What did the world that was put forward by the ethnic media look like on May 11, 2005? It varied significantly, depending on where you looked.
The violation of “No-Fly” Washington, D.C. airspace by a small plane, a big story in mainstream and some ethnic news outlets, didn’t even crack the paper the next day in Rumbo de Houston, that city’s Spanish-language daily newspaper. Instead, news of a mosquito infected with West Nile virus was the big news. On local Spanish-language TV in Houston, a Hispanic man killed when his car was hit by the city’s light rail system was a major story.
One national Spanish-language newscast led with the airspace violation, but the other led with the court appearance of an Illinois man accused of killing his 8-year-old daughter and her friend. Iraq, meanwhile, made nary an appearance in any of the outlets, while the topic of immigration was a part of the news mix of each in one way or another.
Our Day in the Life of the News sample of ethnic outlets from May 11 was a mix of different kinds of media.
National ethnic media are hard to find, but we recorded two newscasts, Univision’s and Telemundo’s. Beyond that, we captured the local ethnic media —newspaper, TV and radio — in Houston, Milwaukee and Bend, Ore. We recorded two local Spanish-language newscasts, both in Houston . Among the cities we chose there was only one foreign-language daily newspaper, Rumbo de Houston. None of the Spanish-language radio we recorded in our cities had meaningful news content. We also looked at one African-American publication, a weekly community newspaper in the Milwaukee area, the Milwaukee Community Journal.
The sample, while admittedly small, revealed noticeable differences in what audiences got from those outlets.
Spanish-Language Outlets
The Hispanic media aren’t simply copies of others in a different language. They tend to be broader in the scope of their topics and in the geographic regions they cover, and that is true for local outlets as well as national ones. Stories affecting members of the local ethnic community are given heavy treatment.
Take, for example, the newscast for KXLN, the Univision affiliate in Houston. On May 11, it opened with an interview with a family whose son lost his legs jumping from a moving train five days earlier. That piece was followed by comments from visitors to the station’s Web page about railroad safety. Then came a second-day piece about a man who was killed when he was struck by a city light rail train.
The newscast did a serious, lengthy piece on religion. The story focused on a Hispanic woman who was a member of the Episcopal clergy and raised the question why women can’t be priests in the Catholic Church. The report wasn’t just a profile. It waded into meatier religious topics, at one point quoting a local monsignor about why women are not allowed to be priests. It then challenged his reading of Scripture by noting that supporters of woman priests also quote the Bible. And the piece was just Part 1 of a multi-part series.
The plane scare that dominated cable and network evening news that day, when it did appear on KXLN, got only one paragraph, more than half-way through the newscast.
That was followed by a longish story about the discovery of a mosquito carrying the West Nile Virus in Houston and the fumigation scheduled for the affected area. Immigration made an appearance in two pieces — one about emergency health care for illegal immigrants and a short item on the Mexican government’s reaction to the U.S. government’s plan to make driver’s licenses harder to get.
And the local newscasts reached out further, geographically and otherwise, for some of their topics. For instance, Telemundo’s local newscast on KTMD did a lengthy feature on the city of Alvarado in Mexico ’s Veracruz State , hundreds of miles down the Gulf coast from the Texas border. The city is known as “the place where the most dirty-mouthed people live,” and the story was filled with bleeped expletives. At one point the reporter interviewed a resident of the region who told him, “It’s very common here for someone to say, ‘**** your mother,’ and I will answer, ‘**** yours.’ We talk like that.”
A numeric accounting of the topics that appeared on Houston ’s local Spanish-language TV is revealing. Consider, for example, that traditional staple of local TV news, crime. It was in short supply on those newscasts, only 16% of their newshole. That is far lower than the 42% that mainstream local TV spends on the topic.1
Government news barely cracked the local newscasts we saw on May 11 — only 6% of all coverage. That was less than the government coverage on mainstream local news that night, which weighed in at 9%. But foreign relations was a much bigger part of the Spanish-language newscasts, with just under 15% of the stories. English-language local TV did only about 4% of its stories on the topic.2
National Spanish-Language TV
The national Spanish-language newscasts looked different from each other and from their English-language counterparts. Telemundo opened its May 11 newscast with three different crime stories from across the country — murders in California, Illinois and Texas — before turning to a relatively short piece on the plane scare in Washington.
Univision, meanwhile, opened with a lengthy package on the plane scare. It quoted a range of people — the Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Hispanic Congressional employee, and President Oscar Berger of Guatemala, who had been in the Capitol for trade talks.
The pieces on the two networks were different in tone as well. The Univision story at several points drew comparisons to September 11, 2001, and relayed complaints from evacuees that it was difficult to clear the Capitol. The Telemundo piece emphasized that the Capitol was empty in “seconds.” The report quoted the president of El Salvador, who was visiting the Capitol, as saying the evacuation “was very effective, and that only a few cell phones were lost. And someone ripped their pants.”
Immigration matters and the accounts of struggling immigrants also played a big role in the national Spanish-language newscasts. On May 11, Univision’s “Noticiero” did an update of a story on thousands of New York residents who were going to lose their drivers’ licenses because they did not have valid Social Security cards. “Today, on the other hand, thanks to a judicial decision, there is hope,” anchorman Jorge Ramos told his audience. “Although, as Blana Rosa Vilchez of New York says, we should not get overconfident.”
The use of the word “we” is interesting because of the way it links the identity of the station with its audience. “On your side” isn’t just a marketing phrase for these newscasts. There is a definite feeling that the news is aimed at a particular community, and that the station is working with its viewers.
On May 11, Telemundo’s “Noticiero” did a piece focusing on Springdale , N.Y. , where the rape and murder of a housewife, apparently by a Guatemalan worker, had created distrust toward immigrant workers. The story featured some of the same “we’re in this together” viewpoint. “The workers simply state that they are paying for the actions of one person,” said the reporter. “This is taking away their daily bread as workers: because of one, everyone has to pay.”
