How influential is the Hispanic media market? Look no further than the cover of Time’s newest “100 Most Influential People in the World” issue, where Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos landed one of five vaunted covers along with such luminaries as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Bradley Cooper.

The U.S. Hispanic market is growing faster than any other segment, controls a hefty $1.3 trillion of spending power, and has a larger household size than any other, says Dounia Turrill, SVP of Insights at Nielsen. “Because a lot of the growth is coming from the Hispanic population, you’re getting a very young group connected to multigenerational homes and also a lot of bilingual homes,” Turrill points out. “So it’s very important to have the ability to connect with the English-speaking population as well.”

Given the market’s rapid evolution, Hispanics can no longer be relegated to a one-size-fits-all bucket. What’s more, opportunities to reach Hispanic viewers are expanding both on television and via digital platforms. Conde Nast, for one, announced at its recent NewFront plans to launch a channel dedicated to Latino millennials. Fusion, the joint venture between ABC and Univision, later this year will launch five original shows exclusively on its Snapchat Discover channel.

Market Segments: A Closer Look
“It used to be everybody just bought their Hispanic GRPs [gross rating points]. Now all the clients we talk with – the heads of agencies and planning – they are talking about the different segments they put the Hispanic market into,” Tom Maney, EVP, ad sales, for Fox Hispanic Media, tells Cynopsis. “You have to think about how a first-generation Hispanic American is different from second- or third-generation person who came up through the schools here.”

Maney says Fox is bringing an “element of mobility” to a variety of its Hispanic-targeted programming. “We’re putting product on Hulu, for example, where they can binge-watch, and having VOD in all the spaces we consider to be the general market,” he shares.

Fox also recently changed up the way its ad sales teams are aligned, in part to delve beyond the metrics of traditional household ratings. “We are talking about consumers more than we’re talking about rating points today,” Maney says, “and ways to impact certain consumers within the Hispanic market. Household income, levels of education, home ownership – those are the kinds of things people are looking at now.”

Bilingual viewers also have more choice in what they watch. “Different people watch different amounts of Spanish-language television. The Spanish-speaking person doesn’t watch exclusively one or the other,” Maney says. “There’s your fourth-generation, English-dominant viewer and your first-generation Spanish dominant viewer. Anyone else is in the middle and the majority of the middle is going back and forth based on the content, because they love the show.”

Digging Deep on Cultural Relevance
Today’s sophisticated market demands a shift away from stereotypical fare to more nuanced offerings. “What we found from insights and research we’ve done – both qualitative and quantitative – is it’s story first, language second,” says Victor Parada, Discovery’s VP, ad sales, for the U.S. Hispanic market. “If you’ve got a great story and can deliver it in the language your viewer wants, that’s the formula for success.”

Parada says Discovery en Espanol, which draws from Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC and other sister nets, these days relies less on overt subtext such as food, music and even casting. “We don’t underestimate the appetite the Hispanic consumer has for content that goes beyond the familiar conventions,” he says. For example, the Science Channel miniseries about Google’s Lunar X Prize competition to develop and land a rover on the moon has been a hit on the Spanish-language network, he says.

“Our cultural relevance has to do with how we connect with the life journey of our viewer,” Parada says. “A lot of what we get from our viewers is adaptation, resilience, balance. Most are foreign born, and even for those who are U.S. born, a lot are going through this whole reinvention. They moved form a different country, they are changing their role, they work in a different industry. So when they see our survival shows, they resonate.”

Among Discovery en Espanol’s most highly rated blocks are the newly expanded Motor Mondays, which features docu-reality series Texas Trocas about a big-rig business run by a spirited true-life family in San Antonio, and its Thursday night lineup of survival stories, including Bear Grylls-starring Escape From Hell. “There’s nothing Latin about Bear but he has a huge following,” Parada says.

Real-Time Tune In
One hallmark that remains consistent for Hispanic viewers is live tune-in, particularly during primetime – a boon for marketers looking to mobilize consumers around an event. While other population segments flock to the DVR, Univision reports 91 percent live viewership in primetime, while NBCU’s live primetime draw is 95 percent.

