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The one constant in trying to understand the ethnic media in the United States is that its audience is in perpetual transition. New immigrants are arriving, sometimes moving to new communities. Existing audiences may or may not remain loyal, depending on the medium, the competition and the ethnicity.

At the end of 2007, a number of sweeping but seemingly contradictory trends were reshaping this sector of American media, some pointing to a future of growth – at least among smaller outlets – and others indicating a flattening or even contraction.

As more ethnic groups spread across America, there seems to be growth potential for small startup ethnic outlets, particularly in print. This already may be starting to show itself in the increasing number and circulation of ethnic weeklies. But other trends among the immigrant population may be working against the ethnic media.

On one hand, those new communities tend to be full of recent immigrants – those most likely to use and rely on ethnic and foreign language outlets. The more established immigrant populations, though, are found to be less likely to rely on native-language media. The longer people are in this country, research shows, the more English they speak, and the more English they speak, the more likely they are to use English-language media. Of the Latino immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least 26 years, 43% report speaking English very well, compared with just 14% of those who have lived in the United States for less than three years.¹

The audited circulations of three of the biggest Spanish-language dailies in established communities — La Opinión, based in Los Angeles, El Diario-La Prensa in New York and El Nuevo Herald in Miami — have been flat for several years. (More of these papers are auditing their circulations now and this may help them with advertisers.)

And there is increasing competition from the mainstream media as they tailor their content to Hispanic audiences, deliberately choosing topics and personalities that will appeal to Latinos.

In the end, the current demographic trends may be pointing to a more multi-faceted ethnic media landscape with no across-the-board positive or negative prognosis. The niche world of the ethnic media is growing further niches of its own.

All this complicates the economics of ethnic media, as well as its news-gathering muscle and its reach. For now, while the story is getting more complex as the sector matures, the economics are in many ways also becoming more stable.

What would a reader or viewer of the major ethnic media, Spanish-language, learn or not learn about a particular event compared with what is offered in English? What angles does the ethnic press address versus the mainstream media? What sources did they turn to, and what was the overall tone of the coverage?

To find out, we turned to one of the big issues of 2007 with natural interest to the Hispanic population, the debate over immigration, and examined the coverage in the leading Spanish-language television networks and three major papers and compared that with similar English language press from one key period, the week the immigration bill died in the U.S. Senate.

The answer is that Hispanic audiences turning to native-language news, especially the broadcast programs, heard a much different side of the bill’s defeat.

Two years ago, in the 2005 State of the Media Report, the Project studied front-page coverage of five ethnic newspapers in New York City. We found, among other things, that the ethnic press was filled with three distinct types of news that appealed to their ethnic audiences: They covered events back in their native countries, they offered U.S. national news events with a more ethnic angle and they covered local events directly related to that outlet’s ethnic community.

This year, we wanted to probe further into ethnic coverage of U.S. national news by closely examining a single event. To focus on these questions, we conducted a snap shot study of one crucial week during the debate over immigration: the week the Senate closed debate on an overhaul of the immigration law, June 25 to 29, 2007. The Senate’s inability to reach a compromise on an immigration bill was viewed by many as the end of discussion until at least 2009. In a clip from June 27,as the Senate leadership struggled to muster the 60 votes necessary to continue the debate, Senator Ken Salazar, a Democrat from Colorado, told Univision, “If we don’t have the 60 votes, goodbye to immigration reform, possibly for 10 years.”

For this snapshot, the Project for Excellence in Journalism compared coverage between English and Spanish media looking at four English-language nightly news programs (the three network evening newscasts and the PBS NewsHour), two Spanish-language evening newscasts (Telemundo’s Noticiero and Univision’s Noticiero) and the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post and three Spanish language newspapers, El Diario-La Prensa, La Opinión and El Nuevo Herald. We analyzed the extent of coverage, the prominence given to the story, the tone of the coverage, sources and length.

The greatest differences occurred on the broadcast side, where the Spanish coverage was more emotional, much less about the politics and more about effects on every-day people, and turned to immigrants for comment. Spanish-language print was closer to English-language press in its more detached approach to the coverage, often using a mix of sources similar to their English-language counterparts. The biggest differences in print were among the three Spanish-language papers themselves, displaying the vast range of Spanish language roots in the U.S.

What were Hispanics who watched Univision and Telemundo, the equivalent of the network evening newscasts, getting that viewers watching the ABC World News Tonight, the NBC Nightly News, the CBS Evening News and PBS’ NewsHour weren’t? How were their media experiences different?

During the week the immigration bill died in the Senate, the most striking differences between English and Spanish media occurred in broadcast.

PEJ examined Spanish network national evening news on the two major stations, Telemundo and Univision and compared it to evening network news on the major networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. PEJ also examined the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS.

The first noticeable difference was in the amount of coverage the issue received. Spanish language broadcasts gave the issue much more attention and greater prominence than network news. PBS was more in line with the ethnic media.

Telemundo and Univision aired a total of 18 stories focusing on the immigration bill during the period. Of these stories, 14 aired in one of the first three segments. (The vast majority, 12 in all, were edited packages. Three were interviews and three were brief tell stories).

By comparison, ABC, NBC and CBS covered the issue substantially less. In total there were just eight stories during this period. What they did produce was given high prominence with most — six out of the eight — in the first three stories. Of these stories, four were packaged pieces, two were interviews and two were tell stories.

The PBS NewsHour, however, covered the story much more heavily than the main networks. It aired 10 stories on the immigration bill in the first 30 minutes of the program (the time period we study). As is often the program’s style, more of these were roundtable interviews than packaged pieces (Two were packages, five were interviews and the remainder were simple tell stories or anchor voiceovers.

The most striking differences came in the focus and tenor of the coverage. In the more qualitative assessment of the coverage, three characteristics of the Spanish- language coverage stood out:

More than anything else, what Hispanics watching Spanish broadcast coverage got that was different from English network coverage, was in a word, sympathy. On June 28, the day the bill was defeated and Univision anchor Jorge Ramos began the broadcast by saying (translated into English):

“The news could not be worse for undocumented immigrants in the United States. In a vote, the Senate killed plans to legalize millions of immigrants. With this decision, the hopes of many that immigration law will change with respect to those without documentation in this country have disappeared. Thirty-six Republicans and 15 Democrats voted against continuing the debate -- this is to say that they killed the reform. We have extensive coverage of this decision and its enormous consequences.”

Comparatively, English network news coverage was more detached and focused on the bill as a political defeat for President Bush. For example, on that same day, NBC’s Brian Williams led into the coverage by saying, “The other big story in Washington tonight is the defeat of the immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate. A vote to go forward with it fell a whopping 14 votes short. It’s a big loss for President Bush, who pushed hard to revive this bill only to see it lose big today.”

Along with emotion and sympathy, the Hispanic anchors and reporters offered a clear stance on the vote. The coverage treated the defeat of the bill as a significant setback for the Hispanic community. Spanish broadcast media openly offered their strong bias toward finding a solution for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United Sates.

A package on Telemundo the day the measure was defeated began with a Hispanic woman calling in to the popular Hispanic radio talk host Eduardo Sotelo in tears, saying how upset she was by the Senate’s action. The package then went on to show Sotelo himself in tears. The word “disappointed” came up many times in interviews and sound bites with activists and other Hispanics hoping for a solution to immigration policy in the United States.

If the wish was for protection of illegal immigrants, the Spanish broadcasters were not shy to lay blame at the feet of both Democrats and Republicans for their failure to find a solution. While some Spanish coverage mentioned the bill as a significant defeat for President Bush and its political implications for him as most English coverage did, it mainly spoke of the Senate’s decision in the context of the implications for the 12 million illegal immigrants currently in this country. Many interviews and pieces focused on every-day Hispanics hoping and depending on the Senate to find a solution for either themselves, their families or members of their community. Telemundo showed a group of immigrants holding hands and praying in front of the Capitol before and during the Senate’s vote.

In portraying the impact on Hispanics, the most popular sources were interviews with every-day Hispanics and Hispanic activists representing organizations such as the Consejo Nacional La Raza (National Council of La Raza) and the Coalición por Reforma Migratoria (Coalition for Immigration Reform) to illustrate the effects the bill would have upon the Hispanic community. In covering the political aspects of the bill, reporters relied heavily upon Spanish-speaking senators like Mel Martinez, Robert Menendez and Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

Some may think that these findings place the Spanish-language broadcasts closer in style to the English-language cable talk programming. It is important to note, though, that the newscasts on Telemundo and Univision are the only national news programs offered. The networks operate more like ABC, CBS and NBC in that they carry all types of programming, with news just one small segment in the mix. There is no real comparison, then to the televised news talk shows. The genre that offers this kind of programming in Spanish is radio.

