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Las Vegas
Thriving Latino business community helping to generate unprecedented media buys
November 01, 2005
By Eileen Davis Hudson
As the nation's third-fastest growing city, Las Vegas is on fire. With new home construction and the sale of existing homes barely keeping up with skyrocketing demand, home prices have soared exponentially in recent years.
Hispanics, who already comprise 24 percent of the area's population, are flocking to Las Vegas in record numbers, attracted by the abundance of jobs. The city has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 4 percent, versus the national average of 4.9 percent as of August.
The growing Hispanic population has fostered a thriving community of Hispanic-owned small businesses. As their businesses have grown, so have their Hispanic media buys in the market. Las Vegas is the 48th-largest market overall and the 22nd-largest Hispanic market, with 107,330 Hispanic television households.
Automotive remains the number-one revenue-producing category for local media. "Automotive has really driven a lot of our growth," says Chris Roman, general manager of Entravision–Las Vegas, which owns two television stations and two radio stations in the market. "We began the year with about seven regular monthly automotive advertisers. Now we have 15 — and these are just [local] dealers."
The major automakers themselves also are stepping up Hispanic ad placements in Las Vegas, including Chevrolet, GMC, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota and Hummer. "This has put huge pressure on our inventory, primarily for television," Roman says.
Entravision's Univision affiliate KINC-TV gets a disproportionate share of this ad revenue because of its status as the leading Spanish-language station in Las Vegas. KINC's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. weekday newscasts have been number-one in the station's core demographic of adults 18-34 among all news rivals in those time periods for five consecutive ratings books. (The median age for Las Vegas Hispanics is 26 compared to the city's general-market median age of 34).
Univision's prime-time novelas on KINC lead all stations in adults 18-34 and 18-49. Sign-on to sign-off, KINC has led the field among adults 18-34 since the November 2004 ratings book, and in July it tied the local NBC affiliate KVBC-TV for first place among adults 18-49. Entravision also owns TeleFutura affiliate KELV.
This past April, Telemundo acquired Summit Media LP's Telemundo affiliate KBLR for $32.1 million, making it the 16th Telemundo station owned and operated by NBC Universal. Carlos Sanchez, previously gm of Telemundo affiliate XHAS in San Diego, was named KBLR vp/general manager.
In September 2004, a company called Una Vez Mas purchased Channel 19 and launched Azteca America affiliate KHDF.
With an economic buying power of $6.9 billion, area Hispanics have caught the attention of the nation's media giants. Leading the way is Clear Channel Communications, which began an initiative in September 2004 to increase Spanish-language programming in key markets. In late 2004, the company switched its Las Vegas Hip-Hop station KWID-FM to Regional Mexican.
The station features the "La Preciosa" format, playing hits from the '70s, '80s and '90s. The format, heard on a number of CC stations, has caught on rapidly in Vegas, whose Hispanic population is about 70 percent Mexican. KWID has increased its average quarter-hour share (AQH) by 83 percent from spring 2004 to spring 2005. In the spring 2005 Arbitron ratings survey, KWID finished third overall among all stations with a 5.5 share.
KWID's success out of the gate has put pressure on the market's seven other Spanish-language radio stations. Before KWID entered the fray, Univision Radio's Regional Mexican KISF-FM had been the top-ranked Spanish-language radio outlet. Known as "La Nueva," KISF nose-dived from a 5.6 share to a 3.6 share immediately after KWID's launch, before largely recovering with a 5.1 share in the spring.
Competing against both KWID and KISF is Entravision's Regional Mexican KQRT-FM "Radio Tricolor." Younger sister station KRRN-FM "Super Estrella" plays Spanish Pop/Rock via a feed from KSEE-FM in Los Angeles. Univision also owns KRGT-FM and KLSQ-AM in Vegas. KRGT launched in July as "La Kalle," the company's youth-aimed Reggaeton format. KLSQ "Recuerdo," plays Spanish Oldies.
Unlike with radio, area Hispanics seem less keen on embracing newcomers in print. Many start-up Hispanic publications in Las Vegas have gone under quickly after failing to lure advertisers and readers.
Edmundo "Eddie" Escobedo Sr., publisher and founder of El Mundo, the area's oldest Spanish-language newspaper, says he knows first-hand the struggle to survive. Escobedo, a 53-year resident of Las Vegas, says in the first five years after launching El Mundo, he nearly went bankrupt twice. Briefly inserted into the Greenspun family's Las Vegas Sun 22 years ago, the paper has stood alone since, a feat the 73-year-old Escobedo proudly shares. The family-owned and operated El Mundo celebrated its 25th anniversary on June 20. The weekly paper has an audited circulation of 35,000; Escobedo says he will increase distribution to 40,000 by December.
Continuing a mission of community activism and education is what keeps the newspaper relevant, says Escobedo, 73, chairman of the National Hispanic Press Foundation and a past president of the National Association of Hispanic Publications. "Twenty years ago, we were told that newspapers were going to disappear. We were going to be taken over by the Internet."
One of six new schools being built in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, is being named after the Mexican-born Escobedo, the first Hispanic publisher in U.S. history to be so honored.
The market's other Spanish-language weekly is El Tiempo Libre. The paper started in 1995. In 1999, facing financial pressures of its own, El Tiempo Libre's former owner sold the paper to the city's other general-market daily newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by Stephens Media Group.
The weekly has "complete editorial independence from the Review-Journal," however, says its editor, Rubem Hofliger. The paper's audited circ was 38,000. That was increased to 50,000 on Oct. 8, with 20,000 copies now being delivered door-to-door in zip codes with high concentrations of Hispanics, Hofliger says. El Tiempo Libre also has expanded its content. Within recent months, it launched two new sections: Economy & Finance and Health.
"It's a fight to survive," Hofliger says. "You need to get better or the competition is going to pass over you."
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