And both networks were interested in news south of the border. Both had a story about Mexican soap opera actors hit by a car in Mexico City . Telemundo had several other pieces from Mexico, including a story about how the U.S. embassy denied a humanitarian visa to a woman whose husband had been beaten in New Jersey, violence in the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, and the death of an actress in Mexico City who had a heart attack when she thought she was being robbed.
Looking at the geographic focus of the stories covered — what the stories were about rather than where they were reported from — Spanish-language TV really stood out. On May 11 Univision’s national newscast included stories about the arrest of 400 youths by the government of Cuba, the man who ran over Mexican actors on a street in Mexico City, and the increase in fake versions of drugs like Viagra coming over the Mexican border into the U.S. Even the story of the Washington plane scare took a different approach with its interviews with Hispanic witnesses.
The numbers make the differences between the Spanish-language outlets and their English-language counterparts clear. Roughly 36% of the stories on all the Spanish-language TV newscasts we examined were about international topics.3 That is far above local TV’s 9% and cable’s 29%, though less than the national evening TV news with 48%.4
Perhaps because of Telemundo’s heavy focus on murders, crime coverage in the national Spanish-language newscasts was high, 28%, well above the 19% on the network newscasts.5
As for the specific topic of foreign relations, Spanish-language newscasts stuck out for the large amount they had at national level, just as they did at the local level. The national newscasts devoted about 19% of their stories to such news, almost twice the 10% the mainstream network evening newscasts carried. The national Spanish-language newscasts looked a bit more like their English-language counterparts in the amount of their government coverage — 16% for Spanish-language, 17% for English-language.6
Spanish-Language in Print
The lone Spanish newspaper in the cities in we examined in our Day in the Life study, the tabloid Rumbo de Houston, had a different approach from the English-language newspapers.
Crime, for instance, barely made an appearance in the May 12 Rumbo de Houston. Indeed the paper was less focused on crime (12% of space) than any other newspaper type we examined.7 The only traditional crime-focused story was about an attack on a journalist in Nuevo Laredo , the town near the U.S.-Mexican border where the lawlessness had became national news in the U.S.
Local news, however, was not lost in the issue. On the front page, the paper featured a large story on the mosquitoes infected with the West Nile virus, followed by a piece about the death on the city’s light rail system, which the paper called “one of the most dangerous transportation systems in the whole country.” There was a story about the regulation of Houston taco stands and one on the “pressures” involved in the mayor’s prodding of firefighters on a contract.
National news did not figure prominently in May 12th’s Rumbo. There wasn’t a story with a national focus until page 6, and that was a preview of a local meeting about military base closings. On page 8 there was a piece on a potential new law that would make drivers’ licenses more uniform. The war in Iraq didn’t make an appearance until page 9 (out of 12 pages total), which had a short item about the number of deaths since the installation of a new Iraqi government. And the small plane that violated D.C. airspace wasn’t even mentioned.
We again saw the foreign focus we found on Spanish-language TV. Just after the opening local stories, page three carried a piece about how residents of El Salvador would have to use an extra digit to make calls in the country. Other stories reported on money being shipped from immigrants in the U.S. to friends and family in Mexico , on the Mexican government’s opposition to the building of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and various short items about Central and South America (the subjects of eight stories in all).
Rumbo was more like its English-language counterparts in some ways. Roughly 25% of the newshole in the 12-page tabloid was devoted to government, compared with 27% for national newspapers, 23% for suburban papers and 19% for metro newspapers. About 10% of the hole in Rumbo was devoted to foreign relations, compared to 11% in the national papers and 8% in the metro papers (it’s probably not a surprise that suburban papers did little foreign coverage, 2%). Domestic issues got roughly the same amount of coverage in Rumbo as in other metro papers, with both devoting roughly 14% to the topics.8
On the whole 47% of the Spanish-language stories we examined had an international focus. That far outstripped all the other types of papers: metro (24%), suburban (8%) and even national (30%).9
Spanish-language papers were close to the metro-paper average when it came to journalist opinion — neither had much, only 3% of stories and 2%, respectively.10
African-American Media
The African-American paper we captured, the weekly Milwaukee Community Journal, provided content that was truly community-based in almost every sense of the term. The content was either about African Americans, about Milwaukee, or both. Its content fit with what we’ve found in previous years in this report. The African-American press, published in English and generally published weekly, is not designed to serve as a substitute for the mainstream media but as a complement.
The front page of the paper presented a look at the mix inside. One story reported that the Police Athletic League facility in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods was being put up for sale because of the PAL’s bankruptcy. Another noted that the national unemployment rate for African-Americans was twice the national average. Another described a lawsuit being filed against the city by individuals claiming their constitutional rights were violated by the Milwaukee police.
The pieces had a definite point of view and were as intent on stirring action as they were on reporting facts. The PAL story gave readers contact information for anyone interested in the bidding process. The lawsuit story didn’t include a comment from the police department, but it not only outlined the lawsuit in detail, it also quoted a letter from a Milwaukee alderman requesting an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.
But the unemployment story may offer the most telling sign of the paper’s point of view. The piece presented opinion as fact. It called the unemployment numbers “another in a series of blows that the American middle class has suffered under the Bush administration” and added that the Bush budget “fails to promote security or to honor our veterans.” It then said, “Democrats will keep fighting for the values that will strengthen the American middle class.”
The paper carried an article about a local church’s “Day of Restoration” designed to bring the community together to discuss its problems. A lengthy piece reported recent parties and events in the community attended by a columnist from the paper — everything from a high school recognizing attendance and its honor roll to a lecture by the singer Patti LaBelle. There was also a lengthy piece on marijuana and mental health.
