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Feminine Touch
Ratings winners 'Cristina' and 'Laura' offer right amount of sass and brio for Latinas 18 to 49
March 01, 2006
By Patricia Winters Lauro
One minute she's taking a pie in the face, the next she's chatting with Antonio Banderas. Salma Hayek says she got a big break on her show, and Jennifer Lopez says it helped launch her singing career.
The woman in question is Cristina Saralegui, and her show airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on Univision, the leading Spanish TV network. Cristina draws an average of 3.3 million viewers weekly
and with a 30 share of the viewing audience, is one of the top-rated television shows on Spanish-language television.
On Telemundo, the No. 2-ranked Spanish-language network, another one-name-titled talk show airs at 4 p.m. weekdays, where the typical fare includes jilted lovers who confront their rivals and guests brawling before jeering spectators. Laura is hosted by lawyer-turned-TV host Laura Bozzo, who has a fan base so strong that for nearly three years, until July 2005, she was allowed to continue to tape her show from studios in Lima while under Peruvian government house arrest on charges connected to a former government official with whom she had a relationship.
Though you probably won't find J.Lo singing on Laura, the feisty host commands an average U.S. viewing audience of 1.1 million daily and with a 16 share of the viewing audience in the U.S., is consistently among Telemundo's top-rated shows. If Cristina is the Spanish Oprah, then Laura might be the Sally Jessy Raphael or the Jerry Springer, say ad executives.
"The appeal is much the same as in the general market," says Monica Gadsby, CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group's Tapestry, the Chicago-based multicultural media agency. "They are celebrities that people identify with. They are household names."
Without a doubt, Cuba-born Cristina and Peru-born Laura are the grand dames of Spanish talk TV. Every week millions of women tune in for the hosts' colorful mix of entertainment, information and down-to-earth talk on topics ranging from relationships to world issues. As a result, the TV programs are chock-full of big brand advertising, such as Dove deodorant, Charmin toilet tissue, Chrysler Town & Country minivans and Burger King. The goal is to reach not just the nation's growing Hispanic audience, but especially Latino women in the important 18-to-49-year-old demographic.
While Cristina and Laura draw surprisingly large male viewing audiences, the shows still tend to skew toward women: Roughly 60 percent of viewers are female, says Esther Novak, owner of New York-based Vanguard Communications, which specializes in multicultural marketing. And Latina women — just like women in the general market — buy a disproportionate amount of consumer packaged goods in America, especially in categories such as household goods, food and personal care items.
As for the overall audience, Cristina draws a greater share of women 18 to 49. Cristina delivered an average of 1 million Latina women ages 18 to 49, representing a 29 share, during January 2006, according to the Nielsen Hispanic Television Index. For the same period, Laura delivered an average audience of 261,000 Spanish-speaking women 18 to 49, representing a 12 share. Cristina had a 26 share of all Hispanic TV viewers while Laura had a 14 share in the same period. (See chart, page 33)
Underscoring advertisers' desire to reach women, Telemundo in January restructured its afternoon lineup with a five-hour block of shows aimed at women. The network also introduced two new female-oriented shows, one of them a talk show that sounds more like a Cristina than a Laura. Called Señora León, the show is hosted by Mexican actress-singer Laura León and stresses transformational experiences for women. (See sidebar, right)
"I don't know if they are saying we have to have a Cristina as much as networks are looking always for opportunities that might have an appeal and might generate interest against a certain group," Gadsby says. "The notion of makeovers and that whole reality aspect is something that's very big in today's world at a level that transcends cultures."
cristina, THE TALK TV pioneer
Señora León, of course, has a long way to go to compete with the likes of Cristina. The queen of Spanish talk TV in the United States and Latin American markets, Cristina has been airing on Univision since 1989 and is credited with pioneering the talk format on Spanish-language TV. The corporate world also has turned to Christina to represent brands among Spanish-speaking consumers. She was the longtime celebrity endorser for AT&T, for instance, as well as the spokeswoman for AIDS awareness in the Latino community.
"Cristina is a brand," says Isabella Sanchez, vice president, director of media services, for New York-based The Bravo Group. "She is at the top of the list [as a spokeswoman]. Hispanics in the U.S. really look to Cristina as a role model."
She has been praised for discussing once-taboo topics on the air. Subjects are addressed in characteristically bold and uncompromisingly colorful Cristina fashion, such as employing a cucumber to demonstrate condom use to prevent AIDS.
Last year, Cristina launched a series of specials with the theme Soñando Contigo (Dreaming With You), which features inspirational stories of everyday heroes rewarded with special gifts from what Cristina calls her "group of angels." In a recent Valentine's Day episode, which aired Feb. 13, Cristina surprised her guests with gifts donated by corporate giants such as JC Penney, The Walt Disney Co., Estefan Enterprises and Southwest Airlines.
The show's appeal seems to be the ability to relate to the average Hispanic woman. Like Oprah, much of Cristina's life is an open book to her audience. Cristina, the granddaughter of a prominent Cuban publishing family, fled Castro's Cuba in 1960 along with her family and settled in Miami. She climbed up the traditional male publishing ladder to become the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan en Español, the popular Latin American version of the Hearst magazine. She views legendary Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown as a mentor, according to her Web site.
