Roku, reviving another failed media outlet, said it will be the first to bring the revived El Rey Network to streaming viewers on Aug. 17.

El Rey shut down as a cable network after seven years on Jan. 1, shortly after Univision pulled out of the channel.

Roku this year also revived programming from Quibi, the short-form mobile streaming service that spent billions on content but quickly went out of business. Roku has dubbed the Quibi shows as “Roku Originals.”

The El Rey channel was started by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

Roku said it will give streamers access to more than 150 hours of original programming and be the first AVOD destination to watch Rodriguez’s feature film Red 11.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to embark on an exciting new journey with Robert Rodriguez and El Rey Network,” said Ashley Hovey, director of AVOD, The Roku Channel.

“With 9 out of 10 U.S. Hispanic households streaming in the U.S., it is clear there is a growing demand for engaging, high quality Latinx entertainment. El Rey is changing the programming world in an exciting way that speaks to the future of audience discovery and engagement,” Hovey said. “AVOD is the place for content creators to connect with highly engaged audiences and The Roku Channel is proud to be the exclusive first ever streaming home for the El Rey Network.”

One month after announcing plans to launch two Hispanic-targeted networks in 2016, Comcast Cable on Thursday said it is accepting proposals for two African-American owned and independent networks it plans to launch in January 2019.

The new channels stem from a condition Comcast agreed to in its 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal, in which it agreed to launch eight minority-owned and operated channels. The two recently announced Hispanic-owned channels, Primo and Kids Central, will join four other networks launched in 2012 and 2013: kids-targeted BabyFirst Americas; music-themed service Revolt TV, founded by hip hop artist Sean “Diddy” Combs; African- American targeted entertainment network Aspire TV, led by NBA hall of famer Magic Johnson; and millennials-aimed El Rey Network, backed by producer and director Robert Rodriguez.

Criteria for the two new African-American owned networks include the network's content makeup and whether the network’s ownership and/or management groups are well established. The network choices could include and already launched service that may have existing or potential multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) distribution. Comcast will accept proposals for every major genre, including general entertainment, movies, music, kids, news, and sports, according to company officials.

“We are looking forward to receiving another round of great proposals as we begin the process to launch two more African American majority owned networks,” said Justin Smith,senior vice president of Content Acquisition for Comcast Cable.

Proposals for the two networks are due by March 15, 2017, and the two networks will be selected in the coming months, according to Comcast.

This story was edited to correct the launch date in the headline.

Comcast Corp Tuesday said it will add to its lineup two kids-targeted, Hispanic focused channels in January as part of its NBCUniversal merger requirement to launch eight minority-owned networks by 2019.

The two networks, Kids Central and Primo TV, will debut in January 2017, bringing to six the number of primarily minority owned and operated networks Comcast committed to launch by 2019 as part of its merger with NBCUniversal in 2011. The other four include African-American owned Aspire Tv (launched in 2012) and Revolt Tv (2012), and Hispanic-owned and targeted networks El Rey (2013) and BabyFirst Americas (2012).

Comcast senior vice president and general manager of Multicultural Services Javier Garcia told Multichannel News that the company did not set out to launch two English language, kids-targeted channels, but Kids Central and Primo Tv turned out to be the best of several dozen network proposals submitted for consideration. He added the two channels – Kids Central, which will target bilingual Hispanic kids 3 to 7, and Primo Tv. which will focus on Hispanic tweens and teens aged 6 to 16 – complement BabyFirst Americas’ toddler-targeted channel in providing a full complement of kids-targeted content targeted to young Hispanic viewers.

“We saw a lot of white space in [Hispanic-targeted kids content],” he said. “The criteria was to look at the ownership and managerial structure of the services and to make sure it was run by independent networks owned by Hispanic Americans. We also looked at potential for distribution or carriage beyond Comcast – all those things led to these networks."

Condista Networks-owned Kids Central will offer English-language, family-oriented programming targeted to Hispanic viewers ages 3 to 7. The network will also feature both English and Spanish-language video on demand content, according to network officials.

Primo Tv, predominantly owned by V-Me Media Inc., will offer scripted and non-fiction animated and live action content that will both entertain and educate viewers aged 6 to 16, according to Victor Cerda, senior vice president at V-Me Media. The network will also offer STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Awareness targeted to U.S. Hispanic audiences.

Garcia would not say how many subscribers Comcast would provide both Primo Tv and Kids Central at launch, but he said expects that both networks will gain carriage from other distributors once launched.

After the launch of Kids Central and Primo Tv, Comcast will turn its focus on launching African-American targeted networks, according to Garcia, although he would provide specifics.

Get complete coverage of the 2016 TCA Summer Tour.