Footnotes
1. PEJ research.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
Audience
Circulation and audience figures for the print side of the ethnic media are difficult to track in the traditional way. Absent large groups to gather the data across the various languages, researchers are left to piece together what they can city-by-city. And often the numbers gathered are publisher estimates that, to attract advertisers, could be made to look larger than they really are.
Spanish-Language Media
The Spanish-language media have the most organized audience data of the ethnic groups, and the picture is something of a reversal from past years. For the first time since 2000, the data suggest that Spanish-language newspapers lost circulation. The audience for television, however, appears to be growing.
The Latino Print Network, a coalition of Hispanic print news outlets (roughly 90% of which are published in Spanish) gathers data from across the country. Even with those figures, the state of the Spanish-language newspaper audience is hard to pin down, and it should be noted that LPN is not an impartial source. But it seems 2004 was a down year in audience for Spanish-language newspapers.
Until 2004, every year for which the Latino Print Network has data (going back intermittently to 1970) had brought new records in circulation and in the number of publications. But in 2004 circulation dropped to 16.7 million from 17.4 million, according to LPN.1 Most of the losses came in daily and weekly newspapers. Monthly and semi-monthly papers showed an increase, according to the figures.
Despite declines in circulation, the LPN data also show that the number of newspapers increased at all levels, dailies from 40 to 42, weeklies from 304 to 317, less-than-weeklies from 322 to 345.2
The biggest question about the LPN data, however, is reliability. Out of the 42 dailies papers for which it gathers numbers, only 18 are audited. Only 75 of the 317 weeklies are audited, and only 8 of the 345 less-than-weekly papers.3
The figures for three of the largest audited dailies suggest clear differences in audience trends in three cities with very different ethnic populations.
In Los Angeles , La Opinion was enjoying growth. The paper averaged 125,624 in circulation in 2004 (the latest available audited figures) up from 117,817 in 2001, an increase of 7%.4 In Miami , the numbers were essentially flat for El Nuevo Herald — 88,977 in 2004 and 88,904 in 2001.5 And in New York , El Diario was experiencing declines. The paper had a circulation of 50,105 in the third quarter of 2004, compared with 55,397 in the third quarter of 2001 — a drop of about 10%.6 (The general trend for English-language daily newspaper circulation in 2005 was down, though figures varied from city to city.7)
There are a number of possible reasons for the disparity between cities. One is the editorial product each paper provides. And the specific media environments differ; some papers face more serious competition than others, as El Diario has with Hoy. There is also the fact that these are different populations. They may all speak Spanish, but their national origins are varied — the Miami area has a large Cuban population, New York has many Dominicans and Los Angeles is heavily Mexican. Whatever the reason, geography seems to matter with Spanish-language newspapers.
Spanish-language television news may have even more potential than print, considering the amount of television viewed in Hispanic homes. Hispanic households, according to Nielsen Media Research, watch much more television than U.S. households in general, and that is true across all age groups. Again, that isn’t to say all those homes are Spanish-language-dominant, but they are more likely to watch Spanish-language TV than homes at large. (There is some debate within the television industry about how Hispanic homes are measured by Nielsen. For more on the controversy see the Network TV chapter.)
What’s more, the number of Hispanic households with televisions is growing. In the 2004-2005 TV season 10.91 million of them had televisions, up from 9.73 million in 2002-2003, an increase of 12%. Over the same period, the number of TV households where Spanish was the primary language grew by about 19%, from 4.26 million to 5.06 million.8
Who is in the best position to capitalize on this growth?
One company — Univision — continued to dominate Spanish-language television. Its flagship Univision network reached 98% of all U.S. Hispanic households in 2005, according to the network. Its second network, TeleFutura, aimed at younger viewers, was launched in 2002 and reached 86% of U.S. Hispanic households, the network said.9
Univision remained the fifth most watched network in the U.S. over all in 2005, holding steady in that position from 2004. And its demographics, which benefit from the younger Hispanic population, are impressive.10 In the third quarter of 2005, Univision’s 18-to-49 audience averaged 1.98 million prime-time viewers, an increase of 19% over the third quarter of 2004. In prime time, the network ranked second over all in average viewership among 18-34-year-olds in the third quarter of 2005, behind only Fox. And Univision was the No. 1 prime-time network among viewers 18 to 49 in Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Fresno and Bakersfield.11
It is worth noting, though, that Univision’s robust figures come in part from the fact that the network’s competition is the more fragmented English-language broadcast media market, where ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are competing against not just one another but cable as well.
Still, those numbers reveal an impressive market for Spanish-language television and Univision’s dominance of it. There are signs, however, that NBC-owned Telemundo, still a distant second in the race (and recently even third behind TeleFutura), is gaining some ground. In the third quarter of 2005, Telemundo reclaimed its spot as the No. 2 Spanish-language network behind Univision in prime time. And while TeleFutura still leads in all other parts of the day, Telemundo finally appeared to be gaining some momentum.
Ethnic Media Audience Survey
In addition to circulation and ratings data, 2005 marked the release of a massive survey on the readership habits of ethnic media users. The polling firm Bendixen and Associates and New California Media surveyed 1,895 media users of various languages and ethnic backgrounds from around the country.
Its central findings were that as of 2005, 51 million Americans, 24% of U.S. adults, are either primary or secondary consumers of ethnic media,12 and that primary consumers, those who prefer ethnic media over mainstream outlets, make up 13% of the adult population, or 29 million people, on their own.13
The survey was produced for an ethnic media organization, but the findings still suggest that the ethnic media play a significant role in the American media landscape, influencing the views of a large number of citizens of various ethnic backgrounds. The findings also suggest that more study of those media is needed.
