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New Spanish-language free-TV channel SOI TV starts broadcasting in the U.S. on test mode

November 8, 2011

Maribel Ramos-Weiner

Eligio Cedeño and Julián Isaac, owners of SOI TV

On Tuesday, November 1st, SOI TV started broadcasting in the U.S. on test mode. The Spanish-language fee-TV channel will initially be present in 15 major cities in the U.S. on Telemundo’s point-three multicast frequency.The project’s main investor is Eligio Cedeño, a Venezuelan entrepreneur with residence in Miami. The company is headed by a group of television and entertainment marketing professionals, among them the channel’s CEO Julián Isaac (ex RCTV), and Rogelio Jau (ex Sony) as consultant.SOI will focus on the genre coined “opitainment,” a new TV concept that mixes entertainment programming with the audience’s opinion, which the company hopes will change the way people watch and enjoy TV by boosting audience participation, controversy, and the use of the digital multiplatform.The channel will feature entertaining original programs that will always allow the viewers to express their opinions about the content, and has also signed agreements with Latin American content producers and developers, among them Caracol TV and RCN, to bring shows such as Muñoz Vale X 2, Historias de Hombres Sólo Para Mujeres, Séptima Puerta, Terapia de Parejas; and telenovelas like La Teacher de Inglés, La Bruja and Primera Dama.