PHILADELPHIA (AP) From Cine Latino to MTV en Espanol, Comcast
Corp. is offering new packages of Spanish-language programming to
sign up subscribers in growing Hispanic communities who have tended
to put up satellite dishes to pull in familiar programs from home.
Similar packages are being offered across the industry as cable
companies go after what analysts say is an underserved market.
Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, rolled out Cable
Latino packages in May in top Hispanic markets including Los
Angeles, San Francisco and central California, Albuquerque,
Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and Miami. Other areas
have followed, including Baltimore in August and Philadelphia in
September.
``We launched the package to give them the best possible way of
keeping a lifeline not only to the Hispanic market here but also
back home, to connect with their heritage and what's important in
their lives,'' said Mauro Panzera, senior director of multicultural
marketing at Philadelphia-based Comcast.
Comcast already had two Spanish language channels, Telemundo and
Univision.
But Hispanic residents have relied on satellite systems such as
Dish Network's Dish Latino for more options, including stations
from Mexico and Colombia, CNN en Espanol and Fox Sports en Espanol,
said Ricardo Hurtado, editor of the Spanish language weekly El Sol
in Philadelphia.
``Fox Sports is a huge channel for soccer European soccer and
South American soccer,'' Hurtado said. He said the Spanish language
movie channel Cine Latino also was in demand.
The new Comcast package includes Fox Sports en Espanol, CNN en
Espanol and Cine Latino as well as Spanish language versions of
other channels from Discovery to Toon Disney. Subscribers also get
13 Spanish-language music channels.
With about 3 million Hispanic households in Comcast's market
areas, Panzera said, ``It's one of the top initiatives of the
company.''
That's also the case at other cable companies eyeing huge
numbers of potential subscribers who speak Spanish. With nearly 39
million residents, Hispanics are the nation's largest minority
group, making up 13.5 percent of the population.
``In some ways this is all of the media industry playing
catch-up, in realizing this tremendous and underserved market. It's
far too big to be perceived as a niche market,'' said Kevin
Calabrese, an analyst for Argus Research.
The second-largest cable television company, Time Warner Cable,
offers Hispanic programming packages in 20 of its 31 systems, said
Keith Cocozza, a company spokesman. Time Warner's DTV en Espanol
package in New York City includes 15 Spanish language or Hispanic
theme news, sports, movie and other channels.
Cablevision Systems Corp. announced a new service in July
offering 30 channels including Chilean, Colombian and Canal Zone
stations and news, sports, movie and cooking channels to its New
York area customers. Cablevision already carried the Galavision,
Telemundo, Univision and TeleFutura Spanish language networks.
The Hispanic packages are on digital cable, so they also help
the companies with the goal of signing up, or upgrading, more
subscribers to digital. ``It's a way to gain customers and retain
customers,'' Cocozza said.
Panzera declined to give subscriber numbers for Cable Latino.
``It's still very new,'' he said. But he said tens of thousands are
signing up, about half new subscribers and half current subscribers
upgrading their service.
Satellite television companies remain better suited to cater to
smaller ethnic and cultural groups because they are centrally
organized, while cable companies are made up of separate systems
with offerings that vary in different markets, Bernstein analyst
Craig Moffett said.
``The cable operators have an advantage in serving any market
defined geographically,'' Moffett said. ``Satellite has a strategic
advantage in aggregating niches that are national in scope Arabic
language or Russian language or Korean language groups, for example
that may not be large enough in any one area to warrant a cable
operator allocating capacity.''
Comcast is finding some other groups to target in certain
markets, Panzera said.
``In the (San Francisco) Bay Area, one of most diverse markets,
we already have launched non-Hispanic ethnic packages for example
a couple of offerings for Asian-Americans and in Boston we have
offerings for some European communities,'' he said.
In January, Comcast is launching TV One, a new network being
developed in partnership with the Radio One network for black
viewers in the 25-to-54 age bracket.
Like the Hispanic offerings, Calabrese said, ``It's also an
outgrowth of the rise in the amount of content and the number of
channels targeted toward that market.''
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(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)