Within ethnic groups and subgroups there are notable differences in the extent of their use of media and in what kind of media are preferred. Hispanics are by far the heaviest users over all. A full 87% of Hispanics use one form of ethnic media or another14 (a Pew Hispanic Center survey puts that figure at 69%)15. African-Americans and Arab Americans are next, with 74% using some form of ethnic media. Then come Asian-Americans at 70% and Native Americans at 64%.16
Looking at the kind of media preferred reveals other differences among the ethnic groups. Hispanics rely most heavily on ethnic television — 78% watch Spanish-language TV primarily or secondarily. African-Americans, on the other hand, rely more heavily on ethnic radio; 58% of them tune in to it. And Native Americans look mostly to native-language newspapers; 47% turn to their ethnic printed pages.17
Ethnic Television Use by Population Group |
Percent who say they are primary or secondary ethnic TV consumers
|
|
Design Your Own Chart |
Those numbers may have as much to do with the forms available in each language as with preferences among the ethnic groups. For instance, the high penetration of ethnic newspapers among Native Americans has more than a little to do with the tradition and strength of that group’s press, which is situated in areas densely populated by its audiences, while there is little Native American TV programming. And the high ethnic television use by Arab Americans is, in part, attributable to satellite television, which brings programming from overseas.
In each medium, though, Hispanics are the leaders in “primary consumers” of ethnic media. They are tied with African-Americans in ethnic radio use and lead outright in the other media. Why?
The answer is probably twofold. First, in sheer numbers, Hispanics make up such a large part of the population that they have reached a kind of critical mass that has allowed their media to grow far faster than those of other ethnic groups. Those media, which are now national, can go beyond what many other ethnic media offer and can more easily be a substitution for other mainstream outlets. Second, roughly three quarters of Hispanics share a common language rather than a common national background, giving the media a broader audience base — immigrants from Puerto Rico and El Salvador as well as Mexico, for example. New California Media’s National Ethnic Media Directory has more than 130 pages listing all the Spanish-language print, radio and television outlets. No other ethnic group has even 90 pages, and some of the others have several different languages represented in their outlets.18
Access to various media obviously influences the extent of their use. Only 10% of Hispanics visit ethnic Web sites, while 45% of Arab Americans do, according to the New California Media survey.19
Internet Use by Ethnic Groups |
Percent who say they are primary or secondary ethnic internet consumers
|
|
Design Your Own Chart |
What is it ethnic groups are looking for from their media? The NCM poll finds that nearly every ethnic group studied turns first to ethnic outlets when looking for information on their “native country” or “ethnic community,” news generally not covered by the English-language media. But mainstream media are the choice for information on “politics and government” in the U.S.
Which media do various ethnic groups rely on more heavily for information on their native lands and communities? |
|
|
Design Your Own Chart |
Which media do various ethnic groups rely on more heavily for news on politics and government? |
|
|
Design Your Own Chart |
Nor are the ethnic media a means of translating what people who have language barriers could otherwise get from the English-language press. The mainstream and ethnic media are by and large complementary.
Here too, however, there are differences between Hispanics and other ethnic groups. They are the only group to turn consistently to their native-language media for traditional ethnic-media issues and government coverage. And the fact that Hispanics so readily turn to Spanish-language outlets may be partly because those outlets are more developed than other ethnic media. Spanish-language are the only ethnic media so far that have developed beyond a local presence. They have national outlets with large organizations that can invest more in newsgathering. They can go beyond what other ethnic media do and devote time and money to covering city, state and national politics.
That finding, along with the large number of secondary ethnic media users, raises the question whether the ethnic media are primarily a transitional convenience for immigrants. Would other ethnic groups do what Spanish-speakers do and turn to their native-language outlets if broader coverage was available?
It may be a question that remains unanswered, at least for some time. Lacking a common language, other ethnic groups are ultimately Vietnamese media, say, or Korean media, more than Asian media. But if immigrant populations continue to grow and targeting audiences by satellite programming or the Internet becomes easier, it is conceivable other ethnic groups could develop broader media as well.
Footnotes
1. “Hispanic Publications in 2004,” Kirk Whisler & Latino Print Network, Carlsbad. Calif.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Audit Bureau of Circulations, La Opinion Publisher’s Statement Monday – Friday figures.
5. Audit Bureau of Circulations, El Nuevo Herald Publisher’s Statement, Monday – Saturday figures.
6. Audit Bureau of Circulations, El Diario Publisher’s Statement, Monday - Friday.
7. In that same period the Los Angeles Times lost readers, but an exact comparison is impossible because the circulation measurements were based on different days. The Miami Herald saw a slight increase and the three main dailies in New York (the Times, Daily News and Post) saw increases.
8. Nielsen Media Research chart, Hispanic-American TV Population Growth Trends.
9. Univision 2005 Third-Quarter Results press release.
10. Some experts note that the biggest growth in young Hispanics under 18 is among the native-born, who are not major consumers of Spanish-language TV. But at the same time the proportion of “foreign-born” children increased from 2.7% to 3.7% between 1990 and 2000. And considering the number of immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries, many of those children are probably Spanish-speakers.
11. Univision 2005 Third-Quarter Results press release.
12. The survey was paid for by an ethnic media organization, and the samples for some ethnic groups were smaller than others.
13. New California Media Poll, The Ethnic Media in America: The Giant Hidden in Plain Sight.
14. Ibid.
15. Changing Channels and Crisscrossing Cultures: A Survey of Latinos on the News Media, April 2004.
16. New California Media Poll, The Ethnic Media in America: The Giant Hidden in Plain Sight.
17. Ibid.
18. New California Media Directory, National Ethnic Media, 2 nd Edition.
19. New California Media Poll, The Ethnic Media in America: The Giant Hidden in Plain Sight.
Ownership and Economics
Economics
Economics
If the audience for the ethnic media is massive, is there also massive potential for economic gain? The data suggest that the answer is both yes and no. Different ethnicities often mean different languages, which often means fragmented audiences. While it is true that news organizations and their economics have often been defined by local markets, they do need some sort of critical mass, a certain amount of geographic concentration.