In print, there is more continuity between the English-language and Spanish-language press, though differences do emerge in a few key areas. Some of the bigger disparities lie within the three big Spanish-language papers, speaking to the great diversity of the Hispanic population across the U.S. For the print analysis from June 25 to 29, PEJ included all the newspaper stories on immigration that appeared anywhere in the front sections.

Over all, the English-language papers had more stories but gave them less prominence than the Spanish-language papers. The three English-language papers ran a total of 37 stories during the five days (pretty evenly distributed among the three) while the Spanish papers ran 22. The majority of the English-language stories fell in the inside pages — 23 out of 37. Just 14 made page 1. The Spanish-language papers, on the other hand, ran 15 of the 22 on page 1.

Despite more prominence, the Spanish-language articles tended to be shorter. A majority (15 out of 22) were between 200 and 800 words. English-language reporters wrote longer, with 22 out of the 37 articles running well beyond 800 words.

Some of that length was devoted to covering different angles of the bill’s defeat and as well as details on the socio-political implications (mainly for American citizens), often with more quotes and statements from parties involved in the bill’s development and defeat. The Washington Post, for example, ran a 1,434-word article on an American labor recruiter who has created a database that helps match skills of Mexican laborers with job opportunities in the U.S.

The Spanish articles tended to narrow in on the Senate’s proceedings and the implications of the bill on Hispanic immigrants.

When it came to tone, the Spanish-language print media were more like English-language media than like Spanish-language broadcasters. The reports remained mostly neutral, although a few articles did reflect a bias. For example, the day after the bill was defeated when coverage peaked in both Spanish broadcast and print, El Diario-La Prensa offered this straightforward account: “The immigration bill suffered a checkmate in the Senate, where for the second time in a month, legislators voted to limit debate and proceed to a definitive vote. With a final result of 46 votes in favor and 53 against limiting the debate to thirty hours, the measure was very far -- 14 votes shy -- of the 60 needed to overcome this obstacle.”

In assessing the implications of the defeat, Spanish papers still mostly focused on it as a loss for immigrants nationwide, but they also at times, more often than Spanish-language broadcasts, addressed it as a loss for President Bush. After the bill’s defeat, La Opinión wrote: “It was a political defeat for President Bush, who personally lobbied for the bill and hoped to make the reform his legacy in domestic policy. Bush regretted the result and said: ‘The failure of the Congress to act is disappointing.’ He added: ‘We worked hard to see if we could find a point in common, but it didn’t work.’ ” Similarly, El Diario reported: “President George Bush is personally involved in lobbying undecided Republican senators to obtain the required votes so the Senate approves the measure and sends it to the House. Bush wants immigration reform to be his legacy in domestic policy.”

A closer look at the Spanish outlets reveals a bigger difference and points to an important reality of the Hispanic community throughout the United States: Hispanics differ greatly in their individual cultures, nationalities and ethnicities. The way each of these papers chose to cover the immigration story reflected these differences clearly.

The three Spanish newspapers differed greatly in the number of stories they ran. La Opinión ran 12 articles on the immigration bill, El Diario ran seven and El Nuevo Herald ran only three. The prominence and tone of the coverage differed as well.

La Opinión, based in Los Angeles, gave the story the greatest amount of coverage and highest prominence of the three. It ran all of its 12 articles on page 1. The readership of the paper helps explain differences in the scope and tenor of the coverage. According to its own information, 79% of the newspaper’s readers are Mexican and 13% are of Central American origins.¹ The issue of immigration reform had a great deal of bearing on these communities, as they are geographically the closest to the border with the United States.² La Opinión relied on a mix of sources from the Senate and House (both English- and Spanish-speaking lawmakers) as well as activists of various organizations representing the Hispanic community.

La Opinión also stood out as the paper that brought the most emotion from reporters into its coverage. Its June 29 article read:

“In the end, what mattered was not the opinion of the majority of Americans, who in survey after survey for months, demonstrated favorability toward a pragmatic solution to the question of immigration…. To the contrary, what the majority thought was of little importance. Other things were of more importance: the anti-immigrant ideology of a handful of Republicans, politics, the rhetoric and mistreatment that the immigrants have received day after day on the radio talk shows in English and in the afternoons from Lou Dobbs of CNN.”³

The readership of El Diario/La Prensa, based in New York City, covers a mixed market of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Central Americans. It has few articles on the front page, heavy coverage of entertainment and sports, and coverage of pressing local and national news.

Over the period we looked at, the immigration bill made the front page twice, or two out of five days, and made the front section of the paper every day, with one article each day except for Friday, when the bill made the front page and was the subject of two more articles in the front section.

El Diario’s sources included English-speaking senators such as Dianne Feinstein of California and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, in addition to Spanish-speaking activists representing the Hispanic immigrant community. The tone of the articles over all was neutral with only two out of seven that really stood out as having a bias. When there was bias, it came in the form of telling stories of local immigrants and activists affected by the bill. One such piece focused on a local Ecuadorian lawyer counting on the bill’s success to reunite him with his family, and the other explored activist groups and their reaction to the Senate’s decision.

The coverage of El Diario was by far the most localized of the three Spanish-language papers.

Perhaps the most unusual paper of the three Spanish publications is El Nuevo Herald, which covered the immigration issue significantly less than the others. Its readership is primarily the Cuban population of Miami-Dade County, which makes up 47% of the total Hispanic population of the county.⁴

It can be reasoned then that the paper would cover immigration significantly less, because Cubans entering the United States are subject to different immigration laws than other Hispanic immigrants. According to a Congressional Research Service report prepared in 2005, “Cubans who do not reach the shore (i.e. dry land), are interdicted and returned to Cuba unless they cite fears of persecution. Those Cubans who successfully reach the shore are inspected for entry . . . and generally permitted to stay and adjust under the Cuban Adjustment Act.”⁵

Cubans as a group are surely interested in the issue of immigration as it pertains to the Hispanic community, but unless a provision was being considered that would specifically affect the Cuban population entering the U.S., they as a group had less invested in the issue of immigration than, for example, Mexicans or Central Americans.

El Nuevo Herald’s coverage of the immigration bill reflects this accurately. During the period PEJ covered, the issue of immigration only made the front page once (with a wire story) and the inside pages twice throughout the week, compared to La Opinión’s 12, and El Diario’s seven.

Over all, during the week the immigration bill died in the Senate, consumers turning to Spanish-language media for their news probably came away with a different perception of the meaning and impact of the defeat. They learned about angles not focused on in much of the English-language media, heard from different people and, especially in broadcast, often heard what the reporters themselves felt about the situation.

As Ethnic media in this country continue to grow in number, expand their reach, and even differentiate among themselves, the importance of the content will grow as well.

PEJ studied the period June 25-29, 2007. In print we studied the front-sections of three Hispanic papers — La Opinión, El Nuevo Herald and El Diario-La Prensa – and three English-language papers — the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. In broadcast we studied the three English-language commercial television network evening newscasts and the PBS NewsHour and two Spanish-language evening newscasts, on Telemundo and Univision.

During this period all stories that were at least 50% about the issue of immigration were captured for analysis.

Five of the six papers — La Opinión, El Nuevo Herald, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times — were collected by conducting a simple LexisNexis search, which allowed us to determine the word counts and placement of each story. Since El Diario-La Prensa was unavailable on LexisNexis, hard copies of the papers were obtained from the New York Public Library archives and all relevant articles were obtained. PEJ collected and studied all stories on the immigration bill appearing in the front section of each paper. The papers were selected based on circulation and geographic relevance to show the differences between different Hispanic markets, since Hispanic newspapers do not circulate nationally.

The broadcast stories were obtained from National Aircheck, a broadcast media monitoring firm. English broadcast stories were collected from PEJ’s news index archives, which contains daily network broadcast news programs. PEJ’s normal practice is to code only the first 30 minutes of a news broadcast if the program airs for over one hour, but in the case of all broadcast sources in English and Spanish, save for PBS NewsHour, all programs air for thirty minutes. In the case of PBS, PEJ coded only the first half hour.

