Spanish-Language Cable Nets Rev Ad Sales Gains

While Overall Market Slowed, Sector Notched Healthy 2007 Growth

By Laura Martinez -- Multichannel News, 7/15/2008 9:29:00 AM

Advertising spending on Spanish-language cable reached $220.7 million in 2007, a whopping 76% increase compared to 2006, according to figures released this month by Nielsen Monitor Plus.

But the jump was partly aided by the fact that Nielsen added Fox Sports en Español and Mun2 in 2007. Excluding these networks, the sector scored a 32.3% increase for the period.

“It is still an important jump, if you consider that U.S. advertising grew only 0.06% across all media,” said Annie Touliatos, vice president, sales development for Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Prior to adding these two networks, Nielsen tracked ad spending on Galavision, Discovery and ESPN Deportes.

Overall, Spanish-language media reached $5.78 billion in 2007, a modest 3% gain from 2006. Still, as Touliatos points out, some categories performed much better in Hispanic-targeted media, when compared to the overall market.

“Automotive was down 11% in 2007 across all media. But if you look only at Hispanic media, the category was actually up 4%,” she said.

A similar pattern was evident among wireless telephone providers. While the category grew 12% across all media, there was a 35% advance on the Hispanic media scorecard.

Among marketers, Univision’s parent company, Broadcast Media Partners Inc. was the largest spender across all Spanish-language media, with $205.9 million. Still, that figure was down 27% compared to what the company spent in the previous year. Other marketers reporting a decrease in spending in Spanish-language media were Procter & Gamble, General Motors, the U.S. government and Verizon Communications.

“Spanish-language media is doing a lot better...But you still see them feeling the impact of the economic slowdown,” said Touliatos.