Until 2005, the Spanish-language media provided the only real exception to that rule because of their audience’s common language. Spanish-speakers from Cuba in Florida, or from Puerto Rico in New York, or from Mexico in Texas and California can all watch Univision or Telemundo. Print circulations can be aggregated and ads can be sold on a national scale.
But 2005 witnessed something new: the cable company Comcast took a step toward nationalizing the Asian-American media market. In January, the company announced it was going to “rebrand and reprogram” its International Channel Networks, a collection of channels devoted to programming in different languages. It would now focus just on Asian-Americans under a new name AZN Television.
The station is a hybrid native-language outlet. It offers programming for a pan-Asian audience in English that is aimed in particular at the young — “prime time programming in English, you know your language,” says one advertisement. But it also offers films and TV shows in Manadarin, Thai, Japanese, Hindi, Korean and Vietnamese.
That a company with the national reach of Comcast has created an “Asian programming” channel suggests that the mainstream media companies are beginning to recognize the broader ethnic market as one they want to tap. But the effort has already run into some problems. In late 2005, Comcast announced it was restructuring the network and cutting its staff by about 30, roughly half.1 Still, AZN is a move with potentially large implications for the future of ethnic media ownership (more on that later in this section).
The financial potential, however, still trails far behind the Spanish-language outlets. AZN is an experiment that exists only on cable and through one provider. The Spanish-language media are the most mature ethnic sector today and the only one that offers any kind of real, nationalized financial data.
Spanish-Language Media
The Spanish-language newspaper industry offers a fairly solid sense of the financial picture. The Latino Print Network collects the data, though much of it is self-reported and un-audited and therefore has not been substantiated. The information, however, is the only set of nationalized economic data.
Going by those figures, 2004 was another good year financially for Spanish-language newspapers. Despite declines in print circulation, overall ad revenues were up for daily, weekly and less-than-weekly newspapers, climbing to $923 million from $854 million in 2003, an increase of 8%.2
The biggest growth came in the 317 weekly papers the Latino Print Network studies. Those went from $282 million in ad revenue in 2003 to $324 million in 2004.3 On the whole, that meant weekly papers accounted for 35% of all ad revenues among Spanish-language newspapers in 2004, up from 33% in 2003. But 42 daily Spanish-language newspapers still made up the bulk of ad revenues by far, 61% of the whole in 2004.4
Who is doing the advertising in Spanish-language newspapers? The figures from the Latino Print Network show that national ad dollars are a relatively modest source of revenue for daily and weekly newspapers. Local ads made up 82% of the total for Hispanic papers in 2004 (90% of which were published in Spanish), but 84% in 2003.5 But the differences between national and local are greater when the ad distribution is broken down by publication cycle.
In 2004, a full 20% of the ads in daily Hispanic newspapers (96% of which published in Spanish) were national, according to the Latino Print Network and Kirk Whisler. The amount of national ads also grew in weeklies in 2004, from 16% to 17%. In less-than-weekly papers, the amount of national ad dollars actually declined, from 28% in 2003 to 14% in 2004, though the dollar amounts are so much smaller in those papers that a small change in cash equals a big change in percentage.6
Newspapers weren’t alone in having a successful 2004 in Spanish-language media. The Hispanic broadcaster Univision saw its net income rise by $100 million — or more than 60% — to $255.9 million.7 And the company announced that revenues and income were up again through the first nine months of 2005.
Figures for the other large Spanish-language broadcaster, Telemundo, are difficult to find. Telemundo, as a subsidiary of NBC and a part of GE, does not release it figures separately. Reports come in bits and pieces in GE documents. For instance, a second-quarter GE financial report noted that Telemundo had signed a deal with Wal-Mart TV to produce Spanish-language segments for in-store channels.
Ownership
The biggest news about ethnic media ownership didn’t emerge until the beginning of 2006, as the Spanish-language broadcast giant Univision announced it was putting itself up for sale. The company owns and operates 62 television stations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and has branches in cable, radio and the Internet. If and when it is sold it would be a powerful tool for its new owner in an attempt to reach Spanish-speakers in the U.S., and the companies expressing interest were among the nation’s largest media operations, including News Corp., Time Warner, Disney and CBS.
Univision and Telemundo continue to be the dominant owners in Spanish-language television, with Univision far out front. With its 62 owned stations and more than 90 affiliates, it reaches 98% of U.S. Hispanic households.8
If the company is ultimately sold to one of the mainstream companies that seem to make up the bulk of the early interested parties, it would raise some serious questions for Spanish-language TV in the U. S. Would such an owner mean less Spanish-language TV production and more translated programs from the parent company? Would such ownership lead to an infusion of cash that would allow Univision to strengthen its grip on the market? Would English-language programming make it into Univision’s lineup as a way to build brand loyalty as second- and third-generation Hispanics switch over to English-language TV?
In the end, many analysts believe that if the company is sold it may well go to private equity firms looking for an investment. Large mainstream media companies potentially face problems because of federal regulations that limit overall ownership to stations that reach 39% of the nation’s television households.
After some large shakeups in the year before, 2005 was quieter again for ethnic print media. There were no large-scale mergers on a par with 2004’s uniting of La Opinion in Los Angeles, El Diario in New York and La Raza in Chicago, which made ImpreMedia the giant of Hispanic newspapers.