Once the stories were collected, PEJ used the content analysis method employing original software designed to organize the stories according to specific variables. We selected several different variables that would allow us to measure each article quantitatively and qualitatively. For this project, the English-language stories had already been coded and identified in the News Index as being on the discussion of the immigration legislation, and PEJ went back in the database and isolated those stories and combined them with the Spanish-language stories in the database. The stories were categorized by:

The story describer serves the purpose of allowing us to quickly identify a story based on content and gives a brief description of the material covered in the article. The three main sources variable specifies where the reporters obtained their information from when they relied on an outside source. Quotes from politicians or activists, statistics from organizations and interviews with citizens all are considered sources.

The qualitative aspect of the project focused on examining the articles for tone, language use and any other similarities or differences found in both print and broadcast. The stories were compared to one another in their respective languages and mediums and were then compared in English and Spanish to draw comparisons.

Placement	English Broadcast	Spanish Broadcast
1st	3	6
2nd	2	4
3rd	3	4
4th	1	2
5th or later	9	12
Total	18	18

Footnotes

1. http://laopinion.com/mediakit/audience/index_sp.html

2. Based on Lexis Nexis Archiving system that identified all articles in La Opinión as appearing on the front page.

3. Pilar Marrero, La Opinión, June 29, 2007. “Voz de Mayoria Importo Poco; El Discurso antiinmigrante se impuso en el debate.”

4. http://www.miamidade.gov/planzone/pdf/populationglance.pdf

5. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32621.pdf

Audience

The Spreading Population

American immigration, as noted in this report a year ago, increasingly is spreading out across the country into new territory.

Nearly every state had some increase in its population that relies on a language other than English, according to the 2006 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. And while states with historically large immigrant contingents continue to experience growth, some of the more notable jumps in recent years have occurred in places like Maryland, Colorado, Utah and Nebraska – not the traditional destinations for high concentration of immigration. Those four states have seen more than a 1% increase in these populations since 2002.

What is driving the growth? In part, economics. Growth in these states leads to jobs that Spanish-speakers tend to fill – positions such as construction laborer that do not have education or language requirements. (In all of the states new immigrants are calling home, the top 10 percentage of gross domestic product goes to construction.¹

Percent of People Aged Five and Over Who Speak
a Language Other Than English at Home
2002, 2004, 2006

Source: Pew Hispanic Center: Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2006

An Expanding Media Landscape

In the coming years, the real growth for ethnic media may not be in the large big-city daily newspapers, many of which serve both the slowing first-generation immigrants and the growing second or third generations of English-speaking U.S. citizens.

Instead, the targets for growth may be the smaller communities where the immigrant population is just getting started. The long-established areas of settlement — California, New York, Florida and Texas — still account for at least half of the population growth of foreign-born residents. But, to a growing degree, immigrants are settling in new areas where there will be a demand for native-language media.²

According to Edward Schumacher Matos, founder and former CEO of Rumbo, the Spanish-language newspaper chain in Texas, “Spanish-language print is aimed mostly at that first generation, the immigrant generation, that continues to grow in buying power, and in number. Readership is going to grow [because] they are going to read Spanish-language newspapers until the day they die.”³ In the big cities, those publications already exist. But in the newer destinations for immigrants, there is an opportunity for establishing new Hispanic print products.

The latest circulation and revenue figures suggest that, among Hispanic publications, print weeklies, often serving smaller pockets of population, showed the biggest growth. ( See Circulation and Audience Numbers, below.) Typically, these are publications with lean staffs and leaner advertising revenues.

Ethnic media usually develop from the ground up: A small weekly paper starts up to serve a growing ethnic community. If it is successful, it graduates to a daily, then is purchased and expanded by a larger company.

These emerging immigrant communities also have represented an opportunity for broadcast outlets, which are not as dependent on geographic concentration as print to succeed. And as these new ethnic, primarily Hispanic, regions grow, they may become home to a second wave of Spanish-language dailies.

In recent years this report has found the circulation of some of the best-known Spanish-language dailies — in Los Angeles, New York and Miami -- is flat or declining, and this year is no exception. (Dailes Ciruclation Chart below). As discussed above, many factors influence these declines.

Asian-American Media – A Growing Market

While Spanish-language media dominate the ethnic media scene, there are emerging and well-established pockets of Asian-American print and broadcast outlets, spurred by that population’s steady growth.

A 2004 Pew Hispanic Center survey put the number of Asian-Americans living in the U.S. at 13.5 million.⁴ They represent 4% of the U.S. population, and that number is expected to increase to 9% by 2050, according to a 2008 report from the Pew Research Center.⁵

The fresh influx of Asians into the U.S. began with the loosening of restrictions made possible by the Immigration Act of 1965. By 1971, roughly 7.3 million of the 18 million or so immigrants entering the country from around the world were born in Asia, the majority coming from the Philippines, China (including Taiwan from 1971 to 1990), Vietnam and India .⁶ As a result, vibrant Asian enclaves have sprung up in several major metropolitan areas.

There is a dearth of overall data on the number of Asian-language media in the U.S. to meet their needs. The IW Group, a leading Asian-American marketing and advertising firm, tracks the growing numbers. According to the IW chairman and CEO, Bill Imada, there was a 300 percent surge in the number of Asian-American media outlets from 1990 to 2007. IW reports a total of 600, and that number does not include new media.

There is also unmistakable anecdotal evidence of growth when looking at specific news outlets. This is especially true in California, where Asian-Americans make up 12% of the population, the highest in the country.

The Chinese Daily News in Monterey Park, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, is the nation’s largest Chinese-language newspaper, with an unaudited circulation of 100,000. Orange County, south of Los Angeles, is home to The Nguoi Viet Daily News, the country’s largest Vietnamese daily newspaper, which was started in 1978 as a four-page weekly produced out of the garage of its founder Yen Ngoc Do, who died in 2006. Although its 2007 self-reported circulation, at 18,000, is small, its readers are intensely interested in the issues it covers.

The San Francisco-based AsianWeek is the oldest and largest English-language weekly newspaper for Asian-Americans with an audited 2007 circulation of more than 58,000. It is using new-media tactics to target younger readers. Its sophisticated Web site features feedback posts and voting guides, and an article in January 2008 asked “Why is Obama Snubbing Asian Americans?”

Despite the growth, Asian publications, as with many ethnic media, generally “come and go, especially the new ones,” said Anthony Advincula, former coordinator with the Independent Press Association- New York. “Some of them started as weeklies, but now they are monthlies because of advertising and readership issues.” Advincula also said tighter immigration laws and the blogs and videos of new media cut into readership.

AsianWeek’s editor at large is Ted Fang, whose family bought the San Francisco Examiner from Hearst in 2000. He and his colleagues formed the National Asian Media Association, which held its first meeting in February 2008, to bring media and advertisers together . “Advertisers are either not knowledgeable or confused about the Asian-American market,” said Fang, who sees the new group tapping into that potential buying power, estimated at $427 billion in 2006 and projected to be $622 billion in 2011 .⁷

On the broadcasting side, development is occurring at several different levels, mostly geared toward first-generation listeners and viewers.

In New York, the nonprofit New Tang Dynasty Television was started in 2001 with the goal of becoming “the Chinese CNN.” It has grown into a satellite network that broadcasts Western-style news and entertainment 24 hours a day in Mandarin and Cantonese to Chinese communities in the United States, Western Europe, Australia and parts of Asia.⁸ Other cable and satellite networks in the United States are the Vietnamese-language SBTN, the Chinese-language TVB and the Korean-language tvK24.

There has also been success at the more local, public-access level. KSCI-TV, Channel 18, in Los Angeles is a multi-Asian television station, featuring programs in Vietnamese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Chinese and Korean.

On the other hand, English-language programming designed to reach second- and third-generation Asian-Americans often comes up against the distinctive nature of individual Asian cultures. A case in point is the announcement by Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator, in January 2008 that it would close the three-year-old AZN Television, a Pan-Asian channel initially heralded by the company as a “network for Asian America.”⁹

Radio offers another avenue for reaching first-generation immigrants; it is particularly strong in the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese communities, with large networks like Little Saigon Radio Broadcasting in Orange County, Calif., Radio Korea International in Los Angeles and Sino Radio Broadcasting’s station WZRC, heard in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Unlike television, most of these stations air local programming.