Though she is worth millions, Cristina still comes off as one of the girls — the kind who will support her sisters. On the air, she reaches out to viewers by talking about her struggle with her weight, and she even disclosed her facelift and recent breast reduction surgery to viewers because, she has said, she didn't want to be "phony."
"She brings a level of intimacy and reality," Novak says. "She's very real, committed and she doesn't trivialize."
So broad is her appeal that Cristina seemed to be a natural to cross over into the general market as a personality. But outside a few TV appearances on general-market shows such as ABC's The George Lopez Show, the move into the much larger and more lucrative English-speaking U.S. media market has not happened. A deal to develop a sitcom based on her life never came to fruition.
Now, Cristina is concentrating on capitalizing on her image by branding her name on a host of products à la Martha Stewart. She signed with the prestigious licensing agency IMG Group to license her name, and so far she has introduced a successful line of furniture and housewares under the "Casa Cristina" imprint. Plans also call for a casual apparel line in the fall with an announcement about distribution in a "major store chain," says her husband and manager Marcos Avila.
"The time was correct to go out and start creating the Cristina brand," says Avila, who met his future wife when he played with Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. "We've done internal studies, and we think Cristina can be a huge brand," he adds.
But amid all the new branding efforts, Cristina Saralegui Enterprises stopped publication of the popular 15-year-old magazine Cristina la Revista in December after negotiations with publishing house Editorial Televisa fell through. Avila says the magazine, whose circulation had reached 150,000 but closed at 88,000, was taking a disproportionate amount of Cristina's time, with little return on investment. They are still discussing the possibility of a relaunch.
"Maybe we won't do it if it's not worth it," he says. "But any project that lasts 15 years is a success."
LAURA, HOT TOPICS FOR TV
Like Cristina, Laura Bozzo also is known for addressing previously taboo topics such as domestic violence, but she often highlights issues in dramatic and outrageous ways, using hidden cameras and the like for effect.
"It's the same demographic as Cristina, but there are differences in what the audience wants to see," Novak says. "They want to see the laundry … or maybe a kinder way to say it is they want to see the pain. But the show is not so far off that it's going to scare away advertisers."
Laura seems to be a brand, too, though a different one. In the summer, Telemundo introduced Laura, Sin Censura (Laura Uncensored), the first Spanish-language television series to be released on video-on-demand and pay-per-view. The series is described in an online promotion as all the stuff that's "too hot" for TV. A voiceover in the promotional video says, "Guests caught in the most outrageous lies and fights both in and out of the studio. Laura as you've never seen her before," then shows lots of brawling and yelling.
"Laura is a calculated choice on the part of Telemundo," Gadsby says. "Laura is kind of like the favorite show you never admit you're watching."
Adulterous husbands and jilted lovers aside, Laura views herself as a social reformer and a voice of the people, says Ramón Escobar, Telemundo's senior executive vice president of network entertainment. Escobar says Laura's appeal is she gets the bad guy, whether it is an abusive husband or a disinterested bureaucrat, breaking out a hidden camera to expose and denounce all sorts of wrongs.
"People on her show are representative of what many viewers face," Escobar says. "It's about the immigrant experience, coming into a foreign land, feeling disenfranchised, confronting discrimination. … All those issues, she tackles that on the show."
Laura has already done some new segments in the field and once her legal issues are resolved, she plans to head to Los Angeles and do a few shows on the road, Escobar says. Even though she was released from house arrest in July, she has remained in Peru. Separately, Laura is reportedly in the process of negotiating her contract, which expires later this year, but a Telemundo spokesman says the network does not comment on contract negotiations.
Taping some of her programs in the United States would enable Laura to focus on more U.S.-specific issues, such as clashes between foreign-born parents and their children who were raised in this country. A United States tour, says Gadsby, also could provide unique opportunities for boosting Telemundo's presence at the local level and would allow the various affiliate stations to build some fanfare around a Laura visit to the United States.
But beyond those opportunities, Gadsby doubts where the show is taped matters much to the audience. "That all said, I think the show, in general, deals with human drama and topics that are somewhat universal [albeit sensational], hence the appeal even if it is filmed in Peru and Peruvian families are portrayed," she says.
Coincidentally, Señora León, also is filmed in Peru.
This year, the network is trying to better highlight Laura's good deeds by airing segments on cases that Laura resolved in Peru, Escobar says.
"We're putting a little more emphasis on the fact that sometimes the audience doesn't know how much Laura has done," Escobar says. "We'll show the kid who got the operation, the baby who was adopted. It's an enhancement. It's been going on for a long time, but we weren't showcasing it as much."
With the popularity of novelas, an advertiser does not have to rely solely on Laura or Cristina to reach a mass audience catering to women, but it certainly can't hurt. While the talk format itself has evolved over time, it's still a popular staple. And like the general market, the genre has settled on a few tried-and-true shows.
"Each of the networks has identified their own queen of talk and have clearly established a place and time for it," says Tapestry's Gadsby. "They have found a format for success."
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