By Veronica Villafane (Forbes)
Most people know John Leguizamo as an actor and comedian. But for decades, the star of the recent Broadway one-man show Latin History For Morons has also focused on the business side of entertainment.
A vocal critic of the underrepresentation of Latinos in the entertainment industry, Leguizamo is a founding partner of NGL Media, a company that produces digital video content and marketing for bilingual and bicultural U.S. Latinos.
“The face of America has changed, and media and entertainment hasn’t kept up to reflect the growing number of Latinx and other multicultural faces that are driving growth in this country in so many ways,” says Leguizamo.
That’s why he and NGL Media founder and CEO David Chitel are doubling down on the audience they’ve been catering to since they launched the company in 2010. They are expanding their joint venture, which will now be called NGL Collective. As part of a restructuring, NGL Media and NGL Studios will be divisions of NGL Collective.
“It’s a step towards making the company an even bigger player in the Latino media, marketing and entertainment space,” says Chitel. “Currently we have three projects in the works, including a non-scripted TV show, a documentary and a soon to be announced project involving an iconic Latinx intellectual property.”
To help further their expansion goals, they hired advertising industry veteran and former Telemundo network executive Joe Bernard as Chief Revenue Officer of NGL Collective.
Chitel, who coined the term “New Generation Latino” (NGL), and has worked in the Latino media space with Leguizamo for 18 years, believes they can fill a void and address the needs of a long-neglected audience – in both Spanish and English.
“Our goal is to make sure that NGL is the best positioned in the Latinx marketplace to serve our audience and advertiser partners who are so eager to reach it at scale through video from programmatic to branded entertainment on the open web, social, OTT and even linear TV.”
You can find more of Veronica’s work covering the Hispanic media industry on MediaMoves.com. You can also check out her other stories and follow her on Forbes HERE.