Beverly Hills, Calif.—Eight panelists affiliated with shows on El Rey, Starz, TV One and WGN America tore into the multifaceted issues of TV diversity during a vibrant, insight-packed panel at the TCA summer press tour.

El Rey founder and chairman Robert Rodriguez delivered a brief introduction to the session. “Cable has made great strides,” he said. “There’s never been a more important time to build cultural understanding of people and working together.”

Panelists spent ample time talking about the positives — more shows with diverse casts on air, multiplying outlets, more people of color involved behind the scenes — but also brought to light the ongoing struggle to reflect America in full.

“The way the system is set up, in order to get a job or be able to vote on awards, it’s all just old practices that don’t suit us at all,” said Victoria Mahoney, a director with credits on feature films as well as TV series like Starz’s Survivor’s Remorse and OWN’s Queen Sugar.

“The old guard’s got to let go of their grip a little bit because that’s not the way the world looks,” said Jurnee Smollett-Bell, who stars on WGN America’s Underground. “Storytellers have a right to express what’s inside of them … and consumers and viewers have a right to see themselves.”

Mahoney noted that she is among the 4% of overall directors who are women of color, according to recent guild surveys. “I’ve never been in the bottom 4% of anything in my life,” she quipped.

D’Angela Proctor, senior vice president of original programming and production for TV One, said the executive suite is another area with a lot of room for improvement.

“We have to be at the table at every single level” for truly inclusive programming to permeate the TV business, she said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Nearly two years after launch, El Rey Network is making a name for itself on the cable network landscape. The network — born in 2013 as one of four new minority-owned networks supported by Comcast under the Federal Communications Commission’s conditions for its 2010 acquisition of NBCUniversal — gained about 12 million subscribers year-to-year to hit the 36 millionsubscriber mark in August, the biggest such gain of any national service tracked by Nielsen.

El Rey can point to quality original series, including horror-themed From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series; Latino pro wrestling series Lucha Undergound; and acquisitions of mainstream fare Constantine, Almost Human, The Twilight Zone and Freddy’s Nightmares via a pact with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution .

The architect of El Rey’s success is filmmaker and network chairman Robert Rodriguez . Rodriguez spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the network’s evolution and programming strategy, and about the Hispanic television marketplace.

Multichannel News:Two years after El Rey’s launch, is the network where you want it to be?

Robert Rodriguez: It’s been terrific. We’ve really expanded our distribution — we’re in more homes than ever and we’ve had the opportunity to play with our programming. Every time you move one thing it creates a different result, and it’s very exciting. We have a lot of originals — it’s rare for a new network to have this much original programming right out of the gate, so we’re really proud of that. For me, it was fascinating to figure out how a network works compared to a movie. With a movie I know that if I write a script, we go shoot it and it gets released. Now we can see with the network that if we make these kinds of moves it pays off in a certain amount of time. We can keep being bold and experiment because we can adjust very quickly, unlike a movie where once it’s released, that’s it. The network is a constantly evolving beast.

MCN:When the network was first launched it was focused on reaching English-language Hispanic viewers. Two years in, how would you define the network now?

RR: It’s a visceral content network. We’ve been trying to reach men 18-49. There aren’t a lot of options for men, so we wanted to create a network that appealed to that group, as well as to kick-ass females — we have bad-ass females in most of our shows that draw a lot of female fans — but the focus was to create a real visceral, action-adventure network. We’ve kept with that and expanded what our reach is, and we’re very happy with it.

MCN:You’ve brought some of your signature movie franchises, such asDusk Till Dawn, to the network but you’ve also brought some Hispanic -themed content, includingLucha Undergound, which you produced with Mark Burnett. Were you surprised at the success of the wrestling series?

RR: It’s kind of what we had hoped, but you’re always surprised when it works this well. It felt so fresh, so new and so different that we were hoping people would catch on. This has never been seen before — there are so many things in Latin culture that have never been shown on television. It’s kind of why we’re doing the network — if people had a chance to see our programming done in the right way, they would get turned onto it and love it. [Hispanic-themed content] is popular for a reason in other countries, but I don’t think it’s been translated correctly here.

MCN:You’re now in the second season ofFrom Dusk Till Dawn. How has it evolved from a movie into a television series?

RR: The first season was about retelling the movie in a new way because I wanted to use Quentin [Tarantino’s] characters but I couldn’t do a direct sequel because a lot of the characters died [laughs]. I had to retell it and have different things happen to people. In season two it’s a completely different story … you feel like you’re seeing a sequel to From Dusk Till Dawn because all of the characters are doing completely different things. It’s really interesting and suspenseful, and the season is great.

MCN:You mentioned Latin culture-themed content on television. Are we seeing more of that type of content on television today or is the industry still not doing enough to provide such images to a growing multicultural audience base?

