El Rey Network on Jan. 1 shut down its cable network feed after seven years, but will look to continue to reach its underserved, youth-targeted audience digitally. 

The English-language El Rey, founded by director/producer Robert Rodriguez and production company FactoryMade, launched in December 2013 as one of the first four minority-owned networks Comcast promised to launch in seeking government approval to acquire NBCUniversal in 2011. In some 40 million homes at its peak, according to published reports, El Rey was in 13 million households when it shut down linear network operations about two months after financial partner Univision Communications pulled out of the channel.  

ALSO READ: Representing Hispanics On Screen and Off

During its run, El Rey aimed for underserved millennial and Latino viewers through such shows as wrestling show Lucha Underground; soccer-themed scripted series Matador, with Gabriel Luna and Alfred Molina; and interview programs such as The Director’s Chair with Robert Rodriguez and politically themed Maria. 

El Rey also served as a vehicle for diverse actors and actresses and a venue for directors to tell their stories and showcase their talent. 

Co-founder Cris Patwa and Maria host Maria Cardona discussed next steps for the El Rey brand. An edited version of the interview appears below. 

MCN: How much did Univision’s decision in November to pull financial support of the network influence El Rey’s move to stop its linear feed? 

Cris Patwa: We just had two different agendas. That partnership was great for the first seven years, when it was about doing these cable bundle deals where they could negotiate for all of us on our behalf. But everybody now is turning to streaming, so it just makes more sense for us to be with a streaming partner to reach English-speaking viewers. Seventy one percent of the Latino community has proficiency in English, and that is where we have always been. So that’s kind of where we are in the process of what we're calling chapter two amongst ourselves. Robert has already started to see success in that — his We Can Be Heroes movie on Netflix was the No. 1 movie [on the platform]. There is no way a network like ours could get the kind of distribution to be in front of that many eyeballs, much less get that many people viewing in such a short period of time. Netflix has already commissioned a sequel to We Can Be Heroes, and there’s more work to be done with Netflix with [Rodriguez’s Spy Kids movie franchise]. The more we got to understand the streaming world, the more we realized that the mission is better actually served where all the eyeballs are going. We are going to be able to reach that many people who are Latino and hold to our mission of inclusivity. 

MCN: Was El Rey successful in accomplishing its mission during its cable run? 

Maria Cardona: When we launched El Rey, it was there to not just to help Comcast and NBCUniversal meet the obligation that they had promised to meet in order to get approval for their merger, but it was a really important mission for Robert Rodriguez. He was adamant that he didn’t want this to just be a place where people went for great entertainment. He wanted it to be an incubating mission, meaning that he wanted to make sure that El Rey Network was a place where young Latinos and young multicultural talent from actors to screenwriters, to directors, to producers, to showrunners, could have their voices heard. The other side of this is that El Rey was launched with massive support from the community and from grassroots activists, because they knew what a huge hole El Rey was going to be filling in terms of being the voice for Latinos in English. Robert created a diversity council [headed by Cardona] that was made up of the highest level of Latino leaders who advised him on how to navigate the sea of the political spectrum as well. We were at his side every step of the way from the creation of El Rey to, frankly, how it wound down and in looking at what the next iteration of [the company] will look like. 

MCN: Will you maintain the El Rey brand as part of any agreement you reach with a streaming service? 

CP: That is really part of the discussion. You can imagine some streamers have sub-brands within their brand where they try to delineate Black and Brown voices or diversity on screen, so I think each one is experimenting. El Rey Studios will continue to exist, but the streamers are all taking a different strategy so we’re talking to all of them. 

ALSO READ: El Rey Network Debuts Maria Cardona Talk Show 'Maria'

MCN: Will any streaming deal also include El Rey’s library product? 

MC: We have hundreds of hours in library content, so there’s so much content that I think others are interested in, whether it’s the Lucha Underground show or even the Maria show. The network has something that people have been interested in and could live under another brand or live under the El Rey brand. Also, another beauty about working with Robert is that El Rey is so connected to him, but the real brand is really Robert Rodriguez. Everything else El Rey does will be able to be uplifted just because it's connected to him. 

