Cities where a format dominates?

[David Tomm]

Funny, that's not how a lot of these stations are marketed to the 
advertising community.  Groups like Univision and SBS are considered 
"Hispanic broadcasters." They specialize in Spanish language formats.  
While Univision does have some English language stations in their 
portfolio, their mission is to reach Spanish speaking audiences, just 
as Radio One exists as a specialty group targeting African American 
radio listeners.  To them, Spanish is a "format," with different 
offshoots of it to reach different demos.

You talk about the diversity of "English language" formats.  This 
really does not exist in Hispanic broadcasting.  There are basically 
three major formats targeting Hispanics--Contemporary, which tends to 
be more AC-ish in nature, Regional Mexican targeted to Spanish speakers 
of Mexican descent, and Tropical, which caters to Hispanics with 
Caribbean heritage.  A few markets have Spanish news-talk stations, but 
that format really hasn't done all that well. There is the same amount 
of "flavors" of Spanish language stations as there are with Urban 
stations (Urban AC, Urban Oldies, Urban Contemporary.) Like Hispanic 
radio, stations targeting African Americans tend to be lumped into one 
classification. Both Urban and "Spanish" target specific minority 
groups, which are only the majority in a handful of markets.  Why 
should Spanish language stations, at least at this point in their 
development, be categorized any differently than Urban stations?

--Dave
"Mike Thomas"

On Oct 5, 2004, at 1:29 AM, Scott Fybush wrote:

> Spanish is a language, not a format. That's like saying Los Angeles 
> (which is where I'm typing tonight) has 23 "English language format" 
> stations.
>
> Look at the demographics out here - and in particular, the growing 
> diversity WITHIN the broad stroke of "Hispanic" - and if anything, the 
> Spanish-speaking population here is probably underserved, in a radio 
> stations per capita sense, compared with the Anglos. (Also true of 
> Miami.)
>
> English-speaking audiences get news, talk, sports, religion, and all 
> sorts of music ranging from oldies to AC to more contemporary formats. 
> Why should Spanish-speaking audiences get any less, at least when 
> there are as many of them as markets like LA now have?