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old, finds its legs
Schedule jiggered to complement Univision's
By Heidi Vogt
With all the media world now in New Year's recovery mode, and winter storms sweeping much of the country, it may take some memory-jogging to recall that just a year ago Univision launched TeleFutura, amid not a few doubts.
Here was a new network aiming to capture a younger Hispanic audience, one that was bilingual and, well, hip, or certainly hipper that the audience of the parent network.
Two questions were raised by doubters: whether the new network would draw as many viewers as it hoped, and whether it could do so without cannibalizing its core audience.
America's Hispanic audience may be exploding, but programming to this diverse group is especially tricky, in no small part because of their dramatically different cultural origins.
A year into its new network, it appears Univision has at least proved itself right with audiences.
"It is fair to say that, a year into it, that they have been phenomenally successful for a startup network," says Monica Gadsby, managing director of Tapestry, the multicultural division of Starcom Worldwide.
But the launch was not without some tinkering with the programming to get the right mix for the target viewers without cannibalizing the parent network's viewership.
"The initial round of counter-programming for TeleFutura did not work," says David Joyce, a media analyst at Guzman and Co.
"They had to change it after first few months. They were probably relying too heavily on movies."
The tinkering added more telenovellas but schedules them to air when Univision is not airing its novellas.
Now, in the morning Univision airs talk shows and TeleFutura broadcasts novellas. When Univision shows novellas, TeleFutura counters with game shows or sports. While one network shows news, the other shows comedy.
Viewership has been growing, at least in the major Hispanic markets. TeleFutura's Chicago affiliate posted household ratings of 8.5 in primetime during the November sweeps. The Los Angeles station had ratings of 4.6. These are both increases of more than 80 percent from the February sweeps following TeleFutura's debut.
"In some cases they have as much as 10 percent of Spanish viewership," says Gadsby.
At least some of that growth can be attributed to migration of viewers from Univision and Telemundo, but the remainder represents new viewers.
Two percentage points of viewership have been added to Spanish language television that came away from English language viewership since TeleFutura's launch, says Joyce.
"The net effect [of TeleFutura] is an increase in the viewership of Spanish-language television," says Joyce.
This audience is as young as anyone at Univision/TeleFutura could want.
TeleFutura has the youngest viewers of any 24-hour broadcast television network with a median age of 29 for primetime. Some 50 percent of the network's audience is between the ages of 12 and 34. The TeleFutura audience also tends to skew more male than other Hispanic networks, due to TeleFutura's emphasis on sports coverage.
A good share of TeleFutura's growth has come from successful cross-promotion on Univision.
"You can't emphasize enough the benefit they get by being part of the Univision family," says Gadsby. "The whole cross-promotional deal has been very important."
The baby of Spanish television also has yet to break out of the so-called safe markets for Hispanic networks, the larger cities with growing Hispanic populations. TeleFutura airs in 32 markets, mostly traditional big cities and Spanish-speaking centers like California.
And while TeleFutura may have plenty of viewers, the network is not making its advertising goals.
While total Spanish-language advertising dollars were up 25 percent in 2002, TeleFutura is still running deeply in the red, rather than breaking even after a year, as Univision had initially projected.
January 6, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Heidi Vogt is a staff writer for Media Life.
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