Spanish Language Media after the Univision-Hispanic Broadcasting

On 8 September 2003 the Federal Communications Commission approved the merger of Univision Communications, Inc., the dominant Spanish language media company in the US (which owns the leading Spanish language broadcast television network, cable television network, television station group, music recording and publishing company, and Internet site) and Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (HBC), the largest Spanish language radio operator in the US. The Commission explicitly rejected the argument that there is something unique about the needs of the Spanish speaking population in the US or about the financing, production, or distribution of Spanish language programming for US household, that requires a distinction to be made between Spanish language media outlet and other media outlets. The Hispanic community is the largest minority community in the US, but it is not linguistically homogeneous. Although most Hispanics speak English well, almost 8 million Hispanics speak English either ‘not at all’ or ‘not well’. Survey data indicate that Latino household tend to watch television as a family, rather than as individuals; when family members have varying levels of English proficiency, the family is likely to watch Spanish language programming – particularly for news – to accommodate those with limited understanding of English. As a result, more than half of all bilingual (Spanish-English) Latino adults prefer to watch primarily Spanish-language news programming on television. This book provides detailed tables of demographic, viewing, and market information on the Spanish-speaking population as well as detailed analysis of public policy issues.