It’s no secret to anyone in the U.S. Hispanic market that Orlando has become a hub for Puerto Ricans who have left the island for the mainland over the last 25 years. Today, the Boricua community extends to Kissimmee-St. Cloud area to the south all the way to Sanford, to the northeast. The growth has led to an explosion of Spanish-language broadcast media choices, as Central Florida is now second only to New York in its Puerto Rican population.

Now, Entravision Communications seeks to speak to locals of Puerto Rican heritage by bringing a brand from home to an over-the-air channel that once housed a UniMás affiliate. It’s thanks to a fresh partnership with Hemisphere Media Group.

 

The Alan Sokol-led group that owns WAPA Television and heritage radio stations WKAQ-AM & FM in San Juan, in addition to a collection of cable television stations distributed across Latin America and the U.S., has agreed to an arrangement that sees the launch of “WAPA Orlando.”

Viewers can tune to WOTF-26, a Daytona Beach-licensed facility with a tower between De Land and Sanford, as of today to take in programming found on Channel 4 across Puerto Rico. WOTF is largely distributed across the Orlando DMA by MVPDs; the market includes fast-growing Brevard County and such communities as Melbourne.

To be clear, WAPA Orlando will be a unique take on the WAPA brand, which includes the WAPA América MVPD-distributed channel. “The station will be programmed for Central Florida’s Latino population, with a particular focus on the region’s large and rapidly growing Puerto Rican community,” Hemisphere said in a statement.

A newscast focused on Orlando’s Puerto Rico community is in the mix, produced in San Juan for WOTF viewers. At launch, two daily locally-produced newscasts—morning and midday—will air on WOTF. There are plans to expand to evening and late-night editions over time, Hemisphere says.

Meanwhile, Entravision-owned stations will serve as correspondent hubs, adding to the WAPA Orlando news coverage.

“We are excited to bring WAPA’s world class news and entertainment content and programming expertise to Orlando, which is often referred to as Puerto Rico’s ‘79th municipality’,” joked Sokol, HMG’s President/CEO. “By combining WAPA’s trusted programming and journalism with Entravision’s broadcast infrastructure and market expertise, we are creating a compelling and completely unique local service custom made for the Orlando Hispanic community.”

“The launch of WAPA Orlando reinforces our commitment to delivering relevant, community-focused media in key Latino markets,” said Entravision President/Chief Operating Officer Jeffery Liberman. “This strategic collaboration leverages the complementary strengths of trusted brands to better serve our audiences, distributors, and advertisers throughout Central Florida. Our expertise in local media and news programming will be instrumental in driving WAPA Orlando’s growth, especially as we develop and manage its new standalone digital platform to connect with the Orlando Latino audience.”

The partnership will also see Entravision manage and develop the digital platform and strategy for WAPA Orlando, with Entravision handling sales and production needs in Orlando.

For nearly five years, WOTF has been the home of digital multicast network Grit. From 2017-2021, it was the home of UniMás, a Spanish-language television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. Before that, it was the home of the main Univision network. Today, that can be seen on O&O WVEN-TV in Orlando.