Good outlook for magazines

Monica Gadsby, president and chief investment officer at the Chicago based ad agency Tapestry, predicts a bright future for Hispanic magazines. In her presentation entitled “Future Trends in Hispanic media,” given at a recent Strategic Research Institute conference, Gadsby predicted growth for “targeted” magazines, which she defined as magazines tailored to specific audiences. When asked by a conference attendee why only 2% of all Hispanic advertising expenditures go to magazines, Gadsby answered that there have not been enough print options and said that the current growth in the number of titles would spur an increase in magazine advertising.

She added that the current consolidation in the print media sector would provide more resources to newspapers, giving them the means to increase circulation and frequency. “There have been very few Spanish-language dailies up till now. With more resources, the content of Hispanic newspapers will change and be more in line with general market papers.”

Gadsby also predicts that the explosion of digital TV (70% of Hispanic homes are cable subscribers) will allow for programming that targets Hispanics of specific nationalities; while open broadcast networks like Univision and Telemundo will mostly broadcast to the Mexican majority. The spread of digital video recorders will increase the amount of advertising dollars spent on product placement and embedded content. Gadsby also forecasted the latinization of mainstream TV. In what she calls the “total market,” the lines between multicultural and general markets will become more blurred.

Title: While the majority of publications are Hispanic owned….

Source: Portada® Research

…the leaders in ad revenues belong to corporate America…

Top ten Spanish language newspapers by ad-revenues

Source: TNS Media Intelligence
Note: January – November 2004 period

Top ten magazines Hispanic magazines in ad-revenues

Source: HispanicMagazineMonitor
Note: January-December 2004 period