HispanicBusiness

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, January 31, PBS's American Experience will broadcast "Fidel Castro," a new biography from acclaimed producer Adriana Bosch ("Jimmy Carter," "Reagan," "Ulysses S. Grant"). The two-hour program will carry Spanish subtitles on CC3. This is the first time American Experience has made use of this innovative technology to extend the reach of its offerings. The Spanish captions can be accessed by switching on closed captioning and selecting CC3. As always, CC1 will contain English captions for viewers who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.

"This is the first profile of a non-American leader to air as part of the series," said Mark Samels, executive producer of American Experience. "Through this effort, we're reaching out to millions of Spanish-speaking viewers nationwide. Students of the Spanish language will also find this feature helpful."

The English and Spanish-language captions are being created by the Media Access Group at WGBH, a non-profit service of the WGBH Educational Foundation. The Group's director of services, Lori Kay, states, "We're pleased to be making this program fully accessible to all PBS viewers -- including those with vision or hearing loss and the Spanish-speaking audience."

"PBS is committed to using all available technologies to reach as broad an audience as possible," said Jacoba Atlas, Sr. Vice President, PBS Programming. "Fidel Castro and his impact on the American experience is an important story and as many people as possible deserve to see this."

A companion Web site for "Fidel Castro" at pbs.org/amex/castro is fully bilingual, allowing surfers to toggle back and forth between Spanish and English.

American Experience is working with Elena del Valle, president of the Miami-based public relations firm LNA World Communications Inc., to publicize the program to the Hispanic community and press. She is recipient of the 2004 D. Parke Gibson Pioneer Award from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Television's most-watched history series, American Experience is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston. PBS

Web site: http://www.pbs.org/