Hispanic Media Find Vast Success in Niche

The Sun News, Posted on Sat, May. 17, 2003 By Jamie Kritzer (Greensboro, N.C.) News & Record

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Five months ago, Venezuela native Luisa Vann paid WXLV for a 30-minute time slot so she could launch "Luisa su voz Latina."

Recently, the ABC affiliate agreed to sell Vann a new time slot with twice as many viewers. Her program now airs at 12:30 p.m. every other Sunday, moving from its former slot at 6 a.m. Saturdays.

"Luisa" is just one of a growing number of media outlets that now compete for the attention of the Triad's Hispanic population.

During the past decade, the Triad has seen the startup of more than a dozen publications, TV programs and radio stations marketed toward Latinos.

The owners of those media outlets say they are trying to fill a need and tap into a market that represents a more significant part of the economy than a decade ago.

In the 2000 census, the Triad boasted the third-fastest growth rate for Hispanics of any metro area in the country during the 1990s. Its 62,210 Hispanics represented a ninefold increase from the 1990 census.

"Simply put, what's driving the growth of the Hispanic media is the growth of the Hispanic population," says Sheri Bridges, associate professor of marketing at Wake Forest University.

"Hispanic media are homing in on a specific need. ... We always want things that remind us of home, and the Hispanic media are providing that for the Hispanic population."

Moreover, the Hispanic-geared media are tapping into a market that spends an estimated $54 million each month in the Piedmont Triad, says Don Hild, who owns Hispanic Marketing Resources, a High Point company that does research for businesses trying to reach the Hispanic market.

In January 2002, Hild launched a semimonthly publication, TeleGuia, a TV guide for Latinos. His formula: market the TV guide in the Triad, Triangle and Charlotte and distribute the publication in Mexican restaurants, grocery stores and other places where the Latino community meets.

The results have been phenomenal, Hild says. In 15 months, the guide's circulation has grown 15 times, to about 30,000.

"The key to advertising is repetition, and we're in people's homes for two full weeks," Hild says. "If you can get exposed three or four times a day for two weeks it is supremely better than newspaper advertising that might not even be seen once."

On the back of most issues of TeleGuia is an advertisement for Fast Envios, a Wake Forest-based business that sells satellite dishes mostly to the Hispanic community. Since Fast Envios ads started appearing in TeleGuia in January 2002, business has doubled, from sales of about 25 dishes per week to 50, owner Rafael Obando says.

"It's been outstanding," he says. "We ask our customers where they heard of us, and half of them say TeleGuia."

Most of the Hispanic-geared media provide new immigrants, most of whom don't speak English, with their only outlet for local news and information, plus information on where to find local Latino entertainment.

Vann's TV program, too, aims to help Latinos.

She can't offer the splashy production or entertainment Hispanics in the Triad can now see on the 14 Spanish-language channels that have been added to Time Warner Cable's lineup in the past year.

But she can offer something those programs cannot: useful local information for Latinos who are far from home.