Miami

Miami's Hispanic character is evident in its every sight and sound, from the Spanish billboards advertising "Emocion" for the Florida Marlins to the telenovellas on prime-time television to the salsa and meringue carried on the radio. Long regarded as the adopted home city of Cuban Americans and the "capital of the Caribbean" for its Bahamian and Jamaican cultures, the city is also a port of entry for many Central and South American immigrants, populations that are rapidly growing and putting their stamp on the culture.

"It's all cultures converging in one market, especially the Hispanic market," said Rich Rivera, vp/media director at Crispin Porter & Bogusky Advertising.

A dozen Miami cable channels appeal to various Spanish tastes, including a Spanishlanguage Home Shopping Network; there are several ethnic newspapers, including a Venezuelan weekly and one printed in Portuguese for Brazilians; and a new AM sports station, Caracol (WSUA), that reports on Columbian soccer games.

The country's 16th-largest DMA, Dade (Miami) and Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) counties are home to roughly 3,500,000 people, of which 1.3 million Miami residents are Hispanic. Of these, about 60 percent are Cuban and 40 percent South or Central American, according to estimates by Strategy Research Corp. To understand what to buy, local buyers say, you have to know the market.

"You can't just buy the top five stations and call it a day and then say, `Now I'll buy Hispanic stations,' because you already did," said Stephanie Ruiz, vp of Media Department II, a media buying service.

Univision's Spanish-language WLTV-TV has topped the market for the past four books, causing the mainstream affiliates to criticize Nielsen's accounting.

"It's mathematically impossible to calculate Hispanic viewing the way Nielsen does. It means that every Hispanic audience is watching WLTV We have a huge Hispanic audience, but that's not calculated," said Bob Leider, gm of Fox affiliate WSVN. As a port city (continued on page 18) a big tourist business and a fashion-driven celebrity culture, Miami enjoys an exuberant market. Yet the city's pocket-size ethnic neighborhoods are so tightly niched that a broad-based ad campaign is difficult to anchor and expensive to buy, local buyers say. The city's highly targeted media charges high rates to reach their individual audiences.

"There was a time when it...