A new Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism study on Hispanic Media concludes that the broadcast television sector continues to grow, not only competing with major English-language networks but in some time slots, beating them.
Broadcasters have argued that the growing audience of Hispanic-language media, which includes new multicast channel services targeted to minorities, is one reason the FCC should be careful how it pushes for reclaiming broadcast spectrum for other uses.
The study is an update of PEJ's ethnic chapter of its annual State of the Media report.
Among the steps those media are taking to capitalize on and grow that trend include Univision's plans to launch a 24/7 news channel in 2012, and Telemundo's plans to expand its local TV news output by 25% per a promise to the FCC and Justice Departments in the Comcast/NBCU merger.
The study says that Univision and Telemundo combined are predicted to gave $1.5 billion in ad revenue, with Univision and co-owned Telefutura accounting for $1.1 billion of that and Telemundo $400 million.
Univision was also the only major U.S. network -- it is fifth behind the Big Four -- to grow its average primetime, 18-49 audience, up 8% over the season before, compared to Big Four drops of 4% for Fox, 8% for CBS, 9% for CBS and 14% for NBC over the same period.
While the report talks about continuing gains for Hispanic media, it also says there continues to be a digital divide. Just under two-thirds of Latinos (65%) were online in 2010 compared to 77% of white adults, while only 45% of Hispanics had broadband access at home, compared to 65% of Whites.
