s first local Spanish-language television station, WEPA TV, on cable channel 96 in New Haven and 99 in Hartford.
‘Wepa,’ a Puerto Rican expression, typically is used by the island’s hip and trendy crowd and stands for the equivalent of Austin Powers’ ‘Yeah baby’ or Shaft’s ‘Dig it.’ To chill the channel’s coolness barometer, the programs will include ‘Reggaeton Connection’ for videos, ‘Sin pelos en la lengua.’
‘I’ve been a media hound all my life. Nobody is doing local TV and there is a hunger for it. That’s why I want to make it local i we want local listener participation and local celebrities,’ said General Manager Hipolito Cuevas, who runs the station with a team of volunteers.
He runs the TV and radio station (1700 AM) from a small studio at 129 Church St. The unapologetically controversial Cuevas will broadcast his morning radio show live from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
He’s followed by Felix Viera’s public affairs show called ‘Hablando en Serio,’ (Spanish for speaking seriously) and newscasts such as La Brega Mananera and Enterate TV, respectively, two variety shows heavy on news, views and local gossip.
Mike Rivera will veejay a video show called Reggeaton Connection. Talk shows include: Pitufo y sus Amigos (Pitufo and Friends), the Raul DeJesus Show (features the teenager who ran against Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez last year), and Sin Pelos en la Lengua. The name of the latter translates as ‘with no hair on the tongue,’ an expression suggesting the speaker is about to give a listener the proverbial spoonful of medicine without the sugar to help it go down.
Cuevas said they are entertainers as well as journalists, able to inform, criticize, provoke, and keep audiences laughing.
Rafael Rodriguez, a Rossette Street resident who owns 90 percent of the television station, could not be reached for comment.
Cuevas, a well-known Spanish-speaking radio personality in Connecticut, has spent years burning up the morning airwaves with salsa, merengue and a tart take on local activities and politics.
Cuevas, 42, a recently divorced father of three, had been out of the radio scene until just over three years ago because of a crippling battle with diabetes. To weak to survive a kidney transplant, he needs dialysis sessions three times a week.
Yet Cuevas comes off hale and hearty, with brio and bonhomie, crackling humor, every inch the ïdevil may care’
disk jockey who once got fired from radio
for an inappropriate comment, for which
some slammed him as a racist.
‘Sometimes I say things I don’t believe,’ he added, ‘I play devil’s advocate because I want to get people talking.’
Cuevas earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast from the University of New Haven in 1987. He founded and ran two newspapers, El Imparcial (The Impartial) from 1988 to 1994, and El Reportero (The Reporter) from 1997 to 2000, while working as a host, news director, sales executive and operations manager for a variety of AM stations.
When Quinnipiac University purchased the license for 1220 AM and converted the Spanish-language local news format into a English-language campus station, Cuevas founded La Nueva Radio Musical to give listeners a local Spanish alternative. Unable to find an available radio license in the area, he plunged forward and incurred
the fury of the Federal Communications Commission, which deemed it a pirate station.
Cuevas lost the court case and the station closed in 2000, but the FCC later created an exemption for citizens who broadcast with less than 1/10 of one watt. Cuevas used the exemption to start Super Max WEPA Radio 1700 AM in September 2007, using three relayers to cover 3 square miles in New Haven. That is a small area by radio standards, but Cuevas said it reached his Latino audience in the Hill and Fair Haven neighborhoods.
By leasing time on a Comcast channel, Cuevas can give Spanish speakers local news throughout the state. He plans to bring television cameras to softball games, fiestas and dances.
Maria Garriga can be reached at
mgarriga@nhregister.com or 789-5726.
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Copyright (c) 2008, New Haven Register, Conn.
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