Catching Up

       It has been a few months since I sat at my computer to put out a column. God knows there has been much to write about. But it was time that I needed in re-tooling my business. Fortunately I can not complain. During the summer, we were fortunate enough to have picked up the National PR duties for DIRECTV Mas, as well as becoming the Strategic Consultants for Harpo Studios. But enough about us. Let’s catch up.

On the radio front, we continue to see a war of words and action between the Spanish Language Radio Broadcasters and the folks at Arbitron. As I have said on multiple occasions, this is the same scenario that Spanish language TV faced when switching over from Strategy Research to Nielsen in 1994.

At the time, everyone was scared out of their skins to go from the huge SRC ratings to the NHSI panel. It was not easy, and there was much back and forth, but In the end, what it really did was make Spanish language Television broadcasters better programmers. PPM technology will only do the same for radio. Period, end of story.

On the Television front we have seen some belt tightening on behalf of all the players. The most publicized being Telemundo, who seem to have a desire to announce all their laundry, good and bad in public. Reality is, that even Univision has had their share of layoffs, freezes and budget cuts, they just choose to move onward and forward, and not make a big deal about it. By making a big deal about it, all you do is give ammunition to the nay-sayers, who would like to see nothing better than the demise of  Spanish language media, especially television.

On the ratings front I will congratulate Telemundo with their big success at 10pm;
Sin Cenos No Hay Paraiso, they also scored big with the Mexican National team the night of the last Presidential debate. But do not be mistaken, almost 2.5 million Hispanics tuned into Univision to watch the third and final debate. Yes we vote. And there is no doubt in my mind that when it is all said and done, more that 10 million Latinos will have cast a ballot for
President. Up from 8 million just four years ago.

On the convergence front. Things are moving at lightning speed. The very good news is that Hispanics are adopting the new technologies at the same, or in some cases, faster speed than the rest of the market. How important is this to Corporate America? Just look at the title of this past weeks NHCC conference “Hispanic Marketing, Convergence of Traditional and Emerging Media. I will write about convergence next week.

By: Jose Cancela

Jose Cancela is Principal of Hispanic USA Inc, a full service Hispanic Market Communications firm. He has also the author of “The Power of Business en Español, Seven Fundamental Keys to Unlocking the Potential of the Spanish Language Hispanic Market”   Rayo / HarperCollins.
jo**@hi*********.net
www.hispanicusa.net