Spanish media shrinking here as Hispanic numbers boom
by Fernanda Echavarri on Dec. 26, 2008, under Edge, LocalLocal Spanish speakers have few options for news
Karla Gomez Escamilla, a reporter at Univision in Tucson, works in the studio.
Across the West the number of Spanish speakers is growing and so is the number of Spanish-language news media outlets to serve the booming Hispanic population.
Except in Tucson.
In a metro area with more than a million residents and more than 200,000 people who speak Spanish, according to a 2007 U.S. census survey, the number of local Spanish-language news media outlets is slowly shrinking.
There is no daily Spanish-language newspaper serving the city and only one local weekly Spanish-language tabloid, which is produced by the Arizona Daily Star.
El Imparcial, a daily newspaper produced in Hermosillo, Son., distributes about 15,000 copies in southeast Arizona but contains little news about Tucson.
There are seven Spanish-language radio stations in Tucson but none specializes in news or talk radio, and the two Hispanic-targeted television stations covering local news are part of regional news shows anchored elsewhere.
Of the top 25 Hispanic markets in the U.S., only Tucson and Albuquerque, N.M., do not have Spanish-language daily or semidaily newspapers, and Tucson is the only market without a locally produced Spanish-language TV news program.
Tucson is the 25th largest Hispanic market, according to a report by Advertising Age, an advertising trade journal.
Karla Gomez Escamilla has been a reporter for Spanish-language media in Tucson for more than a decade and said the industry here is moving backward, especially in the past couple of years with newsroom cuts.
She said Spanish-speaking Tucsonans are hurt by having fewer options compared with other cities when it comes to Spanish-language local media.
“I believe viewers are negatively affected by the lack of daily local news. People might not see that there really is a limited amount of options in Tucson until they look at the amount of local Spanish-language news coverage elsewhere,” Gomez Escamilla said.
She is one of the two reporters working for Univision in Tucson, the most-watched Spanish-language newscast in the Tucson area, according to the Nielsen ratings.
About 15,000 homes tune in during Univision’s 5 p.m. newscast, and 13,000 homes at 10 p.m., according to Univision ratings reports.
“I have a strong sense of responsibility with our viewers, even more so than regular media, because if we don’t put something on the news, where else will they hear about it?,” she said.
“If we had a daily publication in Spanish, our community would benefit from it tremendously and know what’s really going on in their city,” she said. “But until then, we’ll continue to try and get as much as we can covered.”
Telemundo, also a Spanish channel, covers news from Pima County and the rest of Arizona, as well as from New Mexico and Texas, for its 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, but the shows are produced and anchored in Texas.
The channel reaches 2,000 homes during the 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, said Araceli De Leon, the president of Telemundo in Tucson and Phoenix.
Having partially local news coverage is not the best approach, said Celeste Gonzales de Bustamante, a University of Arizona journalism professor.
“In a regional (newscast) approach, what people are seeing as the local news for Tucson may only have a couple stories that actually happened here,” she said. “And considering the large Hispanic population in town, it seems inadequate to have such little coverage.”
Many bilingual Spanish speakers chose to get their news from Univision or Telemundo instead of local channels in English, Gonzales de Bustamante said, not because they don’t understand English but because the news is different.
“There’s a definite recognition to the Hispanic culture that more adequately reflects what’s important amongst them. That’s why they change the channel to what seems more relatable,” she said.
Hispanic viewers are interested in the bigger issues, De Leon said, mostly those that affect their lives instead of the daily car crash or bank robbery.
“They are very concerned with their children so education is a top priority in our news coverage,” she said. “And immigration is very big for us, because many of our viewers are affected by changes in the law.”
Retiree Hortencia Moreno, who speaks English and Spanish, tunes in to the evening news on both Telemundo and Univision every day. She said Spanish-language news is more appealing to her.
“I really like the way Univision presents their news,” she said. “I’ve been watching them for years.”
Moreno said she felt “OK” about the amount of local news covered by both networks.
“I feel like they are giving me information about the news every day,” she said.
Most morning radio show hosts rely on Univision and Telemundo to report local news to their listeners, rather than report their own news.
Gaston Mascareñas is the host of “Puro Vacilon” (The Morning Tease), a morning show on La Poderosa 105.3 FM. He said his show, like many other morning shows in Spanish, has comical sketches, music, horoscopes and a quick news segment.
“We give people a small taste of the news of the day when they wake up but in a funny way, sort of like in a ‘Saturday Night Live’ style,” he said. “Then when they go home at night and watch the news, they get the full story.”
The talk-radio format has been tried before here but did not succeed, he said, because “radio just isn’t where (Hispanics) go to get news.”
Bob Feinman, director of Clear Channel’s Hispanic Operations, agreed with Mascareñas.
Feinman oversees La Preciosa 97.1 FM, among other stations, and said there is a lack of news radio in the area because the Spanish-speaking population has not responded well to the idea in the past few years.
“But it’s not that the audience isn’t there; it’s definitely there. People are tuning in every day to listen to the radio in Spanish,” Feinman said. “Enough to keep (seven) stations alive for this long.”
The number of Hispanic viewers in the U.S. rose from 22.2 million, or 9 percent of the U.S. population in 1993, to 38.9 million, or 14 percent of the population, in 2006, according to a Nielsen report.
Advertising Age pegs Tucson’s Hispanic market at more than 440,000.
That’s why, despite the poor economy, advertisers in Spanish media have not cut back on the Hispanic market, said Raul Aguirre, director of REA Media Group in Tucson.
Tucson’s increasing Hispanic and Spanish-speaking population is changing “the landscape of business” in Tucson, he said.
Many Hispanics in Tucson are bilingual or at least can listen to Spanish-language radio and television, giving them more choices for what to watch or listen to here and making them a more desirable consumer, Aguirre said.
“They want to know what’s going on with the economy, but they also want to keep up with their cultural music and language,” he said.
Figures by Nielsen Monitor Plus showed a 7.7 percent increase in Spanish-language advertising in this year’s first quarter, which Aguirre said should continue or hold steady.
“The extensiveness and depth of the Hispanic market is enormous, and so many Hispanics have cash jobs on the side like landscaping and housekeeping that advertisers know it would be a mistake not to invest in Spanish-language media,” he said.
Karla Gomez Escamilla reporter at Univision in Tucson works in the editing room with her photographer John DeSoto.
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LATINO MEDIA
Spanish Radio Stations
FM
97.1 KTZR La Preciosa
102.1 KCMT Spanish
105.3 KZLZ La Poderosa Mexican Regional
AM
990 KTKT Spanish sports
1030 KEVT Spanish
1210 KQTL Radio Unica Spanish Talk, News and Entertainment
1660 KXEW Radio Tejano
Spanish Television Stations
KHRR-40 Telemundo
KUVE-33 Univision
Spanish Weekly Tabloid
Arizona Daily Star’s La Estrella
