Late last week, it was announced that Jennifer Lopez would be joining up with nuvoTV, taking an equity stake in the company. This brings her to the level of not only a producer--Lopez already owns a production company in the form of Nuyorican Productions--but now she's part-owner of a television station.

Recently, nuvoTV announced that it had raised fully $40 million in a bid to bring out the first English-language network with material exclusively geared toward the Latino community. How much of that was due to Lopez's contribution is unclear, but one thing is quite clear: there is a steadily growing Latino audience in the United States that both speaks English and is eagerly looking for a bit of its own culture in the midst of the American experience in which they live.

Lopez, in a statement, reflected on her childhood, and how West Side Story was one of her favorite pieces, as it was one of the few things that actually involved Puerto Ricans in any significant fashion. Lopez's duties as part of nuvoTV, meanwhile, will reflect largely on changing that, as she will be engaged in not only producing content, but also marketing it, and every so often actually appearing in it. Naturally, this isn't the first time a television network has brought in celebrities to not only promote content, but also increase viewership; Lopez's name recognition and keyword status will likely be extremely valuable to nuvoTV's efforts to get its content out there and seen.

Just how well this tactic will actually work remains to be seen. While indeed, Jennifer Lopez does have an intimate understanding of the film industry, as well as in music and television and most forms of entertainment in general, how well it will translate to the business side is as yet unclear. Still though, it may well work out nicely for them, and considering how little there actually is going on in that market, the fact that they may well have it mostly to themselves likely won't hurt either.

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