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NBC peacock takes Spanish lesson
Network sees Hispanics as viewers, not strangers

Arizona Republic
Oct. 30, 2001

Here is an interesting factoid.

If you include Puerto Rico, factor in phenomenal recent growth and the census undercount, the United States has become the second-largest Hispanic nation in the world, surpassing both Colombia and Spain.

Now, this simply means the United States has the second-largest number of Hispanics living within its borders, behind Mexico. This doesn't mean that we're all fluent Spanish speakers here and are spending all our waking hours watching telenovelas, those serial soap operas on Spanish-language networks.

Nonetheless, the ranking puts into perspective the recent purchase by NBC of Telemundo, the No. 2 Spanish-language network in the United States.

It explains why I can watch my Home Box Office movies in Spanish if I want.

It tells us why the American Heritage folks have just released their second edition Spanish dictionary, updated to include such words as browser, laptop, beeper and telecommuting.

They also sent along a news release that tells us that the Spanish-speaking student population has risen nationally from 6 percent of the K-12 population in 1972 to 15 percent in 1999. In the West and Southwest, we know that number is far higher.

In other words, while many states are squabbling about whether we should allow bilingual education in our schools, events have clearly passed the language misanthropes by. Not that it will matter, however.

In other words, if you have an intense dislike for Spanish and those who speak it, get over it.

This doesn't mean that English is in any danger of ever playing second fiddle in the United States or the world, for that matter. It just means that while language continues to divide us in the public policy arenas, the marketplace has quietly and efficiently eschewed division in favor of pragmatism and profits.

The Hispanic population in the United States is now about 35.3 million. This represents a purchasing power of about $630 billion annually, according to Carlos Santiago of Santiago & Valdés Solutions, an in-culture marketing firm.

Santiago and his partner Isabel Valdés are among the nation's leading experts in Hispanic marketing and trends.

The NBC purchase of Telemundo is a no-brainer for Santiago.

"They realized that in larger markets in the country, you're looking at Spanish language ratings in key portions of the day, like early-evening news and prime time, larger than English language (ratings)," he said.

So, NBC likely concluded that tapping the Spanish-language market is one sure way of remaining No. 1 in reach.

"They told themselves, 'We cannot grow our revenue base nor our audience just with English (language) TV,' " Santiago said.

OK, but surely, you say, U.S. Hispanics prefer the sitcom Friends to Uga, Uga, a telenovela on Telemundo about a young good-looking heir who grew up in the wilds of the Amazon jungle. Surely, assimilation and acculturation have led us to prefer those highbrow reality TV shows to the Spanish-language comedy, ¡Ay Caramba!

Actually, Santiago said, even bilingual U.S. Hispanics are watching Spanish-language television. This can partly be explained by the fact that about half of Hispanic growth is fueled by immigration.

But, even if we were to somehow turn off the immigration spigot to zero right now, the next 15 years or so would still see a substantial portion of the Hispanic population watching Spanish-language television.

NBC has realized that simple truth. And, to its credit, is unafraid.

They see viewers where too many of us see merely invaders. They see consumers for their advertisers where so many of us see only scary strangers.

If only the rest of us were as colorblind as that colorful peacock.

Reach Pimentel at ricardo.pimentel@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8210. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

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