Is this an option for CBS in Boston

[Howard Glazer]

----- Original Message -----
From: Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org>
To: Bill O'Neill <me@billoneill.us>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: Is this an option for CBS in Boston


> <<On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:36:10 -0400, "Bill O'Neill" <me@billoneill.us>
said:
>
> > As the Hispanic population further integrates (generation-wise) will the
> > demand for Spanish-language radio be as much in demand? Music, yes, but
> > language?  Just a thought. I know this was brought up here a few years
> > ago and generated some interesting feedback.
>
> The jury is still out on that one.  The Brazilian (I believe) family
> next door to me named their youngest child "Matthew", and at five his
> English sounds much like the other five-year-olds' in the
> neighborhood.  On the other hand, Brazilians are not Hispanics, so
> that doesn't really answer your question.
>
> There have certainly been notably successful stations running a
> bilingual English-Spanish format, with mix-and-match music and jock
> patter in whatever language comes out first.
>
> The big question is, to what extent will Spanish speakers going
> forward follow the pattern of previous generations, in which the
> "native" language is usually lost by the third generation.  (Leaving
> aside, if you will the political question of whether you think this is
> good or not.)  This was true of nearly all non-English-speaking
> communities over the past century, even among internal migrants; my
> mother's parents deliberately stopped speaking French at home when
> they moved from Maine to Connecticut because they thought using
> English at home would help their children fit in better with the
> Italians and the Poles in their new home town.  But today, with many
> more media choices and far more goods and services intended for
> Spanish-speakers, there may be less social pressure to conform to the
> majority language.
>
> -GAWollman

I work for a newspaper in Connecticut that used to publish a
free-distribution Spanish-language weekly called Tiempo. Early this year,
Tiempo was discontinued and replaced by Fusion, a free-distribution
English-language weekly covering the same topics of interest to the area's
Hispanic community, which is overwhelmingly Puerto Rican with small pockets
of Dominicans and Mexicans. Advertising and readership seems to be doing
acceptably well (although the whole newspaper business is sufferering from
advertiser desertion), so I guess someone in management, or a consultant,
has decided that assimilation is well under way in this area and that
English-language Hispanic-interest media represent the wave of the future.

Howard