But ImpreMedia didn’t sit completely still. In October, it launched the Domingo Network, a free Sunday edition in the three largest cities where it has papers already. The Sunday papers are delivered to 650,000 targeted homes in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.9 The edition provides “the largest print vehicle in the top three Hispanic markets,” the company says, and aims at Latino women and households. And ImpreMedia purchased two more newspapers for its stable — El Mensajero, a weekly in the San Francisco Bay area with a circulation of 112,000, and La Prensa, a weekly in central Florida with about 50,000. The company’s weekly distribution is now 1.9 million.10
There were signs that more mainstream outlets were taking serious note of the growth of Spanish-language print outlets. In the face of falling circulations, many media companies have made forays into the ethnic media world as a way to offset lost readers.
In Boston, the well-known alternative weekly the Phoenix made a move to buy into the growing Spanish-language market by purchasing a 35% stake in El Planeta, the largest Hispanic weekly in the area. El Planeta, just launched in 2004, publishes four editions in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with a fifth slated for Connecticut .11
In magazines, several established companies and well-known titles launched Spanish-language editions in 2005. Time Warner test-launched Sports Illustrated Latino in April and distributed three issues during the year to half a million Hispanic households, subscribers to People en Espanol or to Comcast/Time Warner Hispanic programming packages. The struggling hip-hop magazine The Source launched Source Latino in May.
And investors are still looking at Spanish-language print outlets as a place for their money, though the market may be cooling off. In early 2005 Meximerica Media, which publishes the Rumbo chain of newspapers in Texas , looked to be in trouble when its original financial backers, Recoletos Grupo de Comunicacion of Spain , pulled out. In June, though, Meximerica received an investment of $18 million from Pinto America Growth Fund and Rustic Canyon Partners.12 Pinto is a Texas-based equity fund focused on companies in the U.S. Hispanic market. Rustic Canyon is a venture-capital and private-equity fund established to invest a portion of the funds created by the recapitalization of Times Mirror (later acquired by Tribune Company).
Also in June, Publicitas-LHM, the Hispanic division of the Swiss company PubliGroupe/Publicitas Promotion Network, announced plans to build a national advertising sales platform for Rumbo and Hoy Newspapers.13 The goal was to nationalize ad sales among more Spanish-language newspapers.
There were some significant closings in the Hispanic media last year as well. Zoom media, publishers of Poder and Loft magazines, lost its backing and shut down when the Columbian Universal group walked away. But both titles were niche publications, and their fate may not speak to the broader ethnic media climate. Both Poder, a Hispanic business magazine published in English and Spanish, and Loft, a Hispanic men’s lifestyle magazine published in English, were aimed at very targeted audiences, some of which were already served by other publications. And neither was primarily a Spanish-language outlet.
The biggest ownership issue for some ethnic print outlets may be the role the mainstream media will play in the future. Mainstream companies bought into the ethnic market because they saw potential for growth. But those struggling mainstream owners now may present some challenges. The deep pockets they have provided come with other strings.
In October of 2005, the Knight-Ridder company closed its Spanish-language weekly in the San Jose area, Nuevo Mundo, and began to distribute Fronteras de la Noticia, which is produced in Mexico. The company also announced it was selling Viet Mercury, its Vietnamese newspaper in San Jose.
If Knight Ridder is sold, what will happen to other ethnic outlets the company owns, such as El Nuevo Herald in Miami? Indeed, if the current wave of consolidation continues across the English-language side of the newspaper industry, what will happen to all those ethnic-media investments those companies have made? Much will probably depend on the specific company and even the specific market, but the net effect is that those outlets could face some turbulent times.
In the world of ethnic television, things are more stable. The creation of AZN by Comcast suggests that companies are looking for the next big wave to catch in ethnic TV, but it’s not clear whether it is a sure bet.
For many ethnic groups, the easiest form of TV transmission probably will continue to be satellite. Broadcast television demands a high density of people who speak the same language. New Skies Satellite has research showing that the number of ethnic channels moving around the globe expanded from 378 at the end of 2000 to roughly 1,000 at the end of 2003.14 And providers are offering those stations to viewers. Both DirecTV and the Dish Network offer extensive language- and ethnicity-specific programming, with Dish providing a wider ranger of options – everything from Polish to Farsi to Armenian. Both have a large number of Spanish-language options. Globecast, based in Paris, offers nearly 140 worldwide channels to viewers in the U.S. And Home2US, a satellite firm based in Virginia that was founded in 2003, now has more 100,000 subscribers in the U.S. viewing its offering of ethnic channels from around the world. Its goal is 600,000 to 700,000 subscribers by 2008.15
Summary
Looking at the whole picture, there is little question that the ethnic media are growing. Ad revenues, ratings figures and new startups show a market still relatively immune from the downward slide of much of the mainstream media. But there are some real questions on the horizon.
As large mainstream print outlets struggle, what will happen to the ethnic papers they started and/or joined with? Looking at how some circulations are falling and holding steady while others are rising in the Spanish-language press, have some markets reached maturity, while others are more dynamic? With a new Asian network in the offing, are mainstream media owners ready to try and nationalize other ethnic audiences? Or will different dialects and languages get in the way of nationalizing groups that are not Spanish-speakers?
Footnotes
1. Wallenstein, Andrew, “Comcast Reworks AZN Plan, Cuts Staff,” Reuters, December 11, 2005.
2. “Hispanic Publication Advertising Sales in 2004,” Latino Print Network, Carlsbad, Calif.
3. "Hispanic Publication Advertising Sales in 2004" and “Hispanic Publication Advertising Sales in 2003,” Latino Print Network, Carlsbad, Calif.
4. “Hispanic Publication Advertising Sales in 2004,” Latino Print Network, Carlsbad, Calif.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Hoovers.com, Univision Communications fact sheet.
