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Spanish-language upfront
Standoff as buyers wait for sellers to ease on $s
By Elizabeth White
As upfronts go, it’s been a long, hot summer, even for those markets that were supposed to have an easier time of it.
The Spanish-language networks are still mired in the middle of negotiations, with neither side willing to release any information yet.
One network, Telemundo, expects to announce deals in about two weeks, but media buyers don’t think the Spanish-language upfront will be fully wrapped up until mid-September.
That schedule puts the Hispanic upfront much in the same position as the rest of the upfront marketplace, running one to two months behind its normal schedule.
The delay is also being caused by the same factors that have affected all the television upfronts this year: lower advertising budgets and a reluctance among buyers and sellers to come together over pricing.
"It’s a combination of the budgets and the aggressive stance the networks have taken," says Chuck Nguyen, agency of record manager for Procter & Gamble.
The slowness of the Spanish-language upfront comes as something of a surprise.
Both media analysts and the networks thought it would move briskly because of the 2000 U.S. Census figures, which showed that the Hispanic market is larger than previously thought. The improved numbers, in theory at least, would mean more advertisers coming in to reach Hispanics.
Also, there are far fewer networks, which means a lot less inventory for buyers to pick over and a greater demand for what inventory there is.
"It’s true" that the Hispanic market is healthier, says Nguyen, and he notes that neither Telemundo nor Univision have been hit by CPM decreases.
"But they might not have increased the CPMs how they wanted because budgets are down," adds Tamara Ordaz, media buying supervisor for the Bromley Group.
Not even the entrance of two new Spanish-language networks into the marketplace has seemed to have much effect.
Univision’s second network, Telefutura, which will launch in January 2002, has been offered during the upfront independently and as part of a package with Univision.
Telefutura, which will be directed at Spanish speakers who primarily watch English-language networks, is expected to reach 80 percent of Hispanic homes when it begins broadcasting in January.
But media buyers, who haven’t yet seen programming samples for the new 24-hour network, don’t seem to be biting.
"Telefutura won’t start until the second half of the broadcast year, and a lot of the media-savvy companies don’t feel comfortable committing a lot of money without seeing the programs," says Nguyen. Adds Ordaz: "I don’t think it’s done as well as they hoped."
The other new Hispanic network, Azteca America, had a stunted debut last Saturday in the Los Angeles market. The network had originally planned to be in 14 markets at its launch but arrived in only one market last week, after Univision bought 13 major-market stations from USA Networks.
August 3, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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