Where the biggest potential may lie for Asian media is on the Web. According to several studies, Asian-Americans make up the largest online audience of any ethnic group in the country. A 2001 Pew Internet & American Life Project study, the latest for reliable data, reported that they were the heaviest and most experienced users, with 75% having gone online at one time or another, mostly for news, entertainment and services. Marketing researcher eMarketer puts the number of Asians online at 11 million in 2007, and projects that will grow to 14 million in four years.¹⁰

Given the ability of the Web to aggregate information internationally, and the typical focus in ethnic media on home-country concerns, the potential for Asian media online seems even richer.

Naturalization and Mainstreaming

Nearly counterbalancing the trend of new and expanding immigrant communities are two hefty pieces of data: Naturalization is on the rise and mainstream outlets are lining up ethnic groups – particularly Hispanics – in their marketing and coverage sights.

The number of legal foreign-born residents seeking to become U.S. citizens has been climbing for more than 10 years, according to data from the Pew Hispanic Center. In 1995, only 39% of all legal immigrants living in the United States were American citizens. That number reached 52% in 2005 – the highest since the 1970s.

There is real significance to those numbers for the ethnic media. Naturalized immigrants (and those on the path to naturalization) have made a decision to become a part of the U.S. and are more likely to speak English. To become naturalized, immigrants must demonstrate the ability to read and write English, meaning they are more likely to watch, read and listen to mainstream English-language outlets.

While the rate of naturalized Hispanic immigrants is on the rise, however, so is the population of illegal immigrants. Naturalized legal immigrants represented 35% of all foreign-born residents in 2005, up from 30% in the previous decade.¹¹ But the growth of illegal immigrants was steeper. In 2005, illegal immigrants made up 31% of the total United States immigrant population, up from 20% in 1995. The impact for news media seems to be continued demand for Spanish-language content.

There was a long period during which immigrants turned away from the naturalization option – the number of naturalized immigrants was at 64% in 1970 before trending steadily downward for 25 years.

Figures show those years were important in terms of the development of the Spanish-language media. In 1970 there were eight Hispanic daily newspapers in the United States with a combined circulation of about 135,000, according to data from the Latino Print Network. By 2000 there were 34 dailies with a circulation of more than 1.4 million.

The growth of circulation in Hispanic print outlets (the ethnic group for which there is the best data) has slowed since 2000. While total Hispanic newspaper circulation grew by more than 10 million in the 1990s, it had grown by less than 3 million through 2005.¹²

There could be political and social reasons for that slowdown, from tighter immigration laws to demographic changes. As we noted in last year’s report, 2006 was the first year in decades that growth in the Latino population occurred more from birth than immigration. And Latinos born in the U.S. tend to be more likely to speak English and rely on mainstream outlets. Still, the naturalization changes are worth noting.

The ethnic media, particularly Hispanic outlets, also face a challenge from mainstream outlets and their efforts to reach Hispanic viewers and readers.

In his 2005 book, “The New Mainstream,” former Time writer Guy Garcia argued that the impact of the surge in Latino immigration and their increased purchasing power would be in ethnic products marketed far beyond ethnic community niches and toward the larger mass marketplace.

On cable television, for instance, the Food Network airs “Simply Delicioso,” hosted by Colombian-born Ingrid Hoffmann. Hoffmann made her name on the Spanish-language television show “Delicioso” on Univision, which she still hosts. It could be that in time that this model is replicated on other English-language stations as they look for bilingual personalities to become crossover stars.

In its early 2008 election coverage, CNN welcomed reporters and anchors from Univision on air to talk about Hispanic issues and join in a candidate debate.

Even the upscale food magazine Gourmet went all out on Latino cuisine in September 2006, looking at street foods, taco trucks and roadside restaurants. “Given the demographics of the United States, one would be crazy to think that Latin cuisine isn’t going to be dominant in our culture,” Gourmet’s editor, Ruth Reichel, told Adweek magazine.

A significant sign of Hispanic mainstreaming came in August, when Nielsen decided to drop its 15-year-old Hispanic rating system and count Hispanic homes as part of its general sample. The move, the company said, was designed to “allow the television industry to evaluate both English- and Spanish-language television audiences side by side.” (See Broadcast Section)

The message from these new strategies is simple: Mainstream media outlets see the future and understand that they need to reach into ethnic areas they once ignored.

Even with those counter-trends, however, it appears that migrating populations are continuing to support smaller U.S. weeklies, at least judging by the numbers for Hispanic papers.

According to figures from the Latino Print Network, a research firm based in Carlsbad, Calif., Spanish-language newspapers saw a slight bump in overall circulation in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, up to 17.8 million from 17.6 million in 2005.¹³

Much of that growth was due to circulation increases at weekly papers, which climbed to 11.4 million from 11.1 million in 2005. That was enough to more than offset the losses among the other circulation categories. The number of audited weeklies also grew, to 112 in 2006 from 104 in 2005, according to the network.

As noted earlier, these weekly publications are often the first type of newspaper to develop in an emerging community, as publishers test the waters to determine the market for Latino readers. Cutting back to weekly also can be a fallback position for dailies that don’t make it. Two of those new eight weeklies were actually former dailies that scaled back.

The story for daily Spanish-language newspapers is not so simple. After reporting massive growth in circulation for a decade, the Latino Print Network’s data showed a slight drop in Hispanic daily newspaper circulation for 2006 – to 1.606 million from 1.614 million in 2005, a dip of about 8,000.

The 2006 data continue the slight circulation-bobbing for Hispanic dailies since their numbers peaked in 2003 at about 1.8 million. It should be noted, however, that the current decrease is relatively small considering the number of Hispanic dailies dropped by four last year – to 38 in 2006 from 42 in 2005. Along with the two dailies that became weeklies, two others folded. Taking those changes together, the average circulation of Hispanics dailies actually climbed in 2006 to 42,276 from 38,438.

Again, many of those figures come from unaudited circulation numbers, but not as many as before. The Latino Print Network added another Hispanic daily to its audit in 2006 and that increase, plus the disappearance of four dailies, meant that for the first time, more than half of the dailies measured by the Latino Print Network now audit their circulations – 22 out of 38 daily papers total. That is a sign of the maturation of the market. Major advertisers often demand audited circulation data, and more of the Spanish-language print industry has developed to the point where it can provide it.

Less-than-weekly Hispanic papers still remain largely un-audited. Of 346 papers in the Latino Print Network sample, only 13 were audited, down from 17 in 2005. Circulation over all fell, to 4.8 million in 2006, a drop of about 40,000 from 2005.

Many of the audited Hispanic dailies are based in large cities with more established communities, not the growing pockets seeing an infusion of new immigrants. Among three of the biggest, we found for the most part another relatively flat year for circulation. Each saw a small downturn through early 2007, and only one came back strong by the end of the year.

La Opinión, based in Los Angeles and the long-time national leader, was the fastest-growing U.S. daily newspaper over all in net-paid daily circulation growth for the six-month period ending September 2007. It grew at 3.6 percent, the largest increase of any newspaper in the country with circulation over 50,000.

In weekday circulation, the paper saw a bump up to 124,784 in September 2007, from 120,485 during the same period in 2006, a growth of 3.4%. The daily’s numbers, however, have been trending down for the past few years from a high of about 128,000 in 2002.

Weekday circulation for El Diario-La Prensa in New York was largely flat at 51,620 in September 2007 from 51,251 in September 2006. That increase of only 0.7% by itself is not significant, but it is a small change in direction. Circulation had steadily declined since 2001, from 55,397, dropping 9.6% by 2006.

The bleak picture continues at El Nuevo Herald in Miami, where circulation fell to 77,566 in September 2007, from 82,923 for the same period in 2006. That 5,000-plus drop only emphasizes that these three papers, all in cities with entrenched Hispanic populations, may be facing a stagnant future.

In August, Nielsen changed its 15-year-old system for monitoring Hispanic television audiences. Instead of isolating Hispanic homes with a separate measurement, it began counting them as part of its general television sample. According to analysts, Latinos are now so important to the overall television ratings picture that it would be misleading to continue to count them as a unique audience.