“The most unique viewing trend for us is the high concentration of live viewership on our networks in primetime,” says Keith Turner, Univision president of advertising and sales. “While a significant portion of non-Hispanic viewing in the U.S. is time-shifted, 91 percent of Univision’s primetime content is consumed live, which compares to an average of 67 percent for the big four English-language broadcasters.”

Mike Rosen, NBCU EVP who oversees the company’s Hispanic media and news groups, breaks it down. “It’s because of the novellas being on five nights a week, one hour a night. The binge viewing is already a built-in behavior, and the programming and storytelling model makes it so that the time-shifting is a little less relevant than it would be in weekly storytelling.”

NBCU is mining programming and marketing opportunities in a connected social media-live TV universe under a new strategy Rosen refers to the “unbreakable consumer experience.”  “Instead of the mobile screen being a competitor of live programming, the media experience becomes greater than the sum of its screens if done creatively,” Rosen says.

“This dynamic of live viewing but at the same time, the recognition that the audiences have smart phones in their hands at same time they are watching, has led us to develop a strategy in how we change the nature of consumer expectations with content as well as marketing,” he adds. “There are great opportunities for marketing partners to create real-time digital, social and mobile expressions for their brands triggered by the passion points of live events, sports and news content.”

Univision, too, is expanding its live event-style programming, particularly in the pop culture realm. “We’ve invested in more of the blockbuster content our audiences want,” says Turner. Upcoming on the slate is La Banda, a live-format search for the Latino boy band in partnership with Simon Cowell and Ricky Martin. Univision also inked recent programming deals with the Miss Universe and Miss USA franchise, and “doubled down on sports to ensure we are delivering the matches and leagues sports fans want to watch 365 days per year,” Turner says.

Good Sports
Sports continue to reign among multigenerational Hispanic viewers, and programmers continue to raise the bar on offerings.

Now more than 11 years in the market, ESPN Deportes remains a market force with continued dedication to live programming, an increase in coverage of American sports and expansion to other fields such as the XVII Pan American Games, which the network is set to air in July from Toronto.

Univision, too, is bringing it this summer with the addition of the Gold Cup, the Campeon de Campeones tournament, and MLS and Mexican league soccer (LMX), “the most watched soccer league in the U.S. regardless of language,” Turner says.

Programmers are stretching the ways they reach sports fans, too. “The sports platform is huge, and most of our traffic is mobile,” Fox’s Maney says. “Almost 90 percent of the audience we get at Fox Deportes.com is through mobile, so we are trying to bring more instantaneous scores, news and highlights in a mobile-friendly way, and you’ll start to see more live streaming.”

It was no coincidence NBCU chose to introduce the rebrand of its formerly millennial-focused Mun2 as NBC Universo during Super Bowl weekend, launching an expanded programming slate with its exclusive Spanish-language simulcast of the big game.

“That really was symbolic of our new approach as a network that serves all modern Hispanic Americans,” Rosen says. “We’ll be serving many different audiences, including millennials.” While the network will offer a slate that includes scripted series and events, sports is a clear hub with the addition of NFL, Barclays Premier League (BPL), WWE, and coverage of four FIFA World Cup events this summer just part of its bulging sports schedule.

Trend Alert
Just as companies that program specifically to Hispanic viewers are broadening their content pool, the general market is broadening its embrace of Hispanic culture. Nielsen’s Turrill says one of the biggest industry trends to keep an eye on this year are the number of multicultural shows on general networks.

“The new year will bring an interesting slate of programs,” she says. “Content providers and the big brand companies are really noticing that this segment of the population is going to drive a lot of business because a lot of the growth is coming from the Hispanic population.”

Roberta Caploe: Editorial Director @robertacaploe
Diane K Schwartz: Senior Vice President, Media Communications Group 

Cynopsis Ad Sales: Mike Farina | VP, Sales | 203-218-6480
Classifieds Sales: Trish Pihonak | Director of Operations | 203-899-8459

Copyright Cynopsis 2015