TV programmers cater more and more to Hispanic market

December 10, 2006
By Michelle Miron

Television-programming companies continue to compete for the Latino market dollar in the United States and throughout southwestern Michigan.

Programming companies that five years ago offered little in the way of Spanish-language channels have beefed up their packages to offer 35 or more channels in Spanish.

Local contenders that have increased programming in recent years include EchoStar Satellite LLC (DISH Network), Charter Communications, Comcast Corp. and DirecTV Inc. And locally available channels now feature a variety of subjects, including sports, movies, entertainment, news and public interest, music and education.

Comcast has offered Latino programming for several years, according to Jerome Espy, its director of communications for Michigan. But it added more culture-specific channels this year to appeal to a broader market.

``Holland has a significant Hispanic population, as (do) other parts of western Michigan,'' he said. ``This is really about giving customers more of what they want, and Michigan has a very rich and diverse population, so we want to make sure the programming we offer reflects that diversity.''

Reed Business Information reports that DirecTV has also used aggressive marketing to expand its U.S. Latino subscriber base for its Hispanic package -- from 347,000 in January 2004 to more than 1 million in the spring of 2006. The segment represented about 6.5 percent of its customer base at that time.

The goal is a bigger share of a U.S. market that the National Latino Media Council says is 39 million strong (with an additional 4 million in Puerto Rico). Latinos in the U.S. have annual buying power of close to $653 billion, the council reports, and 2003 figures show Latinos spent about $12 billion on entertainment.

The Spanish-language TV market has remained largely untapped in recent years, according to a study released in February by Rincon & Associates. The Dallas-based research firm says that's partly because Latinos who watch English-language television have been undercounted by Nielsen Media Research.

But a study released last month by Reed Business Information shows that many programmers are showing closer interest in the Latino market -- especially second- and third-generation Latinos, who are expected to represent 47 percent of the group's U.S. population growth in the next two decades.

``The nation's largest minority group has become a major part of the increasingly competitive multichannel landscape,'' Reed reported. ``Hispanics are not only the country's fastest-growing ethnic group, they also have lower penetration rates for multichannel video packages, making them an increasingly important battleground between cable and satellite.''

Source: Michigan Live