Hispanic audience attracts advertisers
Hispanic-geared magazines posted an average 24 percent jump in ad revenue in 2003, far exceeding ad growth in general market publications, Ft. Lauderdale’s Media Economics Group said.
Preliminary 2003 estimates show that 58 magazines netted 11,230 ad pages, up by 6.5 percent from 2002. Ad revenue totaled about $145.9 million, up by about 23.7 percent.
According to the Publishers Information Bureau, a nationwide trend of increased revenue dollars for all magazines was also noted, but only at a rate of about 9 percent. The total number of ad pages was down 0.5 percent.
Automotive corporations boosted their Hispanic ad dollars significantly, with General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Toyota upping their budgets and GM alone doling out $4.4 million more on Hispanic magazine ads (a 166 percent boost) than in 2002.
Carlos Pelay, president of Media Economics, which monitors 58 Spanish-language publications in its service, said the market on Spanish-language magazines is still expanding, with the launching of men’s magazines Shape and Men’s Fitness en español and others on the way.
Study shows skewed coverage of hispanics
A study released in early December showed that television’s evening newscasts offered stereotypical coverage of Latinos that focused mostly on crime and immigration.
For the eighth year, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists found inadequate attention was paid to the country’s largest and fastest-growing minority. Hispanics make up about 13 percent of the American population.
The “National Brownout” study also found that 120 Latino-related stories made up less than 1 percent (0.75 percent) of about 16,000 that aired on the major newscasts in 2002, The Associated Press reported. The percentage is actually an increase over a 0.62 percent rating in 2001.
The study was conducted of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN broadcasts. According to the study, two-thirds of the broadcasts were devoted to stories about illegal immigration, terrorism and crime.
Television news overlooks women
A German news analysis group, Media Tenor, claimed in January that broadcasters are not particularly interested in women’s issues, famous women or their accomplishments, a report in the Washington Times said.
In a study of more than 392,000 news stories that appeared on American, British, German and South African television during a 21-month period, only about 36,000 mentioned women – about 14 percent.
Most of the women drawing coverage were politicians or cabinet ministers, but Martha Stewart’s legal troubles in the United States attracted the attention of American broadcasters.
The Bonn, Germany-based group observed broadcasts from January 2002 to September 2003 on ABC, NBC, CBS, Britain’s BBC and ITV and Germany’s ProSieben Nachrichten, among 20 networks.
The study’s researchers declared: “The news formats do not even remotely reflect the real power distribution in respective parliaments, governments and universities.”
It particularly criticizes Germany, which had only a 12 percent representation of women on the news, followed by the United States with 13 percent of its stories focusing on women. South Africa was better at 16 percent and Britain at 17 percent.
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