Liz Gaier, Sr. VP of Media News Group, announced the launch of a Spanish-language newspaper in Denver. Gaier made the announcement during a panel called “General Market Publishers Focus on Hispanic Print) at the NAHP's Advertising Summit that took place in Chicago last week. The new publication, which will be launched later this year, will have a strong focus on entertainment.
The publication will be published by The Denver Post, which, in turn is published by The Denver Newspaper Agency, a Joint Operating Agreement co-owned by Scripps and Media News.
Increasing Interests in the Hispanic Market
Earlier this year, The Denver Post launched a Spanish-language website with local news about Denver and Colorado. Denver Post al Dia (Denver Post Today).
Media News recently took over El Paso Times from Gannett, El Paso Times publishes El Paso y Mas, a weekly targeting El Paso's large Hispanic community. In addition, Media News Group publishes Impacto USA (Spanish, 250,000), a Los Angeles based mostly home delivered publication.
Media News recently bought several newspapers in California, which were formerly owned by Knight Ridder, some of these newspapers publish a weekly newspaper called Fronteras. Fronteras's editorial is made by a Mexico based joint venture run by Universal Press Syndicate and Danilo Black.
Colorado, a competitive market
Colorado's Hispanic newspaper market has become more competitive in recent years. The Greeley Tribune launched a free Spanish-language newspaper in early 2005, and in 2004 the Denver Newspaper Agency introduced El Comerciante de Colorado, a direct-mail biweekly advertising circular aimed at 75,000 Hispanic households. El Comerciante closed after a few months of publication.
Also last year, weekly newspaper La Voz filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, after 30 years in Denver. La Voz publisher Wanda Padilla told the Rocky Mountain News that the newspaper owes creditors between $500,000 and $600,000 and two banks foreclosed on the paper, garnishing its accounts.
The bilingual newspaper continues to publish while operating under bankruptcy protection. La Voz (independently owned, Spanish, circ. 100,000) is published every Wednesday for readers in the Denver area and northern Colorado. Wanda Padilla, publisher of La Voz, co-founded the newspaper in 1974 with her husband, Jose Padilla.
Small Hispanic print advertising market
There are almost 600,000 Hispanics living in the Denver DMA – about one fifth of the total population. Between 1990 and 2000 Denver's Latino population grew by 89%.
According to bottom-up and top-down estimates done by Portada®, the Denver Hispanic newspaper ad market has a volume of between US $2.6 and $4.2 million. National advertising accounts for approximately 40% of these amounts.
Print advertising accounts for a very small proportion of Denver's Hispanic advertising. Interestingly, in Denver's general ad market, newspapers account for 60% of total ad expenditures, an unusually high share for print media.
In 2003, total advertising expenditures for the Denver DMA were approximately US $1 billion. Assuming a Hispanic market share of 3.5% of total advertising, ad expenditures for Hispanic advertising would have been US $35 million.
