TUNED IN: Hispanic TV, which includes new networks, is slowly moving away from telenovelas to focus on Latino's changing experience

TUNED IN: Hispanic TV, which includes new networks, is slowly moving away from telenovelas to focus on Latinos' changing experience

By now, you've probably heard that Mexican salsa outsells ketchup. But did you know that Spanish-language Univision is the fifth-ranked television network in the nation, coming in just after the major networks NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS?

Hispanic media is growing, and nothing tells that story better than the numbers: According to Hispantelligence Market Brief advertising dollars directed at the Hispanic market grew at an average annual rate of 14.4 percent between 1990 and 1999. In total, Hispanic advertising expenditures reached $1.9 billion last year.

While spending has increased in all mediums, network and national television expenditures grew at the fastest rate over the last decade -- 19.3 percent -- and accounted for the biggest piece of the pie last year. This year, the Spanish-language TV ad market is expected to exceed $1 billion.

At the receiving end of this windfall are Hispanic-oriented broadcasters and programmers: the two Spanish-language networks, Univision and Telemundo; cable networks such as Univision-owned Galavision, Cisneros Television Group and HTVN; satellite providers such as DirecTV Para Todos; and programmers such as SíTV, which is planning network success of its own. The favorable market has also attracted a new player with the potential to change the Spanish TV landscape: Azteca América, a third Spanish-language network that's being launched by a Mexican broadcaster and U.S. partner Pappas Telecasting Company.

While each player varies its approach to capturing audience and thereby ad dollars, Univision seems to have had the best recipe for success so far. Since the network was purchased by A. Jerrold Perenchio and his Chartwell Partners in 1992, Univision has made a steady climb in the ratings to capture as much as 85 percent of the market. Like its rival Telemundo, Univision has relied on a telenovela-driven programming lineup. Thanks to contracts with Televisa and Venevisión, Mexico and Venezuela's leading TV programmers, Univision has a constant supply of these soap-opera-like novelas. In fact, according to Univision's annual report, about 93 percent of the network's non-repeat broadcast hours were filled with programming from these two sources in 1999.

After a departure from this same novela-centric strategy last year proved unsuccessful for Telemundo, that...