The move was welcomed by media companies and advertisers eager to reach Latino consumers in the U.S.: that audience’s collective buying power was estimated at more than $850 billion in 2007.¹⁴ And advertisers have barely tapped that market. In 2006, total ad spending on Spanish-language television – including not only Spanish-language broadcasters (such as Univision and Aztec America), but also NBC (through Telemundo) -- topped $3 billion, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

During August 27 to September 2, the first week in which Spanish-language broadcasting was measured as part of all programming, Univision beat every broadcast network among viewers aged 18 to 34, a desirable demographic.¹⁵ But when Nielsen looked at the entire month of August, Univision dropped behind CBS, NBC and ABC in the ratings. By December, Univision was still solidly behind the three U.S. networks in ratings among 18- to 34-year-olds.

The year brought another milestone – the first presidential debate ever broadcast in Spanish, aired by Univision. Univision’s intention was to broadcast the Democratic debate on September 9, followed by the Republicans on September 16. The Democratic forum went off as scheduled, with seven of the eight early candidates (all but Sen. Joseph Biden) participating. On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain was the only candidate who initially agreed to appear, which caused a delay. Eventually, the other GOP candidates signed on and the debate was aired December 9.

Even though Republican candidates were slower to engage, in the end they drew a larger audience. According to the Nielsen Hispanic Station Index, 235,000 Hispanic viewers (18 and over) tuned into the Republican candidate debate on December 9, compared with 214,000 Hispanics for the Democrats on September 9.¹⁶

In the media, both debates were deemed qualified successes because of what the Miami Herald called “spotty” translation. Questions were asked and answered through translators, with closed captioning for English-language viewers.¹⁷

In early 2008, Univision teamed up with CNN to host a debate between the two Democratic candidates, which saw 7.6 million viewers tune in - one of the biggest audiences for a primary debate on any cable network.¹⁸

In November 2007, Univision marked another first when Nielsen numbers showed its local station, KDTV, scored the San Francisco Bay Area’s highest ratings among all viewers aged 25 to 54 for a 6 p.m. local news broadcast. This was the first time a Spanish-language news program in the area bested its English-language counterparts.

7. “The Multicultural Economy, 2006.” The Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.

11. Jeffrey S. Passel, “Growing Share of Immigrants Choosing Naturalization,” Pew Hispanic Center, March 28, 2007.

12. While the percentage of Mexicans choosing to become citizens is growing, it still lags behind other groups.

13. LPN gathers data on Hispanic daily, weekly and less-than-weekly newspapers (some audited and some not) and is the best one-source clearinghouse for the information we can find.

15. Univision press release: “Univision ranked as the #1 network with an +11% advantage over its nearest competitor, Fox, and beating ABC by +43%, CBS by +42%, NBC by +57% and fully +125% ahead of CW for all adults 18-34, not just Hispanics.”

17. Though two candidates – Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Chris Dodd – speak fluent Spanish, they were required to respond in English and be translated like the other five participating candidates.

18. Tim Arango, "Presidential Primaries Lift CNN," New York Times, March 5, 2008

Whatever the long-term demographic picture may bring, Spanish-language media had a good 2006, the last year for which data are available. Hispanic newspaper publishers took in record-breaking ad revenues, and, thanks to World Cup fans, leading Spanish-language broadcaster Univision also had a good year.

For Hispanic newspapers, ad revenues broke the $1 billion mark for the first time, according to data from the Latino Print Network. Ad revenues hit $1.12 billion in 2006, up from $996 million in 2005 – an increase of 13%. That kind of double-digit jump is almost unheard of in a sector used to revenue declines. (See Newspaper Chapter)

What’s more, the revenue increases seem to come amid a steep decline in national advertising dollars. Only 18% of the ad dollars in Hispanic newspapers came from national advertisers, down substantially from 37% in 2005. But those numbers come from a misreporting in the 2005 figures, according to Kirk Whisler of the Latino Print Network. The real situation, however, is the number has been essentially flat for the past few years.

Tapping into the national ad market and the “big box” stores – like Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart – has been a major goal for Hispanic publishers, but one that, as yet, has not been met.

National ads hold great growth promise for Hispanic publishers. Hispanics make up 14% of the U.S. population and roughly 8% of national buying power, but still capture only 3% of the ad buy, according to Edward Schumacher Matos, former chairman and CEO of the Rumbo newspaper chain in Texas.¹ Increasing that percentage may involve selling national advertisers on their need to reach the Hispanic market.

Still, the fact that so much ad revenue (82%) comes from local advertisers has its advantages for Hispanic publishers.² Small businesses may be more immune to macroeconomic trends than big stores, where ad buys are decided in multi-million-dollar budgets. Community businesses that depend on local foot traffic might be more likely to keep ads going in lean times and they also may be more likely to worry about holding on to customers who could just as easily take their business to a competitor down the street.

As growth continues in newer ethnic communities, where weeklies flower, it is likely that the ads from small businesses will follow.

And even without big national ad dollars, Hispanic newspaper ad revenues have had considerable growth over the past 15 years – an increase of more than $1 billion since 1990 and an average growth of about $68 million a year.³ Such growth is impressive by most calculations, particularly in a time when many print outlets are hurting.

The numbers for Hispanic newspapers in 2006 were positive across the board – for dailies, weeklies and less-than-weeklies.

Revenues by Type of Newspaper

Looking more closely at the numbers, it was the weeklies that saw the biggest jump in ad revenue in 2006, to $434 million from $346 million in 2005, an increase of 25%.⁴ That increase of $88 million may have to do with the surge in the number of weekly publications in 2006. Thirty-four weekly Hispanic newspapers were begun in 2006, including two that converted from dailies to weeklies.

For dailies, ad revenues increased 6% to $650 million in 2006 from $611 million in 2005. That increase came even as the number of dailies tallied by the Latino Print Network declined to 38 from 42.

Less-than-weeklies saw a less substantial jump – to $41 million in 2006 from $39 million in 2005 – an increase of 5%.

As time goes by and new immigrants settle into these expanding pockets of the country, it seems likely local advertising in smaller weekly and less-than-weekly papers will keep pace. And, as communities and ad revenue grow, less-than-weeklies may give way to weeklies, which may eventually give way to dailies.

Broadcast Outlets

The Spanish-language broadcast giant Univision had a particularly good 2006 (the latest year for which data are available), setting a new record for company net income. It was a bounce-back year for Univision after disappointing sales in 2005. 2007 continued the increase, albeit at a much slower rate.

For 2007, Univision reported net revenue increases over 2006 of 8.4%, to $2.073 billion. The Spanish-language media company also posted increases in adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization: 10.9% to $248 million for the quarter and 7.8% to $863.2 million for the year.

The year-end data for 2006, however, were even much brighter for the popular Spanish-language company. Univision’s 2006 income was up, to $349 million from $187 million in 2005 – a leap of $162 million or 86% in just 12 months.⁵ What was behind that big bump?

For one, it appears the 2005 drop might have been a one-year blip. That year, the company was forced by the Justice Department to sell off all but 15% of its stake in its Entravision subsidiary. That $349 million translates into a 36% increase in 2005 over 2004, which falls in line with the increases Univision had seen since 2001.

There was, however, another factor in 2006 – soccer’s World Cup in Germany. Hispanics bring their fondness for soccer when they come to the U.S., one of the few countries where it is not a major sport. Univision scored the rights to air one of the world’s largest sporting events in Spanish in the U.S., and with those rights came big money. By the third quarter of 2005, Univision reported it had secured a record $180 million in advertising commitments for the Cup.

And the impact of those ads extended beyond the tournament or even 2006. Companies that aired ads during the soccer games had to agree to buy again at other points in the year and in 2007. ⁶

The purchase of Univision in 2006 by a private company removed it from the stock market, but investors have two other big options – Entravision, the multi-media company Univision was forced to mostly divest, and Spanish Broadcasting, an owner of 15 radio stations in five cities and Puerto Rico. (The other large Hispanic broadcaster, Telemundo, is owned by NBC Universal, which is part of General Electric.)

Neither of those companies has done particularly well in the stock market in recent years, but Entravision had a small edge. In the summer of 2007, three analysts moved Entravision from “neutral” to “buy.” One analyst cited a possible sale of the company’s outdoor advertising unit and growing political advertising spending going into the 2008 election season, but also longer-term structural trends among the Hispanic media – particularly demographic trends among Hispanics that may favor English-language media.

Another analyst held the Entravision rating at “neutral,” noting a “soft industry backdrop.”

