Join Forces with Top Brands at Portada Live, NYC, Sept, 19, 2024!

Broadbanc Content Providers Work Towards Advertising and Subscription Based Models

As online usage and cell phone usage among Latinos increases, broadband technology and broadband content providers are entering the Hispanic market.

Content

As online usage and cell phone usage among Latinos increases, broadband technology and broadband content providers are entering the Hispanic market. According to Forrester Research, 13.9 million Hispanic adults are online and more than half of those have broadband.

One of the companies entering the field is Brightcove, owned by Juniper Content Corporation. “Brightcove provides content providers a customizable video platform. And, they offer both ad supported and fee based access to video content. Additionally, they are responsible for selling video advertisements that are inserted in partner's content," Stuart B. Rekant, Juniper's Chairman and CEO, tells Portada.

Juniper is the owner and operator of ¡Sorpresa!, a Hispanic children's television network and digital community.

While currently most of ¡Sorpresa!'s roughly 720,000 subscribers come from cable partners operating in 23 of the top 25 US Hispanic markets (Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Time Warner, Verizon and The National Cable TV Cooperative), Rekant anticipates that multi-channel access will grow as Hispanic consumer increasingly adopt broadband service. ¡Sorpresa!'s mobile and broadband platform partners include Brightcove, Google Video, MSN Latino, AOL Video, Akimbo, Verizon Wireless, MobiTV and Sorpresatv.com.

Ad supported Online Videos

Online video is also expanding in the Hispanic and Latin American Internet. Starmedia recently announced the launch of its new video sharing channel StarMedia Videos. The new channel allows users to watch and share original videos online; users are able to easily upload and share video clips on StarMedia Videos through websites, mobile phones and PDA's. An important side of the revenue model is based on advertising.

“The video channel is ad supported. There will be pre-roll opportunities as well as display advertising and sponsorships.

The video channel is suitablefor many different advertisers but the most important categories are Telecommunications and Broadband," says Alejandro Rodriguez, VP of Sales for Starmedia.

“Most of our advertisers are interested in reaching our youth audience. However, we are placing additional attention on targeting the important decision making segment such as mothers, aged 18-24," Rekant notes.

Starmedia's Rodriguez says that they are negotiating “with media companiessuch as Fox to make their content available in our video channel.

This is the first initiative in this direction but there will be more agreements with other media companies to feature their content for Spanish speakers."

Mobile Video

Victor Kong of MTV Networks Latin America tells Portada that “video is growing a lot even though technology in Latin America is limiting these videos to less than 30-second clips and most operators charge a fee for downloading the clip plus the airtime that takes to do so. As a result, it is quite expensive to download video clips on mobile devices.”

Providing content —especially videos— through mobile phones is another interesting avenue. According to ITFacts, U.S. Hispanics spend an average of $67 per month on wireless services vs. $60 by the general market.

¡Sorpresa!’s mobile phone services are a self-sufficient entertainment experience. Additionally, they extend the brand awareness of the network.

According to MTV’s Kong, the Latin American mobile content market will see a huge spike in about 18 – 24 months when 3G technology is more widespread and operators find the right pricing model. The current volume shows there is consumer demand. When pricing is lowered and clips can be longer and faster to download, this market will explode and replace all the downloads of screensavers and wallpapers.

Kong notes that Magazine publishers have different strategies – those that have a strong consumer brand such as Maxim, create their own branded content and sell it via promotion on their magazine, giving this content to wireless integrators who market it via print, TV and online, and through the operator's decks. Other magazines sell advertising space to wireless integrators, and other magazines are creating their own wireless arm and sell their own branded content and get licenses from other strong brands such as MTV and Nick and sell this content too bypromoting it in their magazines.

Meet & Learn
Portada Live Events

Popular Now

Boost Your Sales

Who is Moving Now

The Latest

Get our e-letters packed with news and intelligence!