Guillermo Descalzi @ Radio Unica.

After a television career spanning nearly 30 years, the dean of Spanish-language network news and reality-based programs, Guillermo Descalzi, is trading in the cameras for a radio mike.

The globe-trotting reporter, anchor, author and former TV debate show host, who has interviewed every sitting U.S. president since Jimmy Carter and practically every head of state in the Western Hemisphere, will now host his own coast-to-coast, interactive talk show on Radio Unica, beginning July 1. It will be called, “Descalzi en Directo” (Descalzi Live).

“I have wanted to do radio for a long, long time,” said Mr. Descalzi, who until his resignation last month was the Telemundo Network’s Chief News Correspondent. “Radio is by far the most important medium in the Hispanic market. However, until Radio Unica came along four years ago, it was strictly a local medium. Now, I have the best of both worlds – the most effective and dynamic medium for reaching our community and a national platform from which to do so.”

Radio Unica Chairman & CEO Joaquín Blaya, who personally recruited Mr. Descalzi, called his acquisition “a major coup,” and “a development that is sure to transform the face of Spanish-language radio.”

“Guillermo is a legend in the Hispanic community nationwide,” Mr. Blaya said. “That’s because he is more than just an award-winning journalist and news commentator, who has covered some of the most important international developments of the past three decades. He is also a warm, passionate and caring individual, whose brief personal struggle with chemical dependency and homelessness, as well as subsequent recovery, has endeared him to countless Spanish-speaking audiences throughout the country.”

A year ago, Mr. Descalzi authored El Príncipe de los Mendigos (The Beggar Prince), a best-selling book that chronicles his tragic fall from grace, and life on the streets of the nation’s capital, where he had earlier been a well-respected and admired journalist. Since his recovery, he has used that dramatic experience to lecture to student and church groups on a regular basis about the perils of drug abuse.

On Radio Unica, Mr. Descalzi will have an opportunity to continue that personal mission, as well as to speak on and interact with the audience about a host of other issues affecting Hispanics nationwide. He plans to take his show on the road often in an effort to reach out to the community on a more personal and direct level.

“Descalzi en Directo” will air Monday-Friday, 10 AM–Noon/Eastern Time (7-9 AM/Pacific). One of the various, innovative segments it will include is, “Héroes del Pueblo” (Heroes of the People), which will feature interviews with ordinary Hispanics around the country who have performed extraordinary acts of bravery. Another one, “Familiares Perdidos” (Missing Relatives), will report on and track down listeners’ long-lost family members, as well as post their photos on Radio Unica’s website (www.radiounica.com).