EC Hispanic Media is launching El Punto Semanal, a Spanish – language weekly for the Los Angeles market in the first quarter of 2012. The free publication will have a circulation of 140,000 and will be distributed via rack card at retailers and street racks to a large extent using El Clasificado’s current distribution system.
El Punto is an interesting addition to the Los Angeles Hispanic newspaper market whose major players include ImpreMedia’s La Opinion (daily), Tribune’s Hoy Los Angeles (weekly) and Media News Group’s Impacto USA (weekly, Orange County).
El Punto Semanal also marks a departure from EC Hispanic Media’s main product line of mostly no editorial 100% classified advertising products, including its flagship publication El Clasificado (weekly, circ. 460,000). El Punto Semanal’s editorial focus will be Soft News, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Insurance, How To’s and Sports. The editorial team of El Punto Semanal is headed by Alicia Garcia , EC Hispanic Media’s Director of Content with a staff of 5 full time reporters and editors.
Martha de la Torre (photo), CEO and Co-Founder of EC Hispanic Media, tells Portada that “ El Clasificado has been serving the shopping needs of the grassroots Latino community since 1988. Our new publication, El Punto Semanal is being created to provide our Spanish speaking community with in depth consumer friendly editorial. El Punto will be the “how to” publication on education, careers, consumer safety, health and financial literacy written in a clear and concise manner appealing to our Spanish speaking audience. Sports and entertainment will also be key content platforms in the publication.”
Soft News and Sports
According to de la Torre, “El Punto Semanal fills the gap left behind by other shrinking print media publications. It also takes into account the very real fact that Hispanics are turning to the internet and mobile media for hard news. A quick look at the circulation numbers of daily Spanish language newspapers proves this. That is why the content of El Punto Semanal focuses more around soft news and sports and practical and much needed information in the Hispanic market. Most importantly, El Punto Semanal benefits from our 23 years of successfully reaching the Hispanic market with our time proven and award winning distribution system. This is a key differentiating factor between this publication and other shrinking publications.”
Hugo Hernandez, Director of Marketing for EC Hispanic Media, says that “the adverse effects of the economy have hit our industry very hard. However, by staying focused on our readers and clients, we have come out of the tough economic times even stronger and have found many opportunities in the areas where many of our competitors have reduced circulation. However, the need for local, high quality content in the Hispanic market still exists. We plan to aggressively fill that void through this publication and by staying deeply engaged with our readers and clients.”
