Ethnic & Alternative Media Glossary

Ethnic media

Ethnic media is a term that is still sometimes debated. Some will argue that for ethnic media to truly be considered “ethnic media,” it must be both produced/owned by and targeted at a particular ethnic community. Others say that if an outlet is simply targeted at a particular ethnic population that is enough for it to be considered ethnic media.

Cume

Is short for “cumulative audience” and is a measure of the total number of unique listeners over a period of time.

Backgrounders

Key Changes at Johnson Publishing:

• March 2010: The Ebony Fashion Fair, which had already suspended its fall production, canceled its spring show, citing the death on January 3 of Eunice W. Johnson, the show’s creator.¹
• April 2010: Harriette Cole, the creative director and Ebony’s acting editor-in-chief since April 2009 announced she was leaving.²
• May 2010: Jet releases a new website, MyJet247, which features the news-focused Jet Buzz.³
• June 3, 2010: Announcement that the company is no longer for sale. ⁴
• June 3, 2010: Amy DuBois Barnett hired as editor-in-chief of Ebony; she was formerly the deputy editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar.⁵
• June 5, 2010: Former White House social secretary Desirée Rogers hired as a consultant to Johnson Publishing to assist with corporate strategy.”⁶ Despite having no publishing experience, “Rogers potentially opens the door for the company to reach a new base of advertisers and to re-energize the company’s distinction as a forward thinker and trendsetter in fashion,” said Neil Foote, a senior lecturer at the University of North Texas Mayborn School of Journalism.⁷
• July 13, 2010: President and chief operating officer Anne Sempowski Ward resigns.⁸
• August 2010: Rodrigo A. Sierra hired as senior vice president and chief marketing officer.⁹
• August 10, 2010: Rogers named CEO.¹⁰
• September 2010: Eric Easter, the vice president of digital and entertainment, and Wendy E. Parks, the assistant director to corporate communications and PR, leave.¹¹
• November 2010: Johnson Publishing sells its historic building on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue to Columbia College Chicago.¹²
• December 14, 2010: Jet editor-in-chief Mira Lowe announces her resignation.¹³
• January 3, 2011: Darhil Crooks, art director at Esquire Magazine since 2005, becomes creative director of Ebony magazine.¹⁴
• February 2011: Stephen Gregory Barr hired as senior vice president of both Ebony and Jet magazines. Prior to that he was publisher of OK! Magazine.¹⁵

Televisa and Univision

Under the terms of the agreement, Televisa invested $1.2 billion in Univision and contributed its 50% interest in the cable TuTV channels for a 5% equity stake and debt convertible into an additional 30% equity stake of Univision in the future, with the option to acquire an additional 5% equity stake in Univision. Univision now has control of TuTV.

Univision also agreed to expand its Program License Agreement (PLA) with Televisa. In addition to an expanded list of exclusive U.S. Spanish-language broadcast rights, Univision got exclusive U.S. Spanish-language digital rights to Televisa’s programming. In other words, Univision has the U.S. rights to deliver Televisa programming on the internet and use Televisia online, network and pay-television programming on its three networks (Univision, TeleFutura and Galavisión). The PLA agreement was also extended from its current expiration date of 2017 to 2020 and could be extended to 2025 if certain conditions are met.

Televisa also will receive more royalties from Univision because of these revised terms – from 9.36% of television revenue (excluding major soccer events) to 11.91% of Univision’s revenues through December 2017. In 2017, royalty payments to Televisa will increase to 16.22%. Televisa will also receive an incremental 2% in royalty payments on any Univision audiovisual revenues above its 2009 revenue base of $1.6 billion.¹⁶

This could bode well for the private equity group that bought Univision in 2006 – having Televisa and its content on board should help the company break even, and might even result in a profit.¹⁷

Univision Personnel Changes

• Sylvia Rosabal, VP and director of news coverage left the company after 26 years.
• Daniel Coronell was named as VP of network news. Coronell was most recently in charge of Noticias Uno, a national broadcast on Colombia’s Cana Uno.
• Patsy Loris was promoted to senior director of news; she had previously been senior executive producer of Al Punto.
• Marilyn Strauss, a 24-year veteran of Univision, was promoted to news assignment director.
• Angel Matos became director of news operations, moving up from his position as manager of news operations.
• Solangelee Molina-Torres became director of special projects.¹⁸

In addition to the management changes at Univision, there were shifts in the on-air talent in early 2011.  While these changes mostly came from within the company, they show that the company is willing to shake things up.

• Premier Impacto moved Ilia Calderón from its anchor desk to Noticiero Univision: Edición Nocturna in March 2011. In July 2011, Pamela Silva Conde is set to take Calderón’s place. Conde is the wife of Univision Networks president César Conde.¹⁹
• Despierta América also made some significant changes in talent, dismissing an anchor who had been with the program since its inception. In June 2011, Neida Sandoval, the last original member of the show and an anchor since 1997, was taken off the morning news desk.
• Martín Berlanga took over the weekend anchor seat in March 2011. He had previously been a correspondent at Univision and replaces Enrique Teuteló, who had been weekend anchor and part-time anchor for the 11:30 p.m. newscast for the past two years. According to Media Moves, Teuteló was let go by Univision.
• Maria Antonieta Collins returned as a Univision reporter in February 2011. After 18 years as a reporter and anchor for the network, she left to join Telemundo in September 2005 as the host of Cada Día, a daily morning show that was cancelled in 2008.²⁰

Comcast

In response to concerns that Comcast did not do enough to advance diversity, in July 2010, the company pledged to add eight independent television channels, four each controlled by African American and Hispanic interests in addition to “external advisory councils” for “diverse communities.”

