Earlier in the year Hispanic broadcasters were mobilizing their listeners, urging the eligible to get registered and to vote in this year’s primaries and again in the general election. The registration effort looks like it’s about to pay off for groups like Univision and Entravision. Hispanic voters comprise a significant percentage of the electorate in a number of states, and four of them in particular were singled out in a Bloomberg report – Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada – where between 12% and 37% of the electorate is Hispanic, and where George W. Bush prevailed in 2004 by 5% or less.
Entravision is particularly well positioned, with 22 of its 51 stations located in the quartet of battlegrounds. Univision has five O&O television stations in three of the four (missing out in Nevada), and its network is frequently the programming of choice for Entravision. Both groups are also well stocked on the radio side of the broadcast equation. Both the campaigns of Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) plan and in many cases have already started to contest the Hispanic vote vigorously with aggressive broadcast campaigns.
RBR/TVBR observation: This is a very unique opportunity for Hispanic stations that just isn’t available to most mainstream broadcast outlets. By creating a demographic – newly registered Hispanic voters – they’ve created something unique that only they can sell – access to these newly registered voters. It offers a general lesson to all broadcasters. What is a unique selling point that will be understood by my core audience, and not so much by any other demographic? Identify such things, and you’ll be able to demonstrate the value of your station to clients that will benefit the most – and they’ll love you for it, since their perfectly targeted buys will almost always translate into excellent payoffs. But you already knew that, right?