8. Univision 2005 Third-Quarter Results press release.
9. Higuera, Jonathan, Print Reorganizes, Hispanic Business.com, December 2005.
10. ImpreMedia press release, “ ImpreMedia Enters Florida Market with Purchase of La Prensa,” January 31 2006.
11. Pfeiffer, Sacha, “Phoenix Buys into El Planeta,” Boston Globe, September 1, 2005.
12. Ayala, Nancy, “ ‘Rumbo’ secures $18 Million for New Investors,” Marketing y Medios, June 13, 2005.
13. Ibid.
14. Bates, Jason, EU Broadcasting: Regional Populations Creating Demand, Via Satellite, September 1, 2005 http://www.telecomweb.com/cgi/pub/via/via09010503.html
15. Ibid.
Alternative
Alternative Weeklies
Circulation among alternative weeklies was up again in 2005, according to figures from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. The average circulation among all AAN members reached 7.64 million in 2005, up from 7.58 million in 2004.1
Growth in Alternative News Weeklies |
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Member Publications, 1989 - 2005
|
|
Design Your Own Chart |
The industry is still below its all-time peak of 7.79 million in 2001. The recession hurt the weeklies, particularly in the area of national advertising, and some titles folded. But since bottoming out at 7.33 million in 2003, the weeklies have regained upward momentum in circulation.2
The demographic data for the alternative weekly audience didn’t shift in any dramatic way in 2005, though there were some very small changes recorded in an annual survey by the Alternative Weekly Network, which sells national ads for weeklies. The survey examined readers of 108 different weeklies in 72 different markets. Readers 18 to 24 years old increased to 14.8% in 2005, up from 14.3% in 2004, according to the data. The median age of readers, however, held steady at 40.3
The percentage of weekly readers who were married climbed to 48.2 in 2005, from 46.9 in 2004. And the number of readers with children at home was up to 41.3% from 40%. Both numbers represent high-water marks since 1995, the first year for which survey data were available, and the changes may represent a few trends.4
The alternative weeklies are well-established papers, entrenched in many communities as more than simply tabloids for the young. As we have mentioned in previous years, weeklies are by no means outsider publications; their readers have an average income of over $51,000 and more than 40% of them have college degrees. And the rising rate of those who are married with children in the house reinforces their broader appeal. The gap between the weeklies’ readers with a “child at home” and the market average has narrowed. In 1995, some 35.4% of such readers had a child at home, and for the market that figure was 42.4% — a difference of 7 percentage points. In 2005, 41.3% of weekly readers had a child at home, while 43.6% of the market did — a difference of only 2.3 points.5
Growth of Alternative Weekly Readers Who Have Children |
Households with a "child at home," alt weekly readers vs. market average
|
|
 Design Your Own Chart
|
Those numbers indicate not only that more households in the alternative weekly markets have children, but also that more parents are reading them. That may suggest that readers of the weeklies are not moving away from them as they grow older, but continuing to read the papers. And in coming years that may mean that weeklies will begin reaching out to different advertisers and altering their content to appeal to the older readers.
Economics
As this report was compiled the final economic data from 2005 were not yet available. But there was an interesting trend at the national level with advertising: national ads in the alternative weeklies fell after being steady for a few years.
National ads have declined over all since 2001, when they brought in about $50 million. But for a while the national ad dollars held fairly steady in the range of $30 million to $40 million, according to Mark Hanzlik of the Alternative Weekly Network, which sells national ads for 110 weeklies. In 2005, AWN was estimating, the total dropped below $30 million.6
AWN splits the national ad sales market with the Ruxton Group, a company owned by the alternative weekly publisher New Times. The two sell more or less the same amount of national ads for their clients, with a small amount of national ads being negotiated by some weeklies themselves. In 2004, AWN and Ruxton sold about $13 million in national ads each, with another $5 million being contracted by a few weeklies directly. The 2005 numbers for AWN were down to about $10.5 million. If the rest of the national ad math holds, it would put the final national ad figure around $25 million to $26 million.7
But using those numbers as a way to understand future ad sales might be difficult. In October New Times, owner of Ruxton, and the Village Voice announced that they would merge. That step will probably change the dollar split between the two major ad companies, since AWN used to sell ads for the Village Voice. But it may also change the amount of ads sold and how much they are sold for.
The merger, subject to government approval, would give the new company leverage in the marketplace. If advertisers want to reach the biggest alternative papers in New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Miami or Houston they have to go through it. On top of that, Ruxton also manages the ads for papers in Chicago, Washington and San Diego, giving the company leverage in most of the biggest markets.
And the alternative weekly reader is a desirable target for an advertiser. According to AWN research, weekly readers are 20% more likely to stay in a hotel than the market as a whole, 35% more likely to rent a car, 36% more likely to ski — as well as 67% more likely to attend a rock/pop concert and 48% more likely to frequent a bar.8
There do seem to be different economic situations for small-market and larger-market weeklies. With no final ad figures in for 2005, Richard Karpel of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies said the smaller-market publications were not yet facing the same kind of competition as their big-market brethren. The local dailies in those markets have not yet created commuter dailies or their own weekly publications. And some smaller AAN member publications, like those in Athens, Ga.; Norwalk, Conn.; Portland, Maine ; and Wausau, Wis., don’t yet have a Craigslist.com site for their towns to take away classified ads. Even in the secondary markets where Craigslist.com does have a site — Memphis, Indianapolis, Birmingham, etc. — it hasn’t had the same traction it has in the bigger markets.9
Weeklies in larger markets have had to adjust to that competition, particularly to Craigslist.com, which has large sites in big cities. Some have improved their Web classifieds to make them easier to use. Some have included new free classifieds. And some have done both.
But the fact is that numerous factors are eating into growth for large-market weeklies. The publications in larger cities are older and more mature, their growth phase largely behind them. Distribution for is tougher for them; competition for space in the street boxes and in stores is hard, and news-rack ordinances can limit space. And consider the sub-niches that have developed in large cities: often more than one daily, maybe a commuter daily, free auto advertising circulars, free real estate circulars, neighborhood publications and local Web sites designed to target specific ad areas, real estate or employment listings. Many of those competitors are less than a decade old. The large-market alternative weeklies are bleeding from dozens of little cuts.