CP: Each streamer is different. Some might be interested in the Lucha, some are interested in the network’s documentary programming and some are interested in the talk stuff like the [The Director’s Chair] and Maria. We’re curious to see after they really dive into each one to see what they think could be an interesting fit and how they would go about looking at this with us.

MCN: What is El Rey’s legacy within the industry?

CP: Just as BET spawned the careers of so many through their platform, El Rey has given opportunities for Latino actors and directors to shine. The great thing is they come back to the community and build more stories and they bring more Latinos into their stories. They are reaching into the culture that’s here, not something that’s bought and imported from abroad. 

MC: Before Gabriel Luna was the Terminator [in the film Terminator: Dark Fate], he starred in one of El Rey’s first original series [Matador]. He may have never received that kind of exposure had he not gotten his start at El Rey Network. There are so many stories similar to that one, but I think that one really paints the picture of what Robert wanted El Rey to be. 

El Rey Network tonight (June 22) is launching Maria, an hourlong talk show aimed at Latinos in this election year, airing Mondays through Wednesdays. The channel has ordered 39 episodes of the show, which airs at 7 and 10 p.m. ET.

The host is a public policy advocate, a principal at the Dewey Square Group, leading the Multicultural and Public Affairs practices, and a CNN political contributor. Guests scheduled for the opening episode include co-host Amy Hinojosa, president and CEO of MANA, a National Latina organization, and Cid Wilson, president and CEO of the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility. Tuesday's slated guests are Sister Norma Pimentel of Catholic Charities and Los Angeles Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, District 51. Wednesday's scheduled guests are Monica Ramirez, founder of Justice for Migrant Women, and Congressman Gil Cisneros (Democrat in California).

El Rey Network is an English-language entertainment channel jointly owned by Robert Rodriguez and FactoryMade with a minority stake held by Univision Networks & Studios.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in a position to contribute to the conversation about the relevance and significance of Latino culture and voices in the U.S., but being in the driver’s seat is a humbling opportunity that Robert and El Rey have made possible," Cardona said in a statement. "As we face what is arguably the most important election in a generation, we want to empower U.S. Latinos at this critical moment – to understand that they can have a seat at the table – that they don’t need permission to act, they just need to share their voices so they ring in the ears of those in Washington who may be hearing, but not listening. In my experience, you must be able to start a conversation to have one and right now, having that conversation and demanding change is more important than ever.”

Rodriguez said in the statement: “El Rey is a radically different storytelling platform – an opportunity to leverage the many creative and independent voices in the Latinx community. Maria is yet another talented voice we are amplifying -- with her years of politics, media, and advocacy, she is uniquely positioned to share the stories of our community on the front lines. On behalf of our partners and stakeholders, I am thrilled to have Maria Cardona spearheading this important program and I urge everyone to not just tune in but to take a stand.”

PARK CITY, Utah — Ad-supported streaming service Tubi is making its first Sundance Film Festival appearance a memorable one, announcing an exclusive deal with writer-director Robert Rodriguez to stream his next movie beginning this summer. 

The film, Red 11, was the product of Rodriguez wanting to commemorate his first Sundance project, El Mariachi, an action thriller that famously cost just $7,000 to make. It became a big hit at the 1992 Sundance festival and launched a career that has included such film and video franchises as From Dusk Till Dawn, Spy Kids and Sin City.  

The Tubi deal covers both Red 11 and a related docu-series, The Robert Rodriguez Film School, which is focused on how to make movies on a tight budget. Both will be available on Tubi this summer in the United States, Mexico and Canada. 

First, however, the film will get a world premiere at Rodriguez’ “home” film gathering in his Austin hometown at South By Southwest, followed by an official screening at the Directors Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival in June. 

Rodriguez said in a press release that the projects were designed to commemorate the 25th anniversary (more or less) of that first low-budget foray. 

He used inspiration from the first project’s fundraising efforts – being a human guinea pig for medical testing – as a jumping-off spot for Red 11, which follows a student trying to pay off a huge debt by undergoing testing he suspects may be trying to kill him. It too was made on a $7,000 budget.

“These are both dream projects of mine, an entertaining culmination of ideas and ruminations on the creative process that also highlight the heightened sense of spirituality that comes from dancing with creativity when there is an absence of the usual financial resources,” Rodriguez said in a release. “In other words, ‘low budg fun.’”

