Sabado Gigante Keeps On Rolling

Lee Cowan On TV's Longest Running Weekly Entertainment Show

(CBS)  Surf the waves that make up cable television and chances are you will see your share of Spanish language stations. But if you haven't seen Sabado Gigante – you haven't seen Spanish TV.

Sabado Gigante – that's 'Giant Saturday' – is the longest running weekly entertainment program on television, in any country, any language: 44 years so far, with not even one rerun.

The show can best be described as combination of Carol Burnett and The Price Is Right (a champion in its own right, as the longest running game show on television, but still ten years younger than Sabado Gigante). It is light fare to be sure, but you'd be wrong to think that means the show is without influence.

Produced in Miami and broadcast on Univision - the variety show reaches more than 40 countries and 100 million viewers. In the U.S. ratings, it often wins its Saturday night time slot.

It's a moneymaker, Carl Kravetz, chairman of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies tells CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan. "It has been the Saturday powerhouse in the U.S. now for the last 20 years."
Kravetz is one of many U.S. advertisers taking notice.

Hispanics are both the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and the youngest demographic.

Sabado Gigante courts them all.

"You'd be very hard put," says Kravetz, "to identify a general market or English language program that attracts quite as broad a demographic."

The man behind it all – show creator and host Don Francisco – understands that demographic better than most.

His real name is Mario Kreutzberger, the son of German Jews who fled to Chile during World War II. He immigrated to New York to become a tailor but caught the TV bug instead and is now living the American dream.

"This is something that I have to do," says Francisco of the job he loves. "I have to bring the memories, and I have to give them information, and I have to make them happy."

He's both ringmaster and power broker.

During the last presidential campaign, presidential candidate John Kerry jumped at the chance to appear with Don Francisco - only to be outdone by President Bush, who while putting on his microphone, gleefully exclaimed: "Sabado Gigante is gigante!"

Asked by CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan whether he feels that he does have a big influence, that what he says echoes pretty loudly, Don Francisco is a bit humble.

"I'm interested in having a big influence in entertaining people," says Sabado Gigante's biggest presence, on and off-camera, adding that this is all he really wants.

But in the process, he has created a following with influence and purchasing power that is hard to ignore.

[mayraleticia]

All Latin-Americans know that Don Francisco had a very succesful show in Chile for many, many years before he came to this country, I was shocked to see your comments of how he came to this country to become a Tailor...and found TV land instead, I think this info is inaccurate.