Soaps suds up for Hispanic viewers

'It’s probably
going to attract acculturated Hispanic viewers, those who feel comfortable in both worlds. That’s a small
universe.'

Soaps suds up
for Hispanic viewers

Rich lode of younger women. But will they watch?

By Elizabeth White

    Reaching out to Hispanic audiences has become something of a mantra for media folks, as the cool new thing.
    But for daytime soaps, wooing Hispanics has a lot less to do with being cool and everything to do with survival.
    And wooing they are. More and more traditional afternoon soaps are introducing Hispanic characters, and CBS’s "The Bold and the Beautiful" is now simulcast in Spanish.
    The soaps don't have a lot of choice.
    Not only are traditional English-speaking soap audiences dwindling, but those remaining viewers are aging. And as they age they become less attractive to traditional packaged-good advertisers aiming to reach women with children.
    That puts these shows roughly in the same fix as the Seven Sisters women's service magazines, many of which have also seen their readerships age beyond the child-rearing years.
    The median age of daytime soap viewers has risen seven years since the 1991-92 season, to its current age of 48, according to a recent Mindshare study.
    More telling, during the 1991-92 season, four of the eight daytime dramas had median viewer ages under 40, and only one soap was older than 50.
    Now only one soap out of 10 is under 40, NBC’s "Passions," while all four CBS soaps are older than 50. ABC’s hour-long dramas have also been particularly hard-hit, their median age going from 37 to 46 in just 10 years.
    Against those numbers, it is not hard to understand why daytime programmers are looking to Hispanic viewers.
    Hispanic audiences skew toward the younger demographics, and nearly 30 percent of Hispanic homes watch daytime TV. Moreover, it remains a fertile audience, one still relatively untapped by English-language broadcasters.
    On Monday, NBC began Spanish closed-captioned translation for its two soaps, "Days of Our Lives" and "Passions."
    And starting today "Passions" will feature two Hispanic personalities as guest stars, talk-show host Cristina Saralegui from Univision’s "The Cristina Show" and actor Emiliano Diez.
    In May, CBS’s "The Bold and the Beautiful" began simulcasting the program in Spanish, and this past December, ABC’s "Port Charles" began mimicking the Hispanic telenovela format by shifting to clearly defined story arcs lasting only three months.
    Yet, for all these efforts, it is by no means certain that the traditional broadcast networks will rebuild their soap audiences without a struggle.
    They must contend with Spanish-language giant Univision, as well as Telemundo and two soon-to-launch Spanish-language cable networks.
    Telemundo and Univision already cater to the Hispanic soap market with plenty of primetime fare, and they also have a significant daytime presence with telenovelas.
    Also, unlike American soaps, which are notorious for the glacial pace of their stories, telenovelas are short-term soap operas that last six to nine months and have clearly defined beginnings, middles and ends.
    "It’s definitely a format that’s worked on Spanish-language networks, but I wonder whether the Hispanic audience would switch over," says Danielle Gonzales, an associate media director at Starcom Worldwide.
    "It’s different on Spanish-language networks because the telenovelas do have an end. And the audiences have two other stations to watch with similar programs, where they already know the history of the characters."
    Ironically then, soaps might be the worst format in general for broadcasters to reach the Hispanic market.
    "Some people don’t like telenovelas, but they watch because it’s all that’s on," says Gonzales. "If it was counter-programming, like movies, then it might have a better chance."
    But the estimated 2.7 million Hispanic households that do watch daytime television are probably still worth the effort for daytime programmers. Audiences have declined so much that during the second quarter of 2001, the difference in daytime drama numbers between the three networks was fewer than two million total viewers.
    "That's a fairly large number, 2.7 million, but I don’t know how much they can chip away," says Gonzales. "It’s probably going to attract acculturated Hispanic viewers, those who feel comfortable in both worlds. That’s a small universe."

-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.

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