Ready for "Los Power Rangers"?

By now, people in L.A. are getting back from their 6 a.m. yoga class, having polished off the last of their blue-green algae frappuccinos, and are getting to the papers.

"Ay caramba!" they'll yell, almost dropping their soy muffins in shock, "What's this? Haim Saban bought Univision?!"

Yes, the news broke late last night, via the Wall Street Journal: After a tortured, on-again, off-again auction, the nation's largest Spanish language broadcaster was sold to the one-time owner of "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers." The whole affair hinged on whether Jerrold Perenchio, a recluse who makes Howard Hughes seem like Robin Williams when it comes to talking to the press, could get the price he wanted in the face of changing Hispanic demographics.

As Bloomberg notes, "Chief Executive Officer Jerrold Perenchio's pursuit of as much as $40 a share may have been thwarted by higher interest rates and a perception that audience growth may slow as Hispanics become more affluent and move to different types of entertainment," said David Miller, an analyst with Sanders Morris Harris in Los Angeles."

That was a shrewd bargaining tactic on the part of Saban: What if we can't grow the network because increasingly affluent Latinos are watching more English-language TV?!

In November 2005, three months before the Univision auction kicked off, Variety's Mary Sutter argued as much: "...Nielsen's data favors foreign-born Latinos who prefer to watch TV in Spanish and is skewed against U.S.-born Latinos who favor English-language programming...60% of Latinos in the U.S. were born here, [according to] U.S. census data. But Nielsen stats find the top-rated shows for U.S. Hispanics are on Spanish-language TV, leading the industry, advertisers and Wall Street to believe, wrongly, that Latinos prefer Spanish-language television..."

Except for one thing: There's little chance that the pragmatic Saban will keep Univision an entirely Spanish language network if there's money to be made in English-language, Latino programming.

We can't wait to see the howls of rage this will produce in Congressional hearings, demanding an "Hispanic" owner for Univision to preserve a linguistic focus that's statistically out of date.