In January 2005 the Village Voice announced a major overhaul of its online classifieds, focusing on real estate ads — the Voice’s real estate classifieds have long been the choice of renters in the city — that offered virtual tours, photos and floor plans, and comprehensive neighborhood information. “Unlike other sites, villagevoice.com users won’t sift through clutter, unwieldy navigation or outdated listings,” the weekly boasted in a press release. The site also made “for sale by owner” ads free. And beyond real estate, the online classifieds for the Voice added an area for free ads in “selected popular categories.”
And last year the other member of the Voice/New Times merger pushed forward with its free online listing, Backpage.com. Backpage is linked not only to alternative weeklies but to other outlets as (including the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio ) and is meant as competition for Craigslist. Backpage starts by offering a free listing, but then offers the advertiser a chance to spend cash to get a higher spot on the site or, for more money, to place an ad in a print outlet. So far Backpage is available in 40 markets10 with plans for more on the way, and clearly the merger with the Village Voice would expand its reach. The service also powers Univision’s classified sites in nine markets.11
New Times maintains that the service has “stopped the bleeding” at the company’s papers, but Backpage has a long way to go. In December 2005, the service received 3.3 million total visits. Craigslist has more than 10 million unique visitors a month.
The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies announced in December that 20 of its papers were starting to use a classified advertising software called Avenews Remote to create free classified listings for their sites. By the end of 2006, the great majority of AAN members will have free online classifieds, the association said.
Ownership
The merger of Village Voice and New Times raises various questions for those in the industry, beyond simply issues of classified advertising. Will the new giant among the alternatives bring advantages in terms of economies of scale in newsprint, writer features and even employee benefits? Will the company be able to more easily attract large national advertisers? On the content side, will the individual, community-based appeal of alternative weeklies be damaged by larger, more corporate management?
What does appear clear is that the merger binge that has hit the mainstream newspaper field is now clearly a reality in the world of alternative weeklies. Consider the markets the new company will hold, assuming the merger is approved.
Village Voice
Publication City Circulation
City Pages (Twin Cities) |
Minneapolis , MN |
117,577 |
L.A. Weekly |
Los Angeles , CA |
210,045 |
Nashville Scene |
Nashville , TN |
51,327 |
OC Weekly |
Santa Ana , CA |
70,335 |
Seattle Weekly |
Seattle , WA |
105,000 |
Village Voice, The |
New York , NY |
249,942 |
New Times
Publication City Circulation
Dallas Observer |
Dallas , TX |
105,060 |
East Bay Express |
Emeryville , CA |
85,068 |
Houston Press |
Houston , TX |
99,552 |
Miami New Times |
Miami , FL |
99,352 |
New Times Broward-Palm Beach |
Ft Lauderdale , FL |
69,504 |
Phoenix New Times |
Phoenix , AZ |
114,787 |
Pitch, The |
Kansas City , MO |
80,000 |
Riverfront Times |
St. Louis , MO |
95,415 |
Scene |
Cleveland , OH |
80,898 |
SF Weekly |
San Francisco , CA |
110,711 |
Westword |
Denver , CO |
99,846 |
All told that would give the new company more than 1.8 million readers and the dominant alternative weekly in 5 of the nation’s 10 largest cities, as well as the biggest weeklies in other large cities like Denver and Miami .12
If the merger is successful, it might not be a stretch to expect more like it. Alternative weeklies are still taking economic hits from a variety of sources —commuter tabs, free weeklies launched by mainstream papers and, of course, Craigslist. The savings that a publisher can achieve with a bigger reader base and perhaps more uniform content could be important in what forecasts suggest could be lean years ahead.
The other ownership question hanging in front of the weeklies at the end of 2005 was Craig Newmark, the founder of — Craigslist.com. Newmark has been discussing wading into the world of news content for some time, and it appeared that something concrete was ahead. It wasn’t clear what form any journalism venture would take or how much it would challenge the alternative weeklies directly. Newmark did not reveal much about his plan, but announced that a trial version of his journalism effort would be ready in the spring of 2006.
Summary
The biggest issue on the horizon for the alternative weeklies is the Voice/New Times merger. Despite talk in recent years that the world of the weeklies has been conglomeratized, there is still a lot of room for mergers among the owners that remain.
Beyond the merger, if numbers show that the smaller weekly markets truly are seeing the bigger growth, one can only wonder if the larger weekly publishers will look to purchase publications in smaller cities or if competitors find those markets are big enough for them to push into.
There is also the question of Craig Newmark’s venture. Newmark, who sits on the board of advisers of the Center for Citizen Media being started by “We the Media” author Dan Gillmor, may be looking to expand local blogging in some way. As this report outlines in the Blogs section, that is an area that is sorely lacking in real content at the moment. If Newmark can find a way to make local blogs more useful — even help push them into more regular, serious coverage of local issues — the competitive target won’t be just local dailies, but alternative weeklies. The attitude and opinion in blogs are more typical of the weeklies than the dailies.
All of which may mean that another competitor for alternative weeklies will soon be on the horizon, and this time it won’t just be targeting ads, but content. |
Footnotes
1. Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, unpublished circulation figures.
2. Ibid.
3. Alternative Weekly Reader Comparison 1995 – 2005 from the Alternative Weekly Network.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Interview with Mark Hanzlik.
7. Ibid.
8. Alternative Weekly Network demographic data.
9. PEJ interviews.
10. Data from Richard Karpel of AAN.
11. Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Antonio and Puerto Rico.
12. AAN member pages, Village Voice papers http://aan.org/gyrobase/Aan/ViewCompany?oid=oid%3A1958 |
|
|
|
Send to Printer 