Spanish Broadcasting, meanwhile, sits in “neutral” with most analysts, though it was upgraded from “sell” by some.⁷

While these two companies remain the biggest investment options for those looking to get into the Hispanic media market, analysts do not seem especially keen on the longer-term outlooks. Analysts did say they saw possible short-term gains in both stocks thanks to the possible election-year advertising and the selling off of some parts of each, but those are not the kind of recommendations that come with a forecast of big industry growth.

Because the biggest companies have gone private (in Univision’s case) or disappeared inside a massive conglomerate (Telemundo’s current state within GE), Hispanic broadcasters may be entering a new era where investors may not play as much of a role.

Ethnic Media Online

Like mainstream media outlets, the longer-term prognosis for the ethnic media likely will hinge on the development of online outlets. The ethnic media over all have been slower than other media to move online, despite definite advantages, including the elimination of press costs and the ability to target niches audiences across geographic boundaries.

Heading into 2008, that digital foot-dragging may be changing as companies look to invest in the Web. Over all, however, Hispanics still lag behind the rest of America in online use. A joint study from the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Internet & American Life in March 2007 found that 56% of adult Latinos go online. That is lower than 71% of non-Hispanic whites and 60% of non-Hispanic blacks, but it is a big increase over past studies that have shown the percentage much lower.

The numbers are not uniform across all groups of Latinos, the study found. Rather, 78% who were English-dominant were online, as were 76% of bilingual Hispanics. But when the population’s language was Spanish-dominant, the number dropped to 32%.

It isn’t yet clear what this means for media organizations looking to invest in Spanish-language online content. And as this diverse ethnic group grows and changes, perhaps leading toward a more English-dominant or bilingual Hispanic population, the future becomes even cloudier.

There were still some signs in 2007 that Hispanic outlets were beginning to shift their attention to the Web.

In July, Univision launched a social networking platform, Mi Página, for its users. Univision’s site is by far the biggest Spanish-language destination on the Web and the company’s new CEO, Joe Uva, said this was just the first of several new online moves for the company. In the fall, the site also launched a new video-sharing functionality that allows users to post videos, as well as an exclusive online mini-novella.

Internet revenues are growing for Univision, accounting for $11.6 million through the first nine months of 2007, up from $9.2 million in the same period in 2006 – an increase of 26%. But that $11.2 million is a small fraction of the company’s overall revenue.

“We believe that based on the success of the original content we do on the Web that we will perhaps be able to take that content to television, as opposed to doing what today is in vogue – taking just television content to broadband,” Uva told the Hollywood Reporter.

In print, ImpreMedia, the Spanish-language chain with publications in 23 U.S. cities, including some of the leading newspapers (La Opinión in Los Angeles and El Diario-La Prensa in New York), announced the creation of a digital division in 2007. The new division’s mandate “not only include updates to our existing industry-leading newspaper online sites,” the company said, but “the development of new digital content sites as well.”

ImpreMedia Digital plans to develop sites inside the company and also look to acquire new digital media properties.

For the most part, ethnic media grow from the ground up, when a new immigrant population reaches critical mass in a community, resulting in the launch of a publication or a broadcast outlet.

That phenomenon has happened in states welcoming waves of new immigrants, such as North Carolina, which has had its share of Hispanic papers introduced. In October 2006, Greenville got its first Hispanic newspaper, Viva Greenville, a free monthly distributed in Pitt County. Two years before, Charlotte got its second Hispanic newspaper, a free weekly, Que Pasa. Thus, in sheer numbers, the bulk of ethnic media owners remain local. But, in audience and influence, three big owners have emerged.

After a busy 2006 in Hispanic media ownership, punctuated by the sale of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, 2007 was quieter. This newfound stability came during a relatively uncertain economic environment and as the industry finally saw the need to build Web holdings.

There was also the fallout from Univision’s sale. With its stock at just over $36 a share, Univision fetched less than what experts predicted, and its new owners inherited a significant amount of debt – $1.4 billion. What was the group’s strategy for its $13 billion investment?

The new owners, a group of private equity firms led by the billionaire investor Haim Saban, spent the beginning of 2007 waiting and planning as the deal was completed.

While most assumed the purchase would safely get past the Federal Communications Commission, questions were raised by some FCC members about Univision’s need to improve its children’s programming (a $24 million fine had to be paid) before they approved the deal in March.

Shortly before that, the new ownership announced it had found the company’s leader in Joseph Uva, an advertising executive. Uva came to Univision from OMD Worldwide, an ad-buy planning agency, where he was CEO. The move made clear that Univision’s new owners saw increasing and maximizing ad sales as critical needs. Investors had pegged this as big concern for Univision, a company that in 2006 captured a 5% share of the national television audience, but only 2.5% of the television ad market. Increasing that percentage would help the company handle its debt load.

Another way the new ownership addressed that debt was through asking cable companies for a retransmission fee of $1 per subscriber. That would put Univision on par with better known mainstream cable companies like Fox News and would generate about $1 billion annually in revenue.¹ But negotiations for that increase are likely to be tough. Univision, which first announced this decision in May 2007, had not entered into any contracts as of March 2008.²

The other big challenge for the company is repairing its relationship with Televisa, the Mexican company that produces the overwhelming majority of Univision’s prime-time programming. There are still hard feelings at Televisa, which was outbid for Univision by the Saban group. Televisa is secured by contract to deliver programming to Univision through 2017, but is currently in court in an effort to distribute its programming in the U.S. via the Web.

The ownership of the other big player in Hispanic television, Telemundo, has been stable since NBC purchased the Spanish-language broadcaster in 2001.

At the time it was thought Telemundo stood to gain greatly from NBC’s overall news operation, which included cable news and business news channels. In addition, the money that a behemoth like NBC had at its disposal was thought to have been a big help for the Hispanic broadcaster.

Seven years into the merger, that does not appear to be the case. In 2006, NBC cut the staff of Telemundo significantly, eliminating newscasts in six major cities – Houston, Dallas, Denver, San Antonio, San Jose and Phoenix. Since then, NBC has done little to capitalize on its relationship.

During the immigration debate that raged nationwide in 2007, for example, neither NBC nor MSNBC turned to its Spanish-language partner for reports or perspectives. And as the 2008 presidential race got into full swing early with a flurry of debates, the calls for a forum on Hispanic issues came from Univision, not Telemundo.

Considering how little NBC has done with Telemundo, what might be the company’s long-term goal? Access to Mexico.

For the past few years, NBC has been trying to penetrate the potentially lucrative Mexican television market, using Telemundo as its way in. The move could help Telemundo leverage its programming, much like Univision repackages Televisa programming. At present two television companies – Televisa, a Univision partner, and TV Azteca – control nearly 90% of the broadcast industry in Mexico.³

One big obstacle stands in NBC’s way: In 2007, the Mexican government, after a lengthy deliberation, announced it would not allow any new broadcaster into the country in 2007 or 2008. In June, however, Mexico’s Supreme Court took preliminary votes to open up the auctioning of broadcasting licenses, which eventually could play into NBC’s hands. The question is what are the network’s long-range plans for Telemundo if Mexico is not an option?

The biggest news in the world of Hispanic print media came in May with the ImpreMedia’s purchase of Hoy New York from the Tribune Company for an undisclosed amount. In December, the company bought the Rumbo newspaper chain in Texas in an effort to extend its reach to advertisers in the top 10 U.S. Hispanic markets.

Since its creation in 2004, when La Opinión joined with New York El Diario-La Prensa in New York, ImpreMedia has been busy buying up publications. In 2006, the company bought La Prensa in Central Florida and Vista Magazine in Miami. In 2005, ImpreMedia added El Mensajero in San Francisco and launched the Domingo Network, a free Sunday paper that went to Hispanic households in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. In 2004, soon after the company was formed, it purchased La Raza in Chicago.

But there were signs in 2007 that the company was beginning to shift some of its focus to the Web. In August, ImpreMedia announced the creation of ImpreMedia Digital, designed to expand its online operations through new material and acquisitions. The company brought in a new CEO, Arturo Duran, formerly president of interactive and business integration at Canwest, the Canadian media company.

ImpreMedia is privately held and there are no hard data on its revenues. The company is still the only U.S.-based Hispanic newspaper chain, and there seems little threat, so far, of competition. It owns two of the biggest papers on the two coasts. Most other Spanish-language papers are smaller in circulation and represent smaller communities.

