[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 154 (Friday, September 29, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1895-E1897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          RENE ANSELMO TRIBUTE

                                 ______


                          HON. BILL RICHARDSON

                             of new mexico

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 29, 1995

  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleagues to join me 
in paying special tribute to a remarkable individual whose long and 
distinguished career can forever be a symbol of determination, 
perseverance and audacity. Mr. Rene Anselmo, who died earlier this 
month from heart disease, was not only the millionaire chairman of 
Alpha Lyracom Space Communications, operating under the name Pan 
American Satellite, but also made a lasting contribution to the 
Hispanic community by helping to create television's Spanish 
International Network [SIN], now Univision.
  Reynold Vincent Anselmo was an energetic and restless young man who 
joined the Marines in 1942 at the age of 16, spend 3\1/2\ years as a 
World War II tail-gunner, and completed 37 missions in the South 
Pacific. After the war, he enrolled in the University of Chicago's 
Great Books programs and after earning a theater and literature degree 
in 1951, he moved to Mexico where he discovered an affinity for 
Hispanic culture.
  In Mexico, Mr. Anselmo directed and produced television and theater 
shows, and in 1954 he started working for Mexico's largest media 
company, Televisa, selling its TV programs to other Latin American 
companies. His hard work and dedication attracted the attention of Mr. 
Emiliano Azcarraga Vidaurreta, the founder and head of Televisa, who in 
1961 hired him to start up television's SIN, now Univision Two years 
later, Mr. Anselmo moved to New York to manage SIN and oversee the TV 
stations.
  At that time, Hispanics comprised less than 5 percent of the U.S. 
population, and the only Spanish-language stations were on the UHF 
channels that most TV sets were not them equipped to receive. Mr. 
Anselmo, however, used his Mexican connections and experience to build 
the business. By 1984, SIN had 400 TV stations and cable affiliates and 
served the more than 15 million Hispanic people in the United States 
who represented the fastest-growing segment of the population. SIN 
provided an alternative to the U.S. media, which did not pay too much 
attention to the Spanish community or when it did, cast it in a less 
than favorable stereotype.
  In 1986 SIN was under siege by the Federal Communications Commission, 
which claimed that SIN's ownership violated rules against ownership of 
United States networks by aliens. As a result, Mr. Anselmo abdicated 
his position in 1986 and separated from his old friend and partner Mr. 
Azcarraga. Instead of retiring, Mr. Anselmo founded Pan American 
Satellite Corp. [PanAmSat], the world's only private global satellite 
services company. To do this, Mr. Anselmo had to fight against steep 
odds to break the monopoly on satellite transmission of video images 
held by the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or 
Intelsat owned by 120 governments, including the United States.
  Before Mr. Anselmo launched his satellite company, no one had 
challenged Intelsat's international monopoly. Today, PanAmSat handles a 
significant share of transatlantic news, transmissions by ABC, CBS, CNN 
and 

[[Page E 1896]]
the BBC; and channels financial data for Volvo, Citibank Corp. Latino, 
and others.
  In addition to Mr. Anselmo's devotion to his companies, he was a 
loving husband, father and grandfather, and a great neighbor. In fact, 
he was probably best known in his hometown of Greenwich, CT not for his 
business success, but for his beautification of the town. Mr. Anselmo 
personally paid for the planting of tens of thousands of bulbs each 
spring.
  Not only will Greenwich, CT be a less pretty place with his passing, 
but all of America loses a great businessman, family man and war 
veteran. For a better understanding of this great man, my colleagues 
may be interested in reading a profile of him which was published in 
Continental Profiles in August 1991.

                 [From Continental Profile, Aug. 1991]

                               High Flier

                           (By Frank Lovece)

       Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . 
     well, it's a bird, as artificial satellites are 
     affectionately called. And this particular bird is a rare 
     duck indeed: The first privately owned, international 
     telecommunications satellite in orbit. Not surprisingly, the 
     guy who sent it flying is a bit of a strange bird himself.
       This is Rene Anselmo, chairperson of Alpha Lyracom Space 
     Communications, operating under the name Pan American 
     Satellite--no relation to the airline. Prior to this 
     particular first, he's distributed American TV shows in 
     Mexico, founded a theater company that evolved into Second 
     City, and helped create television's Spanish International 
     Network (SIN), now Univision. And despite having cleared a 
     cool $100 million when he sold his SIN shares five years ago, 
     he is far less Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko than James 
     Whitmore as Harry Truman.
       In his plush office on the second floor of a modern, red-
     brick low-rise in Greenwich, Connecticut, the crusty, 65-
     year-old Anselmo is dressed comfortably in an open-collared 
     shirt and a pull-over sweater. Except for the halo of 
     cigarette smoke from the Winstons he chain-smokes, he looks 
     more ready for his grandkids than for multimillion dollar 
     business deals.
       ``I don't consider myself a businessman,'' Anselmo says ``I 
     guess I'm just your classic, basic promoter entrepreneur.''
       That he is, with a high-tech twist. Until Anselmo came 
     along, U.S. TV networks, news organizations, and banks 
     needing to transmit voice, data, or video internationally had 
     virtually no other avenue but Intelsat, a 15-satellite, 120-
     nation co-operative. Each member-nation has a signatory 
     organization, generally the government PTT (post/telephone/
     telegraph) monopoly. In the United States, it's the 
     Communications Satellite Corp., a publicly traded company 
     created by an act of Congress in 1962 just for this. Known as 
     Comsat, it enjoys a legal monopoly. And just like nature 
     feels about vacuums, Rene Anselmo abhors monopolies.
       Spurred by the deregulatory climate of the 1980's, and 
     flush from the sale of SIN, Anselmo put up most of the $85 
     million needed to buy and launch his RCA-made satellite, 
     dubbed PAS-1. It lifted off June 15, 1988 from Kourou, French 
     Guiana, via Arianespace, the European private-rocket company-
     with Anselmo having no assured customers, and only about $40 
     million in insurance if the darned thing blew up.
       Yet his pie in the sky paid off: Among other things, Pan 
     American Satellite beamed this year's Academy Awards ceremony 
     overseas, live: handles a significant share of transatlantic 
     news transmissions by ABC, CBS, CNN, and BBC; and channels 
     financial data for Volvo, Citibank Corp, Latino, and others, 
     Financial observers say Anselmo's privately held firm should 
     surpass its projected 1991 revenue of $25 million. The 
     company is now well positioned in a telecommunications 
     equipment-and-services market that the U.S. Department of 
     Commerce predicts will be worth $1 trillion next year.
       Yet even with that big a market, why start such a risky, 
     untested venture at age 61, after having cashed in on a 
     fortune? ``Well, I gotta do something,'' Anselmo protests. 
     ``Satellites and broadcasting are so integrally related, and 
     with SIN I was an early user of satellites, so it was just a 
     natural adjunct,'' he says, shrugging. ``And the reason 
     nobody ever did it before is nobody was ever allowed to do 
     it.''
       This is so. It wasn't until 1984 that a Rockville, Maryland 
     firm called Orion Network Systems began nudging the 
     government for permission to launch a private, international 
     telecommunications satellite (private domestic satellites are 
     a separate and fairly common thing). Thusly nudged, President 
     Ronald Reagan signed a 1984 document called Presidential 
     Determination Act #85-2, allowing private satellites to 
     compete in the Intelsat market.
       ``I immediately jumped in,'' Anselmo recalls, ``because I 
     knew all the satellite service we weren't getting--and the 
     costs for what was available were exorbitant because it was a 
     monopoly market. The whole system had to be changed,'' he 
     says, ``and it was a nice, personally challenging thing to 
     do.''
       Reynold Vincent Anselmo has had a lifetime of nice, 
     personally challenging things to do. Born in Medford, 
     Massachusetts, he joined the Marine Corps at 16 and spent 
     three-and-a-half years as a World War II tail-gunner, 
     completing 37 combat missions in the South Pacific. He came 
     home to earn a theater and literature degree from the 
     University of Chicago in 1951, and to found a campus theater 
     group called Tonight at 8:30--some of the core members later 
     went on to create the famous troupe, Second City.
       ``Rene and I lived side by side in basement apartments,'' 
     recalls acting teacher Paul Sills, who co-founded Second City 
     and the two predecessor groups. ``He was an interesting man, 
     full of details. Always wore white shoes and carried an 
     umbrella; had some of the Harvard Yard about him. What I 
     learned from Rene was that you could actually start a 
     theater--that you didn't need anybody's permission.''
       By now it was the beat 1950s, the era of Jack Kerouac's On 
     the Road. Anselmo drifted to Mexico. He liked it enough that 
     after a brief return to the States--where he was a guest 
     director at the Pasadena Playhouse, and met Mary Morton, his 
     future wife--he returned to Mexico to live.
       After a $25-a-week stint dramatizing Time magazine stories 
     for the U.S. government's Voice of America radio broadcasts, 
     Anselmo hooked up with a radio-show distributor named Paul 
     Talbot, and began a small syndication company. When a 
     television developed, Talbot began buying syndication rights 
     to Americans shows and had them dubbed in Spanish; Anselmo 
     would lease them to Mexico TV stations. Some years later, 
     Emilio Azcarraga, founder of the Mexican TV network Televisa, 
     S.A., hired Anselmo to start up a division to export their 
     programs to other Spanish-speaking countries.
       In 1961, Anselmo--still a Televisa employee--and other 
     investors began buying UHF TV stations in the United States, 
     and pioneered Spanish broadcasting here. Over the course of 
     25 years, that core of stations grew into SIN/Univision, with 
     400 TV stations and cable affiliates. Yet since it was 20 
     percent owned by Azcarraga, Anselmo--a U.S. native who ran it 
     out of New York City--had to divest himself because of a 
     complicated federal issue over whether the network was 
     foreign-owned--which was strictly forbidden.
       The incident, to Anselmo, is an example of bureaucracy and 
     authority gone awry. Scrappy as ever, he sees the same red-
     tape morass in Intelsat and Comsat. ``It's like Communism and 
     Socialism in Eastern Europe,'' he grumbles. ``You wonder how 
     the people over there put up with that for 75 years.''
       He's probably overstating the case--Intelsat has done much 
     demonstrable good, making telecommunication available to 
     countries that otherwise couldn't afford it. Yet Anselmo's 
     correct that as in any monopoly situation, you can't go 
     across the street if you don't like the price or service.
       Comsat charges a reported flat rate of $2,637 an hour; Pan 
     American Satellite, between $1,000 and $2,400 an hour, 
     depending on usage based on volume per year, with most 
     customers paying, says Anselmo, about $1,300. Even with a few 
     hundred added at each end for earthstation fees (included in 
     the comsat rate), Pan American Satellite is a bargain. And to 
     the joy of news organizations with breaking reports, Anselmo 
     always has a satellite transponder or two set aside for last-
     minute spot bookings.
       He's also fighting like a bulldog for access to the 
     international telephone systems. Known as ``public switched 
     networks'' (PSNs), these phone lines are used to transmit 
     almost everything, from voice to data. The right to compete 
     with Intelsat in this market would be a boon to Anselmo. 
     However, such access was specifically excluded from the 
     Presidential Determination Act that allowed the formation of 
     Pan American Satellite in the first place. Not one to lie 
     down in the face of a monopoly, Anselmo has embarked on an 
     ambitious, yet seemingly quixotic campaign to remedy the 
     situation. Tired of writing lengthy missives to politicians 
     and bureaucrats, which he feared were not being read, Anselmo 
     took out a paid advertisement in The New York Times, to 
     address the situation. But this was no staid political ad. In 
     the form of a 17-frame comic strip, it featured Anselmo and 
     his dog taking on well-heeled lobbyists (in football regalia) 
     and in one panel depicts Anselmo as a Kurdish refugee. The 
     cartoon culminates with Anselmo making a plea for President 
     Bush to ``strike a blow for global telecommunications 
     liberalization. Lift the PSN restriction now.''
       Most of the U.S. telecommunications industry wants Anselmo 
     and others to have the access to PSNs: Literally dozens of 
     telecommunications users, satellite makers, and others filed 
     comments on his behalf with the Federal Communications 
     Commission last February.
       That prompted Intelsat to recommend Anselmo be given 100 
     PSN circuits to use--an amount Anselmo says is ``like having 
     a billion dollars in your pockets and saying, `Here's a 
     penny.' '' He exaggerates, yet according to spokespersons at 
     both Intelsat and the F.C.C., 100 circuits is, indeed, a 
     pittance.
       But the game seems destined to change. Orion Network 
     Systems Inc. is close to launching its two satellites, and 
     Anselmo is negotiating to order three. And chances are, every 
     bird will be booked: The last few years have seen explosive 
     growth in satellite news services, fax transmissions, video 
     teleconferencing, private telephone networks, and bank/credit 
     data communication--the latter of which increased over 40-
     fold from 1970 to 1985, and could soon account for 40 percent 
     of all telecommunications traffic.

