Politics pays off for Spanish TV

BY DANIEL SHOER ROTH

Jorge Ramos, Univisión's news anchor, claims he has conducted more one-on-one interviews with the 2008 presidential candidates than any other anchor in the mainstream media. So far, he has interviewed Barack Obama twice and John McCain three times. Four years ago, he only got a couple minutes -- once -- with Democratic hopeful John Kerry.
Earlier this month, Ramos flew to Waukesha, Wis., to interview McCain, who gave him 10 minutes. But when his time was up, McCain agreed to 10 minutes more.
''No candidate can enter the White House without passing through Univisión and other Spanish-language media. They know it,'' said Ramos.
Spanish-language broadcasters know it, too. In this year's election, Hispanics represent a decisive group of swing voters in battleground states. The fastest growing minority group, they account for 15 percent of the U.S population.
Advocacy groups estimate that 10 million Latinos will show up at the polls on Nov. 4.
Keeping Hispanic voters informed also has been good for business.
Latino networks have increased their budgets for election coverage, launched new political programs and pulled in more political advertising -- double the amounts of 2004 in some cases.
Univisión Communications, the media giant with two broadcast networks, a Web portal and multiple radio stations, expects to sell as much as $20 million in political ads during the second half of 2008 and $25 million to $28 million for the entire year, Chief Financial Officer Andrew Hobson told investors in a second-quarter conference call. During the previous presidential election cycle, Univisión garnered $16.2 million worth of political ads.
Hialeah-based Telemundo declined to provide numbers, but political ad spending has been up, according to Enrique Pérez, the network's senior vice president for sales. In South Florida, he noted, close and confrontational congressional races also contributed to higher ad revenue.
The increase in political coverage by Spanish-language media goes hand-in-hand with attracting more political ads, said David Joyce, media analyst with Miller Tabak + Co. ''Political ad spending is not making up for the recession in overall ad spending, though,'' Joyce added.
Spanish-language media, which experienced double-digit growth in ad sales in recent years, is suffering through the same adverse trends as the general media, which has been hit by falling ad revenue and more competition from the Internet.
Still, Spanish-language TV networks are expected to see gains of 4 percent to 5 percent in advertising sales this year.
Univisión, which was taken private last year, posted a second-quarter loss of $100.7 million. Revenue declined 4.3 percent to $533.1 million from the year-prior period. The company has an outstanding debt of $9.9 billion.
Despite the resources of its parent company, NBC Universal, Telemundo still has been lagging Univisión in national ratings and last spring suddenly pulled its morning show, Cada Día, because of poor ratings.
But the political campaigns are giving Univisión and Telemundo, as well as other local Spanish-language radio and television stations, a boost.
In an aggressive effort to woo Hispanic voters, both parties have spent millions of dollars on Spanish-language advertising in swing states such as Florida. There are 1.7 million eligible Hispanic voters in Florida, which is 9 percent of all U.S. Hispanic voters, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
For the first time in history, Univisión hosted live Spanish-language presidential forums during the primaries, and Univisión and CNN co-hosted a debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The network, which has studios in Doral, also launched Al Punto, a Sunday morning public affairs show with Jorge Ramos last fall. This coming Sunday, the program will feature Ramos' interview with Gov. Sarah Palin, her first on Spanish-language television.
Telemundo aired two presidential debates live and invited young Hispanics to participate in open discussions afterwards.
'Hispanics prefer to get election news in Spanish. Mainstream networks are not talking about immigration or where each candidate stands on issues that are important to us,' said Johanna Guerra, Telemundo's senior vice president for news.
Marketers and political campaigns are also increasingly reaching out to the young Latino audience, which represents 25 percent of Hispanic voters.
Text-messaging and the Internet, including blogging, are playing an important role in this year's campaigns, said Maria Teresa Petersen, head of Voto Latino, a nonprofit voter-engagement organization.
Voto Latino has teamed up with V-me, a television network launched last year in partnership with the Public Broadcasting System, to host live blogs during the presidential debates.
''In past elections, candidates didn't make much room for Hispanic media,'' said Federico Subervi, a Texas State University professor and author of the book The Mass Media and Latin Politics. ``Now the campaigns are approaching them; that's why there is more coverage.''