medialifemagazine.com
Big web push by Hispanic magazines
By Heidi Dawley
Oct 30, 2007 - 1:05:27 AM
For print magazines, the rush is on to move content onto the web ahead of their readers, lest they lose them to other print or online-only competitors, and that's doubly so for Hispanic print titles.
Just in recent months, leading titles like People En Español have significantly boosted their online content, and more are headed in the same direction.
"There has been heightened movement from the Hispanic magazines, in terms of putting magazines online, either as stand-alone sites or with established portals," says Carlos Pelay, president of Media Economics Group, which tracks Hispanic print magazines and web sites.
The impetus is the surge in Hispanics going online. After years of lagging behind the general population, the Hispanic online population is now growing far faster, especially among young, bilingual Hispanics.
In 2006, there were more than 16 million Hispanics online, 77 percent of whom had broadband access, according to one AOL study, and over the course of the year, the online Hispanic population grew by 13 percent versus 2 percent for the general population.
And once online, Hispanics spend more time: 88.1 minutes per day versus 81.7 minutes for the general population, reports MRI.
"Anything that we do that we are passionate about we over-index in. Hispanics, when they embrace something, are extremely passionate about it," says Jackie Hernandez, publisher of People En Español.
It's also a younger audience. Hernandez cites one study's findings that 47 percent are 18 to 34 year olds, versus 34 percent for the internet as a whole.
"The biggest seismic shift at the moment is that the acculturated bilingual Hispanics are really becoming a presence," says Peter Castro, People En Español's editor. "There are millions of young Hispanics who speak Spanish but speak English better. There is that whole audience that is emerging. They are younger and more savvy digitally."
But also behind the online push is the steady rise of advertisers going online to reach Hispanic consumers. In 2002, 31 percent of the top 100 Hispanic magazine advertisers were online. That rose to 41 percent in 2006 and 45 percent in the first half of 2007, reports Pelay's Media Economics Group.
No less significant, these top advertisers are being followed by middle-tier advertisers. By first-half 2007, 34 percent of the top 250 magazine advertisers were also advertising on Hispanic sites, up from 27 percent in 2006 and 18 percent in 2002.
"Print media in general have seen a lot of their readers migrate to the internet, so they are following their readers and their advertising dollars as well," says Pelay. He says there are some 60 print titles that he tracks, and he follows some 30 web sites.
For some magazines, like People En Español, the big push has been to beef up existing sites with more content. Back in April, it went bilingual – English and Spanish -- boosting traffic by 200 percent, and earlier this month the magazine added channels for movies, TV, music, videos and style.
Other Hispanic titles, such as Cosmopolitán En Español, the site for the Hispanic version of Cosmo, have chosen to partner up with major portals serving Hispanics, in this case, the Terra portal.
Cosmopolitán En Español is published by Editorial Televisa, and David Taggart, general manager and group publisher, says the next Televisa property to make a web push will be Vanidades, with a stand-alone site in the next couple of months.
"Offering a digital product extension is extremely important. More and more publishers are realizing they can attract a wider audience online, and advertisers will pay for it. And the traffic they develop online is very valuable. The combination of all three of those factors is pushing more and more publishers online."
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended Oct. 21, according to Nielsen Online, Microsoft was the top parent company, followed by Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online for the second straight week. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live, with AOL Media Network falling behind Microsoft at No. 5.
NexTag was the No. 1 advertiser for the eighth straight week with 4.2 million impressions, followed by No. 2 Countrywide Financial Corporation at nearly 4 million. With 21.8 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 3.4 million.
Sessions per person per week remained even to last week at 17, and domains visited per person were up two to 41. PC time per person was even to the previous week at 17 hours and 36 minutes.
|
Top 25 parent companies
Through Oct. 21 |
|
#
|
Parent
|
Unique Audience (000)
|
Reach %
|
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
|
|
1
|
Microsoft
|
85,215
|
63.0
|
0:42:06
|
|
2
|
Google
|
83,246
|
61.5
|
0:30:21
|
|
3
|
Yahoo!
|
76,704
|
56.7
|
1:08:07
|
|
4
|
Time Warner
|
65,772
|
48.6
|
1:23:51
|
|
5
|
News Corp. Online
|
42,229
|
31.2
|
0:49:28
|
|
6
|
eBay
|
34,603
|
25.6
|
0:55:26
|
|
7
|
InterActiveCorp
|
29,375
|
21.7
|
0:12:52
|
|
8
|
Wikimedia Foundation
|
22,523
|
16.7
|
0:09:54
|
|
9
|
Amazon
|
22,434
|
16.6
|
0:13:52
|
|
10
|
Walt Disney Internet
Group
|
22,047
|
16.3
|
0:21:17
|
|
11
|
Apple Computer
|
21,849
|
16.2
|
0:33:21
|
|
12
|
New York Times Company
|
20,907
|
15.5
|
0:10:50
|
|
13
|
Landmark Communications
|
20,454
|
15.1
|
0:11:49
|
|
14
|
AT&T Inc.
|
18,324
|
13.5
|
0:21:19
|
|
15
|
RealNetworks, Inc.
|
17,278
|
12.8
|
0:16:15
|
|
16
|
Bank of America
|
13,283
|
9.8
|
0:22:26
|
|
17
|
United Online
|
12,968
|
9.6
|
0:28:16
|
|
18
|
CBS Corporation
|
12,404
|
9.2
|
0:17:21
|
|
19
|
E.W. Scripps Company
|
12,113
|
9.0
|
0:06:01
|
|
20
|
Comcast Corp.
|
11,870
|
8.8
|
0:32:04
|
|
21
|
CNET Networks
|
11,620
|
8.6
|
0:05:59
|
|
22
|
Viacom Digital
|
11,064
|
8.2
|
0:26:42
|
|
23
|
Verizon Communications
|
10,743
|
7.9
|
0:19:26
|
|
24
|
Gannett
|
9,948
|
7.4
|
0:12:04
|
|
25
|
J.P. Morgan Chase and Company
|
9,562
|
7.1
|
0:15:51
|
|
Source: Nielsen Online
|
|
Top 25 brands
Through Oct. 21 |
|
|
Parent
|
Unique Audience (000)
|
Reach %
|
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
|
|
1 |
Google
|
77,634
|
57.4
|
0:22:02
|
|
2 |
Yahoo!
|
75,917
|
56.1
|
1:08:29
|
|
3 |
MSN/Windows Live
|
61,451
|
45.4
|
0:43:37
|
|
4 |
Microsoft
|
55,990
|
41.4
|
0:16:10
|
|
5 |
AOL Media Network
|
54,237
|
40.1
|
1:32:42
|
|
6 |
Fox Interactive Media
|
36,351
|
26.9
|
0:53:17
|
|
7 |
eBay
|
28,627
|
21.2
|
0:59:29
|
|
8 |
YouTube
|
26,332
|
19.5
|
0:23:50
|
|
9 |
Wikipedia
|
22,246
|
16.4
|
0:09:36
|
|
10 |
Apple
|
21,849
|
16.2
|
0:33:21
|
|
11 |
Weather Channel
|
|
