But the reality is quite something else. While telenovelas are certainly popular, Hispanics, like television viewers in general, are more inclined to watch news and political shows than any other format, and by a substantial margin.

Moreover, Hispanics are hardly wed solely to Spanish-language TV. They spend a surprising amount of time watching the English-language networks.

Those are two conclusions of a new study by Encuesta, a Hispanic market research firm in Miami, based on a telephone survey of 335 respondents. It found that 68 percent of respondents reported watching news or political talk shows at least once a week, while 43 percent said they watch novelas once or more a week. Eleven percent watch game shows at that frequency.

Hispanics watch other formats as well, but with a frequency related to their acculturation levels: 28 percent of U.S.-born Hispanics watch reality shows, while only 18 percent of foreign-born Hispanics do. And American-born Hispanics are more likely than their counterparts to watch sitcoms (25 percent versus 16 percent) and home improvement, cooking or travel shows (31 percent versus 20 percent).

In terms of Spanish-language versus English-language television, the study found that more than half of Hispanics, some 55 percent, split their viewing, watching some of each. Fewer than a third, 31 percent, watch in Spanish only, while 12 percent only watch English-language shows.

Even among the foreign-born, English viewing is surprisingly high, with 57 percent saying they watch either some English-language TV or English-language TV exclusively (versus 66 percent for the group as a whole).

When it comes to soaps, Encuesta found viewers spent about 7.2 hours per week watching telenovelas but nearly as many hours watching soaps in English, 5.9 hours.

Why the high level of English-language viewing among Hispanics? Lourdes Prado, Encuesta project director, postulates they are doing so in part because of their desire for programming not offered on the Spanish networks.

In any case, Prado says Hispanic viewing patterns are more diverse than many advertisers realize.

"Hispanics tend to be pigeonholed into the Spanish-language sector. This study shows that there are a whole lot of opportunities in English. It's a much more complex situation than advertisers are willing or ready to face," Prado says.

She advises that marketers look deeper into the demographics they want to reach rather than automatically toss their dollars at Spanish-language TV.

"If you really want to maximize returns on advertising investments, you should find out, based on age and gender as much on acculturation and language levels, how to reach the person you want to target. But marketers and advertisers simplify this, because it's just easier to say, we'll reach these people in Spanish, and we'll get to the rest of the market in our general campaign."

Nielsen Media Research data gives a pretty expansive view of just what Hispanics are in fact watching. As one might expect, Univision programming dominates the top-watched shows. But when the daily soaps are collapsed and their ratings averaged, programming like Fox's "American Idol" and ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and "Desperate Housewives" also make the cut.

"There's a huge section that overlaps, and it's a matter of figuring out how to reach those people who have one foot on each side of the divide," Prado says.

Ad spending on Spanish-language networks continues to outpace both English-language broadcast and cable, growing by 14.3 percent in the first quarter, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus. And they do reach an impressive segment of the Hispanic population.

Adriana Waterston, vice president of marketing and business development at Horowitz Associates, which annually reports on U.S. Latino television viewing, says that Hispanics watching news and other formats of programming is nothing new. What's really changing right now is the growing awareness of the complexity of the Hispanic market.

"It goes back to taking an essentially stereotypical approach to the Hispanic market," she says. "There's a stereotype that Hispanic viewers only watch soap operas. Soap operas are very important in the Hispanic market, but that doesn't mean we only watch soap operas."

Most people watch news every day, she says, and Hispanic viewers are no different. However, they might turn to Spanish-language channels for a Latino perspective and English-language channels for U.S. or international news.

"There are 40 million-plus Hispanics in the U.S., and many have been here for generations. The Hispanic market is very diverse," she says. "The majority of the market watches both English and Spanish-language television because there's different content available."