As the ethnic media continue to grow, different ownership models are emerging – or there are at least a few patterns in how ownership develops. The patterns are best seen and understood by looking at the Hispanic print media, the most developed of the foreign-language ethnic print outlets.

Whether one is better than another is not yet clear and it may be that the “best” model will depend on each outlet’s home, target population and the other outlets in its market. Still, here are three categories of ownership.

When an immigrant population reaches a critical mass and a new newspaper crops up, it generally takes the form of a weekly or less-than-weekly. Who launches the paper? Historically, someone in the ethnic community who saw a need. Take Philadelphia, where two weeklies – Al Dia, started in 1992 by Hernán Calderon, and El Hispano, founded by Aaron Lopez in 1976 – hit the newsstands with no affiliations to mainstream publications; or Atlanta, where the weekly Mundo Hispanico was founded by Lino Dominguez in 1979.

This type of ownership still is behind launches today, particularly in very small markets.

But over the past decades, as data clearly charted the nation’s exploding Hispanic population, mainstream newspapers began to create their own Hispanic publications.

The more notable cases are well known, such as Tribune Company’s1998 launch of Hoy in Chicago and later rollouts in New York and Los Angeles. But mainstream newspaper owners have launched Hispanic print counterparts in even smaller communities. In 2005, The Register in New Haven, Conn., unveiled Registero, its Spanish-language, print-only weekly, to such success that it expanded its coverage and delivery zone, with new editions in New York.

The results of these launches, however, have been mixed, particularly when they jump into a market with a competing and well-established Spanish-language newspaper on the same publishing schedule.

In the past few years, successful Hispanic newspapers, even those that began as independents, have often ended up affiliated with other outlets in one of two ways: local mainstream newspapers buy them to capture at least some of the Hispanic market in their coverage area or ImpreMedia, a young and growing national Hispanic media company, acquires them.

The first outcome is more common. Atlanta’s Mundo Hispanico existed for 25 years before it was acquired by the Journal-Constitution in Atlanta in 2004. That same year, the Washington Post purchased a 13-year-old local Hispanic weekly, El Tiempo Latino.

In both cases, the editorial teams of the Spanish-language papers were left in place. The goal for both the Post and the Journal-Constitution was not to leave a big footprint, but to quietly secure their respective markets.

“El Tiempo Latino is going to remain El Tiempo Latino,” the Post’s executive editor, Len Downie, said when the paper was purchased. “We think [El Tiempo] is good at the journalism they publish.”⁴

More recently, the rise of ImpreMedia, formed in 2004 when Los Angeles’s La Opinion and New York’s El Diario effectively merged, opened up a new option. The company, active in acquiring Spanish-language papers on both coasts and in Illinois, announced its intention in 2007 to put more money into Web properties.

While there does not seem to be any one model for success, one tactic does spell trouble – trying to build a large chain of papers all at once.

In recent years, two well-known companies have gone down that road, and their efforts read like cautionary tales.

Rumbo, a chain of four papers, was founded in Texas in 2004. The papers, which were sold in Austin, Houston, San Antonio and the Brownsville area, began with a five-day-a-week publishing schedule. But by 2005, the effort’s main financial backers had pulled out. Another group of investors was found, but in 2006 there were new problems.

The chain suspended its Austin edition and cut back others to three days a week. The chain portrayed the moves as a new strategy “tailored to meet the needs of readers and advertisers,” but the scale-back clearly indicated Rumbo was in trouble.

The Rumbo editions in Houston and San Antonio went to three days a week as well and the company's founder, Edward Schumacher Matos, announced he was stepping down as chairman and CEO. In January 2007, all of the editions went to weekly publication.

Schumacher Matos said he started the papers from scratch to avoid the bad habits that linger in some Hispanic newsrooms, but that ultimately, “The competition was just dividing up the pie too thinly.”⁵

Rumbo, it should be noted, is not a failure. It survived and saw big bumps in revenues – 2006 was up 40% over 2005 – but it was not able to realize its grand vision of the simultaneous launch. Still, the chain had enough advertising potential to attract ImpreMedia, which brought Rumbo into its national network of online and print media in December 2007 for an undisclosed sum. So far, the company plans no publication changes.

Hoy, the Tribune Company’s foray into the Spanish-language marketplace, has fared better in many ways, but its future is extremely cloudy.

Tribune created the paper in New York in 1998 to compete with El Diario and in 2003 expanded coverage to Chicago. In 2004, it introduced an edition of Hoy in Los Angeles, selling its stake in Los Angeles’ established Spanish-language paper La Opinión to compete against it.

But a circulation scandal that hit Hoy in 2004 was a major setback for the Spanish-language publication. The Chicago-based Tribune Company admitted in 2004 that it had been inflating circulation levels for Hoy by as much as 50% since 2001.⁶ In 2006, nine former circulation executives and contractors at Hoy (and fellow Tribune paper Newsday) pleaded guilty to criminal fraud. By the end of 2007, Newsday and Hoy had paid advertisers $83 million in restitution and settled with the U.S. government for $15 million.

The New York edition of Hoy was sold to ImpreMedia in February 2007 for an undisclosed sum and a cloud hangs over the Los Angeles edition as well, as the Tribune Company prepares for the consequences of new leadership under the Chicago billionaire Sam Zell, who purchased the company for $8.2 billion. With the change in ownership, some of Tribune’s assets may be put in play.

While the troubles at Hoy may have much to do with the general funk within the newspaper industry, its turbulent existence shows that walking into a new environment as a big startup is doubly hard with Spanish-language populations.

It may simply be that their ambitions overshoot reality – the audiences are not yet big enough, rich enough or on advertisers’ wider radar screens. It also might be that the real growth areas for the ethnic press — smaller communities — are not fertile ground for big chains.

There also is the larger, more intangible question of community. As discussed in Content (Content Analysis Section) , these audiences expect their newspapers and stations to serve as community connections. This is a difficult task for a new enterprise – and an especially difficult one for a large-scale, multi-location startup.

1. “Univision’s Uva Eye’s $1 Retransmissions-Consent Fees.” Multichannel News, March 16, 2007.

2. Retransmission fees refer to the fees that Univision can charge cable, satellite and telephone companies for transmitting their content. They represent a new and growing source of revenue for TV broadcasters. According to research firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, broadcasters earned anywhere between 30 cents to 50 cents per subscriber in 2006.

Gathering large-scale information on investments in ethnic newsrooms is difficult. There is no measurement of staffing and investment in “ethnic media newsrooms.” Drilling down farther, there are no real figures on Korean-American or Indian-American media. Most of these outlets have small staffs.

The Hispanic media, however, do collect data through the Latino Print Network. And while stories on significant staff moves among the big Hispanic broadcasters may not detail investment and staffing figures, they at least lay out the contours and general directions of news investment.

According to figures from the Latino Print Network, overall staffing (full- and part-time) at Hispanic daily newspapers was down in 2006 for the first time since 2003 – 4,174 total staff in 2006 vs. 4,536 in 2005. For weeklies, the figure also was down in 2006, to 4,249 from 4,269 in 2005. At less-than-weeklies, the figure climbed slightly, to 1,939 in 2006 from 1,918 in 2005.

The decline looks especially noticeable among dailies – the drop of 362 staffers equals about 8% of the 2005 total. But the Latino Print Network collected data from four fewer dailies in 2006. The result is that the actual per-daily decline is not so dramatic. On average there were two more staffers at the Hispanic dailies for which the network gathers data – 110 in 2006 vs. 108 in 2005. Weeklies had a slight decline in average staff size – from 12 in 2005 to 11 in 2206. Less-than-weeklies held steady at six staff members.

And the staffers at daily and weekly newspaper are slightly less busy, according to the network’s data, thanks, in part, to thinner publications. The data show the “average pages per staff per issue” down at dailies, to 0.9 pages per staffer in 2006 from 1.2 pages in 2005. Weeklies also saw a slight drop, with the average pages per staffer at 5.0 in 2006, down from 5.3 in 2005. In theory, this means staffers have more time to devote to individual stories, with the hope of improving on quality.

For less-than-weeklies, where staffs are usually smallest, the publications got thicker and the workload increased substantially, to 6.9 pages per issue in 2006 from 3.8 pages in 2005. Those numbers may be a sign that these publications, usually found in emerging ethnic communities, are growing rapidly. In time, they may stabilize their publication schedules and increase staff.