RR: I haven’t paid a lot of attention to other networks. I thought there was more, but I saw numbers recently that there really wasn’t more and a lot lower than I thought. [Latino] representation in front of and behind the camera on other networks in primetime is like 2% to 3% when the country is 17% Hispanic. But on our network it’s crazy … our network is 60% to 70% [Hispanic ] — it can be done if that’s your focus, so there’s really no excuse. It can always be better.

El Rey will make the season two premiere episode of its horror/drama series From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series available via video on demand prior to the show’s Aug. 25 premiere.

The first episode of the series, based on network chairman Robert Rodriguez’s successful theatrical film of the same name, will be available to subscribers of Comcast's Xfinity TV, Dish and Time Warner Cable as well as other MVPDs, said network officials.

El Rey also said it will also make the entire first season, as well as behind the scenes content highlighting the cast, available on demand.

Click here to watch Robert Rodriguez preview the second season of From Dusk Till Dawn:The Series in a video interview.

"I am excited that our distribution partners are on board to present the premiere episode from season two of From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series ahead of its debut on El Rey Network,” remarked Rodriguez in a statement.  “The first season we followed the storyline of the movie-but in season two, all bets are off. I can’t wait for viewers to enjoy the ride."

Suddenlink Communications said it has launched filmmaker Robert Rodriguez’ El Rey Network in select markets across the country.

El Rey, one of four multi-cultural networks launched in 2012 as part of the conditions surrounding Comcast’s acquisition of a majority stake in NBC Universal, is a 24-hour English language network featuring original scripted and unscripted programming, movies, and cult-classic acquired series that aspire to awaken viewers' inner renegade. Current original series airing on El Rey Network include “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series”, the Lucha Libre wrestling series, “Lucha Underground” and “El Rey Network Presents: The Director’s Chair," hosted by Rodriguez and featuring one on one interviews with some of Hollywood's leading filmmakers.

”El Rey Network provides unique programming that enhances the variety of entertainment choices we offer customers,” said Suddenlink senior vice president and chief programming officer Kathy Payne in a statement.  “We’re pleased to add it to our growing list of viewing options.”

Suddenlink is the seventh largest cable operator in the country and has about 1.4 million residential and commercial customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia and elsewhere. The Suddenlink deal is the second in about a week for the network, which signed Dish Network as an affiliate on Jan. 29.

El Rey, which counts Spanish-language broadcaster Univision as an equity partner, has reached carriage deals in the past with DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox Communications.  

"We're excited that Suddenlink customers will now have access to El Rey Network's cutting edge programming," El Rey founder and chairman Rodriguez said in a statement. "Our content reflects the changing face of the American television viewer and we're proud that Suddenlink and other distributors support this new and growing audience.”

El Rey Network has expanded its reach through a distribution deal with Dish Network.

Under the pact, financial terms of which were not disclosed, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's (From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City, Spy Kids, Machete) service is available on channel 253 on a number of Dish programming packages: America’s Top 200, America‘s Top 250 and America’s Everything Pak, plus Dish Latino offerings Plus, Dos and Max.

  Curated by Rodriguez, the English-language network features original scripted and unscripted programming, movies, and cult-classic acquired series that aspire to awaken viewers' inner renegade.

“Dish is pleased to deliver El Rey Network’s cutting-edge content to our broad customer base,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish senior vice president of programming. “El Rey’s unique original series and films allow us to deliver a new style of programming to our customers.”

"We are pleased that Dish understands the importance of providing something truly different for their subscribers and we couldn't be more excited about our launch," noted Rodriguez. "In addition to being a destination for exciting and action-packed content, El Rey has also become synonymous with iconic programming that better reflects the diverse face of America.  We are proud of what we've accomplished both in front of and behind the camera and want to thank our friends at Dish for supporting that mission."

El Rey was launched as part of the merger conditions allowing Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal under which the nation's largest distributor had to roll out four multichannel networks.  The network, in which Univision Communication has taken an equity position, also counts DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox Communications as affilates.

Beverly Hills -- El Rey has greenlit a second season of its original soccer-themed series Matador ahead of the show’s July 15 premiere, the network said during its Thursday Television Critics Association summer tour session.

The series, which follows a professional soccer player who also serves as CIA operative, will debut on the upstart Hispanic-themed, general entertainment network next Tuesday, said network vice chairman Scott Sassa. El Rey will sneak peek the premiere episode on various platforms including iTunes, Vudu and Xbox 360.

 The 13-episode second season of the series will launch in 2015.

"It fit the mode of what I wanted to do right away with the network,” said El Rey founder and chairman Robert Rodriguez on the network’s decision to greenlight a second season for Matador. “This show exceeded every possible expectation we had in terms of great storytelling, incredible action and unique characters.”