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 Entertainment | February 2006 
Satellite, Cable TV Push Channel Packs in Spanish Language
 Wilson Lievano - Wall Street Journal
Satellite and cable-TV companies are increasingly courting the nation’s fast-growing Hispanic audience with multichannel packages of Spanish-language programming, bringing more choice to a market long dominated by two networks, Univision Communications Inc. and Telemundo.
Millions of Hispanics in the United States are tuning in to channels offered by Comcast Corp., Cablevision Systems Corp., Time Warner Inc. ’s Time Warner Cable unit, Echostar Communications Corp. ’s Dish Network and News Corp. ’s DirecTV. Their Spanish-language offerings mirror their Englishlanguage lineups, including channels dedicated to sports, music, cartoons and drama.
Until recently, TV shows aimed at the nation’s Hispanics were largely imported from Mexico. Driven by the popular sitcom El Chavo and soccer games, mostly from the Mexican league, Galavision, a unit of Univision, has been the leader on Hispanic cable. The plot of El Chavo, which means “the kid,” revolves around the exploits of a child — played by a well-known adult comedian — who lives in a barrel in the yard of a Mexican neighborhood. The show attracts an average of 500, 000 viewers every weekday.
“The content of (the networks ) for the most part is from Mexico. Fifteen million people from other parts of Latin America never got anything with the exception of Mexican content,” said Javier Prelooker, director of DirecTV Para Todos.
Each of the newer entrants in the market has at least one channel from each Spanish-speaking country in Latin America, except Cuba, and Spain, helping them reach out to a range of a nationalities. The satellite or cable operators either make direct deals with the channels themselves or with such companies as Castalia Communications Corp., an independent producer and distributor. Both DirecTV’s Prelooker and Mauro Panzera, marketing director for Comcast, declined to discuss the average cost of the broadcast rights.
The wider array of choices has attracted consumers like Luis Fernando Godoy, 58, a Colombian welder who immigrated to the United States with his family nine years ago and now lives in Houston. One of the first things he bought for his home was a subscription to Dish Network. In 2003, when he first saw promotions for Dish Latino, a package of channels that included one from Godoy’s homeland, he didn’t think twice before buying it.
Now, almost every day at 7 p. m. Godoy tunes in to watch Noticias RCN, Colombia’s highest-rated newscast. An hour later, he watches a sports show or a live Colombian-league soccer match, and later he often watches Colombian journalists discuss the day’s events on La Noche.
Dish Network declines to provide subscription figures for its Dish Latino package. Direc-TV says its similar package, DirectTV Para Todos, had 900, 000 subscribers at the end of October, almost triple the 360, 000 it had in January 2004, according to senior marketing director Mark Ryan.
And there is still room for growth. According to Nielsen Media Research, the nation’s 11. 2 million Hispanic-American TV households watch an average 17 hours of prime-time TV per week, four hours more than the overall U. S. average. Many of them don’t have or haven’t heard of the Hispanic programming packages.
In the case of cable companies, every subscriber to the packages may not get the same channels. Luis Torres-Bohl, chief executive of Castalia, says his company’s deal with Comcast allows him to offer the cable operator’s regional offices channels tailored to local demographics. For example, it might offer more Argentine, Mexican and Central American channels in Arizona, reflecting the origins of the bulk of that state’s Hispanics. |
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