Why Univision is so important to Obama

On Thursday night, the usual rump shaking and pyrotechnics of the Latin Grammys were delayed as President Obama announced his executive action on immigration.

ABC, NBC and CBS chose not to air the address. That left Spanish-language network Univision, which pushed back the Latin Grammys by about 15 minutes to make time for the president, as the largest network to broadcast it.

That was one of the most important audiences for Obama. And Univisions successes and challenges in the U.S. over the last few years offer a powerful perspective on how Americas Hispanic population is changing.

First, Univision has a huge and growing potential audience for its Spanish-language programming: 35 million Hispanics speak Spanish at home today, up from 10 million in 1980, writesMarco Hugo Lopez of the Pew Research Center.

Univision consistently ranks as the fifth largest American broadcast network by viewers, after NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. The network has the most watched local news shows in cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Houston, all of which have big Hispanic populations.

And during July sweeps this year, Univision finished first before all other broadcast networks among viewers 18-49 during prime time, due largely to the popularity of the cheesy Mexican telenovela, Mi Corazon Es Tuyo (My Heart Is Yours).

Yet the Spanish-language network has also been losing viewers under 35 for several years, according to Nielsen. The reason is that, as for all immigrant groups, younger generations of Hispanics are increasingly assimilating into English-language culture.

The U.S. Census Bureau projects that, by 2020, one-third of Hispanics age 5 and older will speak only English at home, up from a quarter of the population today. The share that speaks only Spanish at home is also falling sharply.

As a result, more and more Hispanics are choosing to get their news in English. Univision realizes this: In an effort to capture this demographic, it launched an English-language cable news channel called Fusion in late 2013 aimed at young English-speaking Hispanics.

Despite these demographic changes, however, the market for Spanish-language programming in the U.S. is still promising. While the share of Hispanics that watch TV in Spanish is falling, the total population is increasing so quickly that the overall audience for Spanish-language TV is still growing.

Even those who speak English fluently may not abandon Spanish-language TV altogether. Pew studies continue to show that younger Hispanics value bilingualism: In a survey in 2011, 95 percent of Hispanic adults said it was important for future generations of Hispanics in the U.S. to be able to speak Spanish. And research by Nielsen suggests that bilingual audiences tend to have stronger emotional reactions to ads in Spanish.

The decision to air Obamas speech on Univision before the Latin Grammys may have gained the president several million more viewers. Last year, 4.5 million viewers tuned in to the Latin awards show, according to tracking from Nielsen.

Amid furious dance performances and musical numbers, the awards show contained a few nods to the presidents speech. One came as the show began, when host Eugenio Derbez, a Mexican actor, remarked, We stopped being the minority a long time ago. Latinos are already part of this country, everyone!

Ana Swanson writes for Know More and Wonkblog.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/23/why-univision-is-so-important-to-obama/