HispanicBusiness

When the Latin Grammy Awards are presented for the 10th time on Thursday, there will be plenty of cause for celebration.

The awards, which honor the top musical artists throughout the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, are extremely popular.

This year's edition, which will be held at Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Events Center (and aired locally from 8-10 p.m. Thursday on WLTV-Univision 23), features a typically high-profile lineup: provocative reggaeton act Calle 13 with salsa legend Ruben Blades; Spanish pop singer Alejandro Sanz with R&B star Alicia Keys; this year's top reggaeton duo Wisin y Yandel and a number of popular Mexican regional acts.

But after a decade, Latin music's most important awards show still falls short of its original goals, some of which seem even more distant than when the Latin Grammys debuted on CBS in 2000.

11 MILLION VIEWERS
The show is certainly popular: Last year's broadcast on Univision, which has aired the show since 2005, reached more than 11 million viewers and was the top program in its time slot in such Hispanic-heavy cities as Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas.

Those numbers are a vast improvement over last time the awards played on CBS, when 3.3 million viewers watched in 2004.

"When we took over [the broadcast] . . . we felt that its natural home was on Univision and in Spanish-language television," says Cesar Conde, the network's president. "We've proven that it's resonated with a large audience. This program has been very successful for both the Latin Recording Academy as well as Univision, because it's really increased the visibility of this franchise and of the artists."

The Latin Grammys were conceived as the "Latin explosion" was heating up, and organizers hoped that the awards would help bring Latin music to mainstream audiences. Organizers believed the awards would bring new credibility and visibility to a wider range of artists and musical styles, from alternative rock and Latin jazz to samba and flamenco, and, by recognizing quality and innovation, would be a distinguished alternative to Latin music awards based on sales or audience popularity.

By including all of Latin music, from countries ranging from Spain to Brazil to Colombia to the United States, organizers envisioned the show as a kind of musical United Nations for the Latin world, and intended to take the show to a different country each year.

Most of those goals were stymied by the harsh realities of television ratings and music industry and cultural politics. Although La Vida Loca-inspired excitement helped draw 7.7 million viewers to the inaugural Latin Grammys, English-speaking audiences soon fell away, while Latinos were alienated by practices intended to lure non-Hispanics, such as broadcasting the show in English and pairing American pop stars with Latino artists.

Meanwhile, more adventurous performances from artists such as Brazilian singer Djavan or Latin jazz pianist Bebo Valdes didn't appeal to mainstream Latino TV audiences that wanted familiar fare.

"The ratings were not working. We were not appealing to a Latino or an Anglo audience," says Gabriel Abaroa, president of the Latin Recording Academy. "And I saw that most of the nominees were not thrilled at being part of a show that was not a winner."

Univision has made the show a ratings success by shaping it more decisively to fit the tastes of a mainstream U.S. Hispanic audience, almost exclusively presenting famous names in pop, pop-rock and regional Mexican music. Largely gone are alternative rock acts, Brazilian artists or any regional style that does not come from Mexico. Although the nominees in 49 categories still represent an impressively broad spectrum of Latin music -- including unknown and unexpected talent -- only names that are popular in the United States seem to make it onto the telecast.

Rene Perez, the outspoken singer and songwriter for Calle 13, whose five nominations for the album Los de atras vienen conmigo (Those from behind come with me) make the duo the top contender, says that while he considers the awards a distinctive honor, he wishes the telecast showcased a wider range of Latin music.

'CREDIBILITY'
"I think [the Latin Grammys] have more credibility than other awards, because they're selected by people who know everything that's happening in music," Perez says from a concert rehearsal in Venezuela. "I think they should try to bring groups that Latinos in the U.S. don't know, so that they could get to know them. They're doing a good job in a lot of ways. But everything they present there is popular stuff that's on the radio all the time."

Abaroa says the academy has tried to broaden its reach in other ways. In its five years on CBS, the show was broadcast four times from Los Angeles and once, in 2003, from Miami; since going to Univision, it has traveled from Los Angeles to New York, Las Vegas and Houston. The academy recently launched its own website, www.latingrammy.com, which will stream the pre-telecast awards for 35 categories at 2 p.m. Thursday.

Latin Grammy street parties, which feature lesser-known performers in cities such as Miami, New York and Dallas, draw tens of thousands of people. The 11,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center is sold out. And Thursday's show will quietly break a political barrier that caused significant controversy in Miami during its first several years, by having Cuban singer Omara Portuondo as a presenter, the first time an artist from the island will appear on the telecast.

But Abaroa admits that organizers still have a way to go to make the show live up to the ideals of the Latin Grammys.

"What we want is to be a platform for Latin music to be sent out to the world," he says. "We are evolving very slowly -- slower than I want. We are still far away from where we want to take these awards. I will be very happy the year people say 'Let's watch the Latin Grammys to see what is happening in other countries.' People watch the show to have fun and to see something they recognize."