Comcast also pledged to increase spending by $7 million on advertising in minority-owned media and to launch 10 independent channels, including eight Hispanic owned and operated channels. The first, a channel described as “American Latino operated and programmed in English,” will launch by July 2012.²¹

Telemundo Anchor Changes

Alan Tacher and Idaly Ferrá were dropped from the program, while Rashel Díaz remained. Díaz was joined by Daniel Sarcos, Omar Germenos, Azucena Cierco and Ramón Zayas as an in-studio news anchor and producer. Previously Cierco was at Al Rojo Vivo con María Celeste; Sarcos was the host of Venezuela’s Super Sábado Sensacional and Trato Hecho (the Spanish Deal or No Deal); and Zayas was a weekend anchor for Telemundo in New York.²²

Telemundo Correspondents

• Enrique Acevedo in Miami came from Televisa in Mexico City where he was an anchor and reporter.
• Julio Vaqueiro started as the Mexico correspondent. He had been a writer, reporter and news anchor for an independent pay TV channel in Mexico, Efecto TV.
• Nayeli Chávez-Geller began as the New York correspondent. She had been a New York-based freelance reporter for CNN en Español and Univision.
• Rogelio Mora-Tagle returned to Telemundo’s Miami headquarters from his position as correspondent in Mexico City.²³

Other Stations

Azteca América

• Owned by Mexico’s TV Azteca, and is the largest network geared specifically toward Mexican immigrants in the U.S.
• Founded in 2001 as a West Coast regional network and by March 2010 expanded to 67 affiliates that reach 89% of the U.S. Hispanic audience.²⁴
• In January 2011, Azteca América launched an L.A. newscast produced by the Hispanic News Network and broadcast from Davenport, Iowa – but it was only produced for one month.²⁵ That same month, Azteca began to produce a national news broadcast for the U.S., Noticiero Nacional Azteca América, from its Mexico City studios.

América TeVé

• Aimed specifically at Cuban Americans, operates only three TV stations.
• In April 2011 company executives announced plans to launch a 24-hour news channel by late summer or early fall.
• Also in April 2011 the network launched a news, opinion and interview program called Sevcec a Fondo with host Pedro Sevcec.

LATV

• A bilingual channel that had been focused on entertainment, decided to expand its programming to include news in May 2011. Noticias LATV debuted on May 16, airing weekdays at 8 p.m. ET, and Al Empezar el Día, a three-hour magazine-style morning show, airs at 11 a.m. ET.
•  In June 2011, Eduardo Blancas took over as lead anchor of Noticias LATV. He had previously been an anchor for the Hispanic News Network-produced Azteca América newscast.

Latino Public Broadcasting

• A nonprofit organization funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that creates programming geared toward the Latino population, founded in 1998.
• Programming is distributed to various PBS stations and other public television entities.
• Its executive director, Patricia Boero, resigned March 8, 2011 and, on July 6, will be replaced by the former director of station relations for PBS, Sandie Viquez Pedlow.

V-me

• A Spanish-language public television network in the U.S., launched in 2007.
• It is a partnership of Educational Broadcasting Corp., the investment firm the Baeza Group, Spanish media conglomerate PRISA and the venture capital firm Syncom Funds.
• It has 40 affiliates, all digital channels piggybacking on PBS stations.²⁶
• The station airs a variety of programming, including lifestyle content, news and current affairs programs Oppenheimer Presenta (with Andrés Oppenheimer) and Jorge Gestoso Investiga, and sports and music events. It also airs educational preschool programming like Plaza Sésamo.

Liberman Broadcasting

Most of Liberman Broadcasting’s radio stations are music-based, but the company, which also has television stations, is the largest privately held Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S. based on its revenues. Liberman Broadcasting had net revenue growth of 13% in 2010 compared with 2009.²⁷

Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS)

Spanish Broadcasting System is the largest publicly traded Hispanic-controlled media company in the U.S., and in 2010 it went to court with Arbitron. SBS also owns Mega TV.

In March 2010, SBS headed to arbitration with Arbitron over its refusal to pay for Portable People Meter (PPM) data, which SBS claims are flawed. SBS stopped allowing Arbitron to track its stations for PPM because it was no longer under a court order to do so.²⁸

The company also changed the format of a Spanish news/talk station into a music station in 2010 in order to gain higher ratings.

LA Public Media and LA>Forward

L.A. Public Media and LA>Forward, launched by Radio Bilingüe and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2009, were both suspended in June 2011. The programs were initiated to create a public media platform in Southern California for Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans, but Radio Bilingüe could not secure a radio broadcast outlet. Federal funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s digital appropriation also limited the agency from guaranteeing support to the programs.²⁹

Hispanic Radio Update

While the number of Spanish-language radio stations  grew in the past year, it was at a mere 0.7%, or six more stations in all for a total of 812, as measured by M Street Corp. Compared with the expansive growth that occurred between 2002 and 2008, few in the industry see this slight uptick as very positive.

Frank Saxe, the editor of Inside Radio, a sister company of M Street Corp., sees two main reasons for the slowdown. First, Saxe says, Spanish-language radio took a harder hit during the recession years of 2009 and 2010 than general market stations. And now, these Spanish-language stations are having more trouble recovering.

SEE FULL DATA SET

The big Spanish-language radio companies have not been spared. Univision Radio lost revenue in 2010, as did Spanish Broadcasting System, which reported its fifth consecutive negative quarter for its radio division. The third-largest Spanish-language radio owner, Entravision, did see some gains in 2010, but those are largely attributed to the World Cup.

Endnotes

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