The Film School is a series of videos about “truly actionable methods using my no-crew, micro-budget filmmaking style that will inspire others to make their own films and have their voices be heard,” Rodriguez said.

The deal was announced as part of Tubi’s first official appearance at Sundance, the Mecca for indie filmmaking. Tubi also sponsored a Sundance panel on getting films on streaming services, called “They Stream Indies, Don’t They?” followed by an evening party on Monday. 

It all makes for seemingly an unusual fit for the ad-supported streaming service. Tubi claims 20,000 feature and episodic titles, roughly double the Netflix catalog. 

But Tubi chief content officer Adam Lewinson said in an interview at Sundance that the fit between Sundance and Tubi isn’t as surprising as it may appear.

“We’ve been doing indie film deals for years under the radar,” Lewinson said. Tubi representatives are fanning out across Sundance, attending  screenings and scouting for other potential content deals before the festival ends this weekend.=

But Tubi has been lower-key than the big SVOD services such as Netflix and Amazon, who’ve made numerous splashy deals with Sundance projects to fill out their libraries. =

Last year, Amazon spent a reported $45 million acquiring rights to films such as the Mindy Kaling/Emma Thompson comedy Late Night. This year, dealmaking at Sundance has been notably more subdued through the festival’s first five days, though Amazon has made a couple of purchases, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

Lewinson said offering free access as the ad-supported service does makes it much easier for viewers to sample a wide range of lesser-known shows with little downside. 

This year, the company is looking to enhance its offerings in Spanish-language and anime content, Lewinson said. Tubi already has a section focused on African-American cinema that is among its most popular niches. 

“I like to say Tubi exists to super-serve the underserved,” Lewinson said. “I feel like we’re uniquely positioned for indie film. This is where we use content personalization. The knock about indie content is that it’s niche, it’s hard to monetize. Theatrical releases are built for scale.” 

Given Tubi’s significant scale, it can now use its tools to target indie films to specific niche audiences that couldn’t profitably be reached in traditional theatrical distribution, Lewinson said.  

Tubi also recently announced a partnership with TV Azteca to launch in Mexico, and with Hisense, the world’s No. 6 TV maker, for prime position on its connected TV screens. The company also celebrated the one-year anniversary of its deal with Comcast’s xFinity video platform, the first of the AVOD services to be featured there. 

El Rey Network is adding a pair of new pop-culture evening talk shows, one built around East Los Angeles TV/radio personality Chuey Martinez and the other a geek-fandom panel show. They debut on Thursday, May 2, at 10 p.m. ET and 10:30 p.m. ET on the network. 

The Chuey Martinez Show (30 minutes) "aims to celebrate all things music, gaming, art, culture, and entertainment along with a healthy smattering of off-the-wall comedy and irreverent skits," El Rey Network said. El Rey Nation Show, also 30 minutes, will feature "a diverse ensemble of social media stars discussing and dissecting the worlds of gaming, film, and comic books. The talk show is an enthusiastic celebration of fan culture and full of impassioned opinions. It was created to tap into the larger pop-culture conversation and serve as a platform and a voice to the loyal viewers and all of El Rey Nation." Both are produced in Los Angeles.

“From its launch, El Rey Network has created opportunities for Latinos in front and behind the camera,” Daniel Tibbets, the president and general manager of El Rey Network. “We are continuing that mission by introducing our fans to the extraordinary talent featured on both of these new shows.”

The El Rey Nation Show panel features: Hector Navarro, who's worked with Geek & Sundry and Nerdist, hosted an animation podcast for Nickelodeon and currently can be seen on DC Daily; Kelly Nugent, an actor, comedian, gamer and podcaster who can be found GMing or Role Playing on HyperRPG and Saving Throw Show; Vanessa Gritton, a writer, stand-up comedian and sketch performer, notably with Nightchurch, a sketch horror-comedy team; Cameron Rice, a director and photographer who’s performed and written in the Los Angeles comedy scene as well as in the San Francisco Sketchfest, Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) and the Sacramento Comedy Festival; Vivian Martinez, a stand-up comedian from Los Angeles who has opened for Nick Thune and performs throughout the city; and Omar Najam, a writer, director and avid RPG player from the Bay Area who has performed improv and produced videos for companies such as Geek & Sundry, DC Comics, BBC America, FOX and Disney XD. 

