News Corp.-owned Fox Networks Group is expected to announce Monday the formation of Fox Hispanic Media (FHM), a group of Spanish-language networks that seek to capture advertising dollars in a more efficient way by offering advertisers a one-stop shop to target Hispanic men, women and families.
In addition to the male-targeted Fox Deportes (formerly Fox Sports en Español) and the woman-targeted Utilísima, FHM comes to its upfront presentation in May with Nat Geo Mundo, a sister network of the National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD.
Nat Geo Mundo, which will launch on July 1st, will feature a combination of shows from the National Geographic Channel in Latin America that have never aired in the U.S. and newly commissioned and acquired original series and specials, including a Spanish-language version of the popular Dog Whisperer, hosted by César Millán.
“We want to offer marketers and agencies the possibility to buy advertising for three different parts of the Hispanic demographic: Men, women and family in a way that has not been done before,” Hernán López, president and CEO of Fox International Channels, told Portada. “We want to go after a sophisticated new Latino consumer; one who prefers to watch original programming rather than mere translations of English-language shows,” he adds. The tagline of the newly created FHM is Latino Entertainment with an American Attitude.
Naming the channel Nat Geo Mundo instead of Nat Geo en Español is also part of FHM’s target strategy: “We could have called it the National Geographic Channel en Español, but we don’t want people to perceive it as translated content, because we’ll bring original content,” adds Lopez, and points out that was the same very reason Fox Sports en Español was recently re-branded as Fox Deportes.
Fox Hispanic Media will be lead by López, while Tom Maney, svp for advertising sales at Fox Deportes, becomes svp for ad sales at Fox Hispanic Media.
Nat Geo Mundo is expected to reach 4 million households at launch, with the company having secured carriage on Cox, DISH Network, AT&T and Verizon FiOS. Four million is also the reach of women-targeted Utilísima, which last year launched a dedicated feed for U.S. Hispanic audiences. Fox Deportes reaches about 6 million Hispanic households.
Additional details on Nat Geo Mundo’s programming will be unveiled at FHM’s Upfront event on May 17th at the New York City Public Library.