[[Page E 1897]]

       At present, however, it's still a poker game with an 
     enormous ante. Anselmo's first satellite cost a cut-rate $47 
     million; slightly more advanced ones are double that now. 
     ``And launch costs have quadrupled,'' Anselmo says. ``You 
     have an $80 million satellite, an $80 million launch, another 
     $32 million for insurance--and then it's $10 million a year 
     [operating and maintenance costs] for 13 years,'' the average 
     life of a communications satellite. Now add in the cost of a 
     satellite earthstation teleport in Homestead, Florida, and 40 
     or so employees.
       Each bird Anselmo puts up will top out, he figures, at $40 
     million in revenue a year. ``You're making money there,'' 
     Anselmo says. ``But owning satellites is not a good business 
     in itself. You have to develop services. Let's say you're an 
     airline. You want to put in VSATs, these dishes for data, and 
     hook up travel agencies all over the place, so they can get 
     into the computer via satellite. Now the airline doesn't want 
     to operate that. So you provide that service: You install the 
     stations, take care of them, provide the satellite 
     transmission--there's money there.''
       ``You don't do these things to make money,'' Anselmo 
     claims. ``You do and you don't. I'm doing it to give me 
     something to do, and I just love breaking up this whole 
     monopolistic system--all these state-owned telecommunications 
     systems that don't provide good service in their countries 
     and don't let anyone else provide it. I'd just love to break 
     up that system,'' he says, tilting his lance.

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