El Rey Network is jointly owned by Robert Rodriguez and FactoryMade with a minority stake held by Univision Networks & Studios Inc.

El Rey Network, the male-centric channel founded by director Robert Rodriguez to reach Latinos and others in the 18-to-49 demo, wants to expand its base by reaching out to working-class men of all backgrounds, a reaction in part to the surprising election of Donald Trump as the next president.

The network’s target group, dubbed “strivers,” represents working- and middleclass male viewers who defy typical age and race metrics to represent more of a sociographic class, network president and general manager Daniel Tibbets said. He pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal report stating that this group of Hispanic, black and Asian workers, ages 18 to 63, with less than a bachelor’s degree level of education, is projected to represent the majority of U.S. workers by 2032.

Tibbets, former chief operating officer of digital content service Machinima, spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the 45-million subscriber network’s new brand positioning and its plans to increase original programming by 50%, both on the linear channel and on social media platforms.

MCN:How would you currently define the El Rey Network brand and target audience?

Daniel Tibbets: I would define it as a multiplatform brand that represents the voices, tastes, lifestyle and attitude of culturally diverse people everywhere. It has been, and continues to be, positioned in a very authentic viewpoint as representing America, which is very diverse — something I don’t think entertainment companies have done that authentically right.

Today, you hear a lot about diversity and a lot about companies saying, “Oh we have to go there.” That’s not authentic. When Robert created this network, he created it because he wanted to have people like him represented on the screen in the right way. So when we think about development and programming production, and even our operation as a whole, we’re living, breathing and talking about that point of view in the right way.

What we’re starting to say now is that our audience is working-class America, which is now becoming middleclass America. So that working-class, middle-class America is the social-economic status that we’re seeing.

One of the leading factors of this, which I think is not being addressed in the market today, is that by 2032 the majority of the working class/new middle class of America will be the minorities in this country, and it’s being led by Latinos. We’re calling our audience strivers because when you look at who is ultimately watching our network, that’s who they are.

We’re not going away from our Latino heritage or positioning. It’s the simple fact that our audience, from a social-cultural-economic standpoint, is growing and it’s growing to be more diverse.

MCN:How do you sell the network’s more sociographic focus to advertisers who are predominantly looking to reach viewers by demographic?

DT: What I’m finding is, advertisers are more interested in following the consumer across dayparts and devices. So, if I know I’m going after a particular psychographic consumer — which is more valuable to me as an advertiser, because I know exactly who they are and know their buying habits and what they’re interested in — then the question is, how am I tracking while they’re using mobile or the computer while they’re watching TV?

We’re following that consumer and providing them the information about my brand, and that’s more valuable at the end of the day to advertisers. We know who that consumer is and we know that they skew African-American and Latino, and we know that they’re watching the brand across multiple platforms.

Right now, our total audience viewership is more than 50% minorities — African-American, Latino and Asian. So we made a strategic decision to focus the brand voice on this new working class and middle class we define as diverse people that live by a code and are going to leave their mark. They create their own lane and they’re not following the status quo. They’re looking to achieve independence; they excel at a craft. When you say working class, I think a lot of advertisers identify with that.

MCN:How will El Rey’s content reflect the network’s new brand identity?

DT: I think what the election kind of highlighted is that working-class America goes home. They want to click on the TV and they want to be entertained. El Rey does that very well, whether it’s through kung fu and action movies or original series like [wrestling series] Lucha Underground — it’s escapism.

We’re making a big commitment to do even more original programming in 2017, which we’re going to talk about after the first of the year. But all that development is falling into the lines of our commitment to target strivers and feature diversity in our programming.

We’re going to be moving into non-scripted lifestyle programming that again represents the hobbies and interests of strivers … one can imagine the docuseries that we can move into. Scripted of course will remain a big foundation of the network. We will continue to talk about some new scripted series in 2017.

MCN:Will you look to be aggressive in developing programming in the digital space?

