My Two Cents.

Italy's daily Il Corriere della Sera reported on a debate currently inflaming French intellectuals, titled "Risking American Cultural Colonization." Similarly, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the "European governments anxious that American cultural products will pollute their society ... resort to cultural quotas." And according to The Financial Times, in Japan the "love affair with Western culture wanes."

Let's move now to the U.S., the bastion of world culture that everyone's so concerned about importing and see what's happening there. At the 42nd annual Grammy Awards, the spotlight was monopolized by Latin America: Chris Perez, Tito Puente, Los Palominos, Caetano Veloso, Carlos Santana, Christina Aguilera, Placido Domingo, Jennifer Lopez and Picky Martin. The New York Times noted the "intriguing trend in this year's Grammys [was] the interest in Latin music....Latin pop now has grown as a musically and commercially vibrant sector hospitable to both the heat of youth culture and the grace of age."

Recently, The Los Angeles Times released a cover story concerning Cuban Juan Carlos Formell (who resides in New York) and his equally famous father from Havana. The L.A. Times also published a main-section piece on Alberto Fuguet, a writer who grew up in California but now lives in Chile. The Latin American influence on U.S. culture is not something new -- Ballet Hispanico, for example, is celebrating its 20th anniversary and Cuban-born playwright Maria Irene Fornes is being honored by the Signature Theater Company with a season-long festival showcasing her work.

In June, the Playboy Jazz Festival 2000 will again feature Latin music. Indeed, Latin music, books, TV shows, paintings, sculptures, dance and foods are in the midst of a full-scale invasion of the U.S. Now, how can it be that such a strong cultural virus such as American Cultural Imperialism (a.k.a. ACI) be so easily overrun by such a seemingly weak cultural germ?

On the other side of the "pond," the Europeans have tried many antidotes to keep the American cultural virus at bay. They've erected barriers, established quotas and keep moving goal posts (i.e., regulations) repeatedly (such as Italy's effort to prevent Rupert Murdoch from entering its market). Nothing worked. European companies were showered with public funds, subsidies and tax credits. Ditto results.

A group of French cinematographers even went so far as to implore cinema critics to wait at least until after the French movies were in theaters before trashing them in print. Indeed, the Europeans have tried everything to eliminate ACT, except produce better quality international products.

Now back to the Latins' invasion of the U.S. What makes this culture not only resistant to ACT, but gradually superior to it? Wrote The Wall Street Journal, "If Europe ... hopes to succeed in the new world of digital content, [it] would do well to study carefully the competitive model rather than reflexively returning to content controls and subsidies." The financial daily added, "In the European Union, the MEDIA II program has disbursed the equivalent of about $277 million for the purposes of subsidizing 50 percent to 75 percent of the cost of film producers' operating costs. Television broadcasting is subsidized even more.

Europeans complain about the American studios' stronghold which consists of seven companies, most of which are smaller than Canal Plus, EM.TV, the KirchGroup, Mediaset, Bertelsmann, et al. You get the picture! On the other hand, Latin television companies are even smaller and fewer (some 70 versus 700 in Europe), but conversely highly successful. And while European companies get financial help from state and federal agencies, Latin companies have to deal with what The New York Times called "the precarious nature of Latin democracies" since, in the words of the New York daily, "autocratic leaders are once again gaining ground."

Yes, but Latin American media companies have the advantage of a huge Spanish-language market. In Latin America, there are several dialects that require dubbing into "neutral Spanish," plus, depictions of Latino life in the U.S. do not sell in South American markets. And this doesn't take into consideration the fact that, for a good movie (not a big-budget blockbuster), the whole Latin American market (all rights) sells for approximately $57,000, or double the fee paid by Switzerland alone. In other words, Latin American companies work with little money -- but through marketing savvy and brand awareness - leverage their cultural industry against international dominance. Stated Carlos E. Cisneros of the Miami-based Cisneros Television Group, "Ours is a brand-driven company and we'll continue to invest in marketing. Our goal is to put a Latin American brand on all our products."

This is also the strategy of a European fashion industry that is competing with American giants by utilizing precision "exclusive branding" campaigns, versus the "power branding" of U.S. companies.

In my view, the European audiovisual industry should direct its thunderbolts not toward the Americans, but rather in the direction of its own community of companies that, for various reasons, hasn't been able to lift European culture into an environment necessary for the creation of product with mass international appeal.