Hispanic Cable Television Landscape

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Hispanic Cable Television Landscape

By Elena Marroquin, Strategy Director
Tapestry Partners

The growth in Hispanic population has translated into more Hispanic homes subscribing to cable and satellite every day, catching the attention of top media companies in the English-language world. Disney, Fox, Turner and NBC have either added "en Español" to some of their signature properties, or are developing new ones all together.

Galavisión, Univision's cable entity, continues its reign as the largest Spanish-language cable network. Its biggest advantage: 100% analog distribution, which no other cable network will likely ever be able to claim. This means new Hispanic subscribers do not need to pay for digital tiers to get top-notch Mexican league soccer, World Cup matches and news.

Their refocus in 2002 to more Televisa-supplied programming means a stronger following of Mexicans looking for the staples of programming from home: the long running comedy of El Chavo, classic novelas and the always popular Mexican wrestling.

Telemundo's young-adult network, Mun2, is bilingual, hip and happening. Their focus is the 18-34 urban crowd which means you've got to be prepared to hear lots of English with Spanish sayings or in between. Smart name too. Mun2 is pronounced "moon dos", or mundos, meaning two worlds, symbolic of the context in which their target audience lives. One of only three networks currently measured by Nielsen, Mun2 is enjoying the ad dollars from marketers looking for this crowd.

One of the first successes of the extension of a general market brand is Fox Sport World en Español. This network first enjoyed strong penetration in Latin America before coming back into the U.S. with an "en Español" offering. And while Mexican soccer and sports news is a necessary staple of any sports network hoping to steal share from Galavisión, FSWE has also discovered its undeniable advantage in international soccer. FSWE is a must-have in any South American immigrant home in the U.S. looking for their Argentine, Brazilian, Colombian or Chilean league soccer. Now Nielsen monitored, FSWE is proving to new advertisers what many of the early advertising partners learned five years ago: FSWE has a loyal base of viewers and their premier events such as Copa Libertadores do an excellent job of enticing new sports fans to spend some quality time with the network.

ESPN Deportes is now the next player looking to reach Hispanic sports fans. No doubt they will leverage the strength of the U.S. brand which is well-known in Latin America for offering top U.S.and international spo rts programming and news.

Now a 24-hour network since January 2004, ESPN Deportes is enjoying the benefits of cross promotion on ESPN and ESPN 2, and likely to be drawing bilingual sports fanatics eager to get the inside scoop and stats on their favorite

Hispanic athletes. Finally more coverage on the true stars of Major League Baseball, los latinos! Their broad sports programming will also deliver sports enthusiasts not being reached elsewhere with cycling and x-treme sports.

Keep an eye on SiTV over the next few years. We wouldn’t be surprised if this network gives other urban networks such as BET and MTV a run for their money and audience. The network launched February 2004 with a handful of original and syndicated urban programming with Latino appeal. Their strength will likely be their programming and their L.A. based operation where talent (from writers to on-camera) is ripe…and not necessarily Hispanic either. This is not a bilingual network like Mun2, this is an English-language cable network with Hispanic flavor.

One of the U.S. network brands with strongest affinity among Latin Americans is the Discovery Channel. This network has had enormous success in Spanish-speaking countries and is now growing its distribution of the "en Español" network within the U.S. Discovery en Español is l i kely to be one of the networks that drive Hispanics to subscribe to cable's digital tiers. Advertisers looking for the older and upscale side of the 18-49 crowd are likely to hit a homerun here.

For many U.S. Hispanics, CNN en Español represents the brand equity of a respected news product from the U.S. in the language they understand. Twenty-four hour news and information programming means audiences don’t have to wait until the network news hour on Univision and Telemundo.

In Summer 2004, VOY, which translates into "I go", will launch as an English-language cable network targeting U.S. Hispanics; although here too we suspect VOY will successfully attract non-Hispanics as well.

Their programming will strive to provide a cultural bridge between Latinos and other Americans with an upscale twist on interview shows, the music and club scenes keep cooking shows and biographies.

Viacom has successfully extended the MTV brand to the Spanish world with MTV en Español, the only cable network to broadcast 24 hours a day Spanish rock videos. The network taps Hispanic youth looking for alternatives to Mexican regional and Caribbean music. Its core product is alternative rock en Español from across Latin America.

Though we’ve seen some adve tisers starting to take notice and leverage MTV en Español as part of an overall MTV strategy, their limited distribution continues to be a challenge.

La Familia Network is a general interest alternative for Spanish-speaking families. Their programming lineup includes a little bit of everything from a children's block to novelas, talk shows and some sports programming from Gol TV. Its affiliation with the Inspiration Networks ensures wholesome content to help parents provide better viewing options for their children. Although they’ve been around since 2002, distribution is still limited and we suspect this has something to do with its lukewarm appeal to cable operators.

VHUno, the Spanish-language spin-off of VHOne offers U.S. Hispanics another 24-hour music video alternative that focuses on latin pop, contemporary ballads, tropical salsa & meringue and urban hip hop. As a result, VHUno is likely to have an East skew to its audience.

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