DT: There will also be original content creation that absolutely represents our brand and our audience in digital and social media. We want to develop content that creates interest and excitement for the brand on Facebook Live or Snapchat or YouTube — whatever the digital platform is — but also creates awareness and viewership for the network as a whole. It becomes more of a content brand strategy.

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."

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.

El Rey Network's series The Director's Chair hosts Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola on March 2, with network founder and chairman Robert Rodriguez, a noted director in his own right, interviewing him about his legacy and the world of filmmaking.

Coppola reveals his reticence to direct both The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II films; offers new insight into the well documented struggles on the set of Apocalypse Now; his early inspirations; and how he managed to work within the Hollywood system.

Following the one-hour interview, El Rey Network airs its premiere of Coppola's The Conversation (1974), starring Gene Hackman as a government agent caught in a quandary over his surveillance assignment. Coppola wrote, directed and produced the film, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival.

The episode of El Rey Network Presents: The Directors Chair airs on Tuesday, March 2, at 8:00 p.m. The Conversation follows at 9:00 p.m.

Robert Rodriguez has decided to base the production and corporate headquarters for his new English-language action-adventure channel, El Rey Network, near the home base of his Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas.

The start-up service, which already films its centerpiece program, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, in the Texas capital, committed to filming other scripted and unscripted content in the state. From Dusk Till Dawn will begin production on its second season later this year; El Rey Network's original series Matador will debut on July 15 but is produced in Los Angeles. The network said this will be the first time a general entertainment network has a formal production home in the Lone Star State.

El Rey's targeted 18-49 male audience includes in its core younger Latinos living in English-speaking households. The network said the choice of Texas accentuates the state's "identity as a beacon state for American Latino culture and entertainment."

"As a filmmaker and founder of El Rey Network, I can't imagine a more iconic and inspiring location for our production headquarters or for the filming of our upcoming projects," Rodriguez said in a release.

The network did not say whether or not the city or state offered financial incentives, or if specific job or spending commitments were made in return. But Gov. Rick Perry and Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell were both quoted in the release, with the mayor saying "Austin is home to creative, talented people who do pioneering, game-changing work, and Robert Rodriguez exemplifies our creative base of talent." Calls to state and city spokespeople were not immediately returned. (Update: Melissa Alvarado, public information officer for Austin's Economic Development Department, said the city did not offer any incentives. Neither did the state, said Rich Parsons, deputy communications director in Gov. Perry's office.)

El Rey Network was founded by Rodriguez and FactoryMade Ventures co-founders John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa, backed by Univision Networks & Studios, and launched this past March 11 on cable and satellite distributors including Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable (via a Univision affiliation deal) and Dish Network. It has a current base of about 40 million subscribers.

Pictured: Robert Rodriguez of El Rey Network and Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell in an El Rey Network photo.

As season one of the network’s first scripted original comes to a close, El Rey Network is taking a page from the cult movie to launch a new multi-platform promotional campaign called “Slaves for Santánico” to drive fan engagement for From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.

The marketing initiative will allow fans to call the Santánico party line (1-800-315-2744) to engage in a short, responsive conversation with the character of Santánico Pandemonium, who is portrayed in the series by Eiza Gonzalez. All callers will be asked “What would you do for Santánico Pandemonium?” Responses will be recorded and potentially shared across the El Rey Network’s various social media platforms as well as on SlavesForSantánico.com. The character will also give callers a passcode that can be used to collect exclusive digital goods on the series’ website. 

The series, an adaptation of El Rey Network founder Robert Rodriguez’s 1996 cult film From Dusk Till Dawn, was recently renewed for a 13-episode second season. The “Slaves for Santánico” campaign will coincide with the April 29 airing of episode 107, which features Gonzalez reenacting Selma Hayek’s iconic snake dance from the film. The party line initiative will continue through May 21. 

“From Dusk Till Dawn’s iconic characters are the perfect jumping off point for this innovative, multi-platform initiative. The party line and creative campaign activations leverage Santánico Pandemonium’s enormous popularity and invite fans to participate more deeply in the series narrative. The concept is sure to entice new viewers and appeal to the highly coveted demo of men 18-49, including the all-important millennial fan base,” said Chad Blankenship, El Rey Network’s Vice President, Consumer Marketing & Communications, in a release.