text: The head of America's most popular cable television service said on Tuesday that Latin American television will continue booming into the 21st century and that pan-regional advertising would shoot up to $1 billion within a decade.
  Kay Koplovitz, chief executive of U.S.A. Networks, told an industry conference that cross-boarder advertising on Latin American cable television and Direct-to-Home (DTH) was about $50 million to $75 million in 1996 but was poised for spectacular growth as new DTH services penetrate Latin America's 80 million television households.  
  "I really believe it will reach $1 billion in the next decade," Koplovitz said.
  Audiences for cable and DTH in Latin American were affluent and younger than those in North America, characteristics that should appeal to advertisers.
  "This audience is younger and vibrant for consumer goods," she said.  
  Some industry analysts and executives have questioned the appeal of pan-regional programming and advertising in Latin America saying Argentine and Mexican and other national audiences have varying taste and a much more pronounced hunger for local programming.
  Koplovitz likened the state of multiple-channel television in Latin America to the early days of U.S. cable television in the 1970s, when advertisers shunned the new medium because audience measurements were crude or nonexistent.  
  "We need a reliable, standardized amd pan-regional measuring system," she told an audience of entertainment industry executives at a conference sponsored by the Variety trade newspaper.
  She also predicted that the governmental restrictions on DTH in some countries would melt away before the force of illegal satellite-dish sales and as taxing authorities realized that growing revenues streams were going untapped.  
  According to Kagan Associates, a consulting group, cable television and DTH revenues in Latin America will grow to $8.1 billion by 2001. Industry revenues were about $2.5 billion last year in Latin America.
  Kagan has also estimated that only a bit more than 13 percent of Latin America's television homes subscribe to some form of multiple-channel television. By contrast, multiple-channel television penetration in the United States is more than 60 percent.  
  "Latin America is one of the fastest growing and underdeveloped TV markets in the world," Koplovitz said.
  The expansion of DTH services by big international media ventures will be key in expanding pan-regional advertising, she said.  
  One Latin American DTH service, called Galaxy is owned by GM Hughes of the United States, Cisneros Group of Venezuela, Multivision of Mexico and TVA Abril of Brazil. Its main competitor is Sky Entertainment, owned by multinational News Corp Ltd, Tele-Communications Inc of the United States, Mexico's Televisa and TV Globo of Brazil.
  "This is a market destine to grow, and grow it will," Koplovitz said.
  -- Miami Newsroom, 305-374-5013.
  