FIRST OFF . . .

Spanish-language television network Telemundo Group Inc., which owns KVEA Channel 52, has added two Latino members to its board, seemingly in response to recent local community protests against its hiring and programming practices. Last month the National Hispanic Media Coalition met with network president Henry Silverman in East Los Angeles and presented him with a dozen proposals for increasing Latino participation in station and network senior management. Among those was a request that Telemundo recruit three Latinos for its board of directors within one year. Added to the board last week were Carlos R. Barba, executive vice president of Embassy Communications’ Latino unit and former vice president and general manager of WNJU, New York’s highest-rated Spanish-language television station, and Roland A. Hernandez, president of Plaza de la Raza, a nonprofit cultural center in East Los Angeles, and managing partner of Interspan Communications, which owns a Spanish-language station in Dallas.