1. All staffing figures from the Latino Print Network: State of Hispanic Print, 2006

The Black Press plays a unique role in the ethnic media landscape. While many ethnic outlets thrive as primary news sources for immigrants who speak foreign languages, the Black Press exists alongside mainstream outlets serving an audience that reads and speaks English.

The majority of the Black Press audience probably reads a mainstream English- language news source at least occasionally, if not more often. For instance, a 2005 study from New California Media found that African-Americans relied most on mainstream outlets for news on politics and government (66%), and that they were also the group that relied on the ethnic media least for that kind of news (21%).¹

The Black Press gained particular force in the U.S. during the 1960’s civil rights struggles. As coverage matured to include African-American perspectives – and major media outlets hired more minority staff – Black readership grew. Meanwhile, the audience of black newspapers declined.

But, as many Black Press editors point out, discrimination did not end after the 1960s. Racial issues still simmer beneath the surface, and African-American communities have been vocal in their belief that the mainstream press does not always get the full story when covering them. In 2007, that disconnect was spelled out in the Jena 6 story.

The small town of Jena, La., drew attention in mainstream media throughout 2007, following the December 2006 arrest of 16-year-old Mychal Bell, one of six black students initially charged as an adult with attempted murder in the beating of a white student.

The fight came after an autumn filled with racial tension at Jena High School. A group of white students hung nooses from a shade tree on school grounds – an attempt to intimidate black students who sat under the tree, a common resting area for white students. The tensions erupted in a fight and the violent beating of a white student by the group of black students, which included Bell.

As word spread, the African-American community became increasingly troubled about the charges. In June, Bell went before an all-white jury that delivered a guilty verdict after less than three hours of deliberations. Leaders were incensed that Bell faced up to 22 years in prison despite the fact that the white student he had beaten was treated and released from the hospital the same day of the fight .

For the Black Press, the story’s range and impact, particularly on younger, desirable readers, was something of a shock. Jake Oliver, editor and publisher of the Baltimore Afro-American, said in an interview with PEJ, “We started to pick up some buzz about Jena from the students at Howard [University in Washington] and Morgan State [University in Baltimore] in mid-September, and then there were these massive rallies and vigils at each.”

Word of the Louisiana incident spread over the Internet, Oliver said, and it presented young people with a new reality. “It was about them for the first time,” Oliver said. “For the first time in their lives they were realizing that something could be taken away from them.” The Afro-American sent reporter Valencia Mohammed to Jena to cover the September 20 March for Justice protest and her reports “just blew the top off the Web site” in terms of visits, Oliver said.

In part because of the Black Press coverage, the Jena story eventually caught the attention of the mainstream press. CNN covered the protect marches, and the New Yorker magazine published a Comment piece about Jena in its October 8 issue. The activity in the blogosphere surrounding Jena was a favorite topic on National Public Radio’s Black Bloggers’ Roundtable, a popular weekly dissection of minority issues led by News and Notes host Farai Chideya.

On September 26, a state appeals court threw out the original verdict and announced that Bell would be tried as a juvenile for second-degree battery. In December, Bell pleaded guilty in exchange for an 18-month sentence a juvenile facility, with 10 months already served. Felony charges against the other students are pending.

That outcome – and the concerted campaign that drew in readers – suggests the Black Press, with the help of the Web, can use its audience and voice to spotlight under-reported stories. The case, Oliver said, also created an opening for his paper – and, he believes, other Black Press – to reach out to younger readers. As the Jena story broke, the Afro-American created an e-mail report called “degree” that it now sends to students at Morgan State, Howard and other historically Black schools .

While stories like Jena underscore the opportunities for the Black Press, particularly online, challenges remain. Circulation for some is essentially flat, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures.

For this report, we compare three well-known papers in cities with large African-American populations, as audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations – the New York Amsterdam News, the Philadelphia Tribune and the Baltimore Afro-American. All three saw a mixed 2007.

In Baltimore, the weekly Afro-American increased its circulation to 11,853 from 11,224 – a jump of about 6%. The weekly Amsterdam News saw the slightest bump in its circulation, which climbed to 13,380 from 13,180 in 2006. And in Philadelphia, the Tribune, which publishes three times a week, saw a drop in its Sunday circulation, to 10,122 from 11,559 in 2006, a 12% decline.

It should be noted that at a time when most newspapers are losing circulation, simply holding the line is often viewed as something of a victory. And many of these papers, which are not audited by the ABC, still saw good circulation numbers according to other auditing companies, particularly the Circulation Verification Council.

But retaining readers at a smaller circulation paper can present more complicated challenges than at larger outlets.

As with other ethnic and alternative newspapers, African-American newspapers generally rely more on local ads from small businesses and classifieds – areas that are becoming harder to mine because of the rise of “big box” stores and the Web. An aging audience also cuts into the numbers. Black Press readers are older than the desired 18-to-34-year-old demographic – and getting older.² That is one reason the publishers were pleased at the interest in Jena and the power of the Internet for the younger audience.

As is the case with other ethnic papers, the publications hold an advantage: devoted readers who trust them above other outlets.

“African-American media is still one of the most integral components in the African-American social structure, and it’s one of the most influential entities in the African-American segment,” Latraviette Smith, national vice president in the multicultural practice at Edelman, told PR Week. “It’s really capable of lending that credibility and validity to brands across industries.

“There’s a trust African-American media has with the community,” she said. “It goes back to that credibility. They’re still very much a voice within the community. They [provide] a forum for issues of concern that other media still aren’t [covering].”

The question for the Black Press is how to capitalize on that credibility in a time when print media across the board are struggling.

One venture to watch is a free online-only magazine, the Root (www.theroot.com), introduced by the Washington Post in January 2008. Led by the author and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the magazine bypasses entertainment and lifestyle content in favor of news and commentary on black politics and culture, with a focus on helping users research family histories, according to the New York Times. It joins what is becoming the Post’s small stable of e-magazines; the first, Slate, was purchased in 2005. Advising The Root is Slate editor Jacob Weisberg.

According to the Times, The Root aims to be a “more high-brow, political alternative to established magazines like Ebony and sites like BlackAmericaWeb.com and BlackVoices.com.” “We didn’t feel there is a place right now where right-wing and left-wing and centrist black commentators can get together in one space,” Gates told the Times, adding he sees the site filling the role of disappearing black newspapers in major cities.

While the online-only approach cuts printing and delivery costs, it also pulls in less advertising and circulation revenue. Washington Post Chief Executive Donald E. Graham was making no predictions about the project’s financial prospects, “but, obviously,” he said, “we intend to make money eventually.”

An offshoot of the largest organization of African-American publishers in the U.S. is trying to help bring its papers into the digital age.

The organization, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also known as the Black Press of America, represents more than 200 Black community newspapers of all sizes around the country. The association provides a digital home for, among others, the Precinct Reporter Group, a set of small papers in San Bernadino, Calif., without Web sites. Its membership also includes papers such as the New York’s Amsterdam News, which uses an NNPA template to get itself online.

Because the Black Press is such a diverse universe, some of the best-known publications joined to found a smaller group within NNPA, the African American News and Information Consortium. This group includes the Indianapolis Recorder, the Amsterdam News, the Afro-American, the Dallas Weekly, the Atlanta Voice, the St. Louis American and the Chicago Citizen. Aside from progress on the digital front, its goal is to see that all print circulations are audited, according to members.

The Afro-American is one of several Black Press Web sites that feature an e-edition that mimics the look of the print version – a user clicks on pages to “turn” them and sees an image of the print product, articles and ads. Its editor, Jake Oliver, says his paper is re-imagining its content, in part with the Web in mind, going with shorter, digest-sized articles from around the country and the world.

As of 2007, the Web site drew 29,000 visits a week and more than 250,000 page views. “The electronic edition is just a bridge. We know that,” Oliver said. “We are going to change the design of our site. We have to. We know everything is moving online.”

The papers know they are behind in the online game and catching up is a major goal.

1. The Ethnic Media in America: The Giant Hidden in Plain Sight, question “Which media do African Americans Rely on More Heavily for News on Politics and Government?” New California Media, June 6, 2005.

Intro

Audience

The Spreading Population

An Expanding Media Landscape

Asian-American Media – A Growing Market

Naturalization and Mainstreaming

Hispanic U.S. Daily Newspaper Circulation Over Time