MIAMI (AP) — Univision and Disney are in talks to create a
24-hour news channel for Latinos in English, two sources close to the
negotiations said Monday.
Both sources declined to go on the record because they were not authorized to speak.
The
goal would be to begin broadcasting before the November presidential
election. That would give the network plenty of time to provide
political coverage geared toward Hispanics, who are considered
influential swing voters in states like Florida, New Mexico and
Colorado.
Univision is the nation’s largest Spanish-language media
company, and it has long prided itself on its Spanish-language content.
In recent years, officials have quietly acknowledged that in order to
maintain and expand viewership, they also need to provide content to
second- and third-generation Latinos who speak English as their first
language.
Univision officials and ABC News spokesman Jeff Schneider declined to comment on Monday.
The
move comes in response to the 2010 census, which showed U.S. born
Latinos made up nearly 60 percent of the growth in the nation’s Hispanic
population over the last decade.
The proposed deal also reflects
the stepped up efforts of mainstream media companies to target Latinos.
Fox News added its Fox News Latino website in 2010 and Huffington Post
now has an online Huffpost LatinoVoices site. Meanwhile, NBC Universal
has increased the cross-pollination between its NBC News division and
that of its Spanish language network, Telemundo.
Top Telemundo
news anchor Jose Diaz-Balart has anchored NBC News and MSNBC programs.
NBC also recently unveiled its NBC Latino tumblr website in English.
Univision News also has a tumblr English site, and a small but growing
social media presence.
Jorge Plasencia, vice chair of the National
Council of La Raza and CEO of the Hispanic marketing firm Republica,
which includes Univision among its clients, said he believes that a news
channel in English would fulfill a niche.
"There’s nearly 50
million Latinos in the U.S. They do want to know what’s going on in
Mexico, Puerto Rico and all over Latin America. The major networks don’t
cover that news," he said. "It’s hard for those networks to go into
those issues in depth because they’re trying reach all of America."
Univision
and other Spanish-language networks have provided significant coverage
of Latin America for their viewers. Plasencia believes second- and
third-generation Latinos are still interested in that coverage, but they
want it in English.
For Latinos who live in cities like Los
Angeles, New York and Miami that have large Hispanic populations, local
broadcasts often have Latino anchors and cover stories that are
particularly relevant to the Hispanic community. But the national
broadcasts are lagging in that type of coverage, he added.
"That’s why I think this and Huffpost LatinoVoices exist, because there’s an appetite,"
Plasencia said.
Last
month, SiriusXM’s Cristina Radio channel launched a new all-English
political show, hosted by top Democratic and Republican Latina analysts,
as well as a bilingual foreign affairs program out of Washington. Other
online news sites are continuing to pop up.
Voxxi, a new Hispanic online news magazine, was throwing its launch party Tuesday at the Newseum in
Washington, D.C.
Plasencia
noted that the controversy regarding Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff
Joe Arpaio, over his aggressive efforts to seek out illegal immigrants,
has received significant coverage on Spanish-language networks but not
so much in English.
"This network will take our issues and make them mainstream because many other people besides
Latinos may be watching," he said.
Roberto
Suro, a professor of journalism and public policy at the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles, says finding the right audience may
be tricky.
"There are several assumptions here. Is there room for
another all-news channel? And within the Hispanic market, is there
enough demand for an all-news channel?" Suro said.
Already CNN, Fox and MSNB compete in English. CNN en Espanol provides 24 hour coverage in Spanish.
The
new channel would reflect the growing trend toward more niche
audiences, but he added that the English-speaking Latino market is much
more diverse than the Spanish-language market.
"There’s a
longstanding effort to try and create content for English speaking
Latinos," Suro said. "This is a very broad population segment, and the
question is, "what is the identity? Is it heavily Hispanic, all about
news about Latinos? Or is it who delivers the news? It’s an elusive
brand."
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AP Television Writer Lynn Elber and AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this
report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.