TV Titan.

VENEZUELA'S CISNEROS GROUP, THE SPRAWLING MULTI-BILlion-dollar conglomerate, is seeking to step up the pace of its multimedia attack on the Americas. Here's the low down on the group's latest moves: * America Online and the Cisneros Group roll out in Brazil any day now. Beaten to the Portuguese punch by Star Media in Brazil, Group CEO Gustavo Cisneros vows, "After Brazil, we shall swiftly move to the markets of Mexico and Argentina and thereafter to the rest of Latin America." * DirecTV Latino targets the U.S. Hispanic market. The satellite TV venture between Hughes Electronics and Cisneros--Brazil's Abril and Mexico's MVS Multivision have bowed out as partners due to lack of funds--looks for the Latino market in the United States with Spanish-language programming. * Miami-based Ibero-American Media Partners starts to rumble. The US$500 million strategic alliance with Dallas investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst is hunting all sorts of takeover targets from broadcast holdings to new electronic media properties across Latin America. Latest investment was participation in a US$44 million private placement of Argentina's El Sitio. * Venevision gets a global signal. Cisneros' broadcast power base in Venezuela is to become a global channel, Venevision Continental, for Spanish-language soaps operas, talk shows and comedies. This new offering will help boost the group's programming arm, CTG, which Cisneros claims is now generating US$80 million annually.