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While tourists from all over the world still come to San Antonio to remember the Alamo, there's a lot more to the city than the old mission, site of the famous 1836 battle. Riverwalk, a shopping and entertainment district that runs through the heart of downtown, is a popular wellspring for the local economy. San Antonio sits on the edge of the historic Texas Hill Country and is just two hours from the Gulf Coast. The U.S. military has a strong presence in the city, with four operational bases. San Antonio is also a major hub for medical research, with more than a half-dozen hospitals and specialty medical facilities focusing on everything from cancer therapy to brain surgery.
San Antonio's ties to Mexico have strengthened considerably since the bloody days of the Alamo siege. Hispanics make up nearly half (48.8 percent) of the market's total population. The Spanish-speaking community's roots stretch back four and five generations, making it an integral part of San Antonio.
The Hispanic population has a formidable role in San Antonio's culture, economy and media. Mainstream media properties all recognize that they ignore the Hispanic community at their peril. "The key to the San Antonio market is marketing to the Hispanic population," says Robert McGann, president and general manager of KENS-TV, the CBS affiliate in San Antonio owned by A.H. Belo Corp. "This is the mecca for Spanish-language marketing," adds Arthur Emerson, vp/gm of KVDA, the local Telemundo network affiliate.
In San Antonio's No. 32-ranked radio market, the top Spanish-language station (which ranked fourth overall among listeners 12-plus in last fall's Arbitron book) is Tejano stick KXTN-FM, owned by Hispanic Broadcasting Corp. (San Antoniobased Clear Channel Communications, the country's largest radio group, owns 29 percent of Hispanic Broadcasting.)
The No. 1 overall station in the market is KTFM-FM, a Contemporary Hit Radio outlet owned by Waterman Broadcasting that earned a 9.8 share among listeners 12plus in Arbitron's fall report. But Clear Channel has been giving KTFM a run for its money. In August 1998, CC acquired KXXM-then a small Urban stick south of San Antonio owned by Inner City Broadcasting-switched the station's AM and FM simulcasts to two new frequencies, converted the original signal to 96.1 and changed the format to Contemporary...