A new day has come for Arantxa Loizaga…
The Latina broadcast journalist will host Telemundo’s revamped morning show Hoy Dia, which launches on Monday.
Telemundo is promising Spanish-language viewers a newsier format in the a.m. hours, with the three-hour morning show replacing Un Nuevo Día.
In addition to Loizaga, the new show will feature Nacho Lozano and Nicole Suarez as its new group of hosts.
“Telemundo understands the big responsibility of informing our community, and that’s why Telemundo decided to just have a facelift, to do a makeover of the morning show,” Loizaga said in an interview.
Citing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Latinos as well as the impact of the community in the 2020 presidential results, she said, “we understand the importance of being informed, to have all of the resources that they require to make the right decisions for themselves and their families.”
She described the show as akin to NBC’s Today but “in Spanish with a Latin flair.”
The first 90-minutes will feature headlines, newsmaker interviews and “news you can use,” presented in a less-structured way and in a “creative and engaging format,” she said. The second half of the show will feature entertainment, lifestyle and weather, with Adamari Lopez and Stephanie Himonidis as entertainment hosts. Alfredo Oropeza will be executive chef and Carlos Robles will be chief meteorologist.
Lozano said that while he would like to say that the show will “empower” the Latino community, “They are already empowered.”
“So we are going to provide the information, the argument to participate, and to of course recognize the power they have already,” he said.
He also said that the show would recognize the diversity within the Latino community.
“In order to empower them we need to talk about them, with our work, with our culture, with our accent,” Lozano said.
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, pundits zeroed in on the differences in the Hispanic vote, with Donald Trump doing better than expected in Florida and Joe Biden surprising by winning Arizona.
“The thing is that we understand, and our politicians understand after this 2020 electoral cycle, that the Latino community, we are not a monolith. Not all of the people who speak Spanish are Mexican, right? That is a very important distinction that we want to make,” Loizaga said.
She added, “Even if we all speak Spanish, we all have different cultures, and at Telemundo we recognize that. So for instance, for the Latino community living in the border cities, we understand that maybe immigration is the top priority, and we are going to be able to cater to them. Maybe up north in agricultural states like Wisconsin or Iowa or Illinois, we know that their priorities are conditions of life, working for these meat processing plants and the virus. …So we may be able to provide to them more information about the advantages of receiving the vaccine or their rights that they have as employees.”
Loizaga said that the three news anchors also will bring different personalities to the show. She recently anchored Univision’s national weekend newscast, and has been living in the U.S. for the past 17 years after emigrating from Mexico. Lozano was a news anchor and radio and TV host at Grupo Imagen in Mexico, and “is very jovial and really funny,” she said. Suarez is news correspondent for Noticias Telemundo, and was born in the U.S. and raised in Chicago.
“With all of these three different approaches, we will be able to provide something unique,” she said.
As Spanish-language morning shows have been primarily focused on entertainment in the past few decades, Loizaga said, Hoy Dia will stand out.
“We realized there was a need for more information and accurate information and unbiased information as well, and this is what we are going to be able to provide to them,” she said.
