Research: Content- Latin Americans Go Online for Light News, Use Print for Hard News

At the Portada Latin American Advertising and Media Summit last June Lyn-Hou Ramirez presented the following graphics in order to show content preferences of the GDA audience.

Content

At the Portada Latin American Advertising and Media Summit last June, Lyn-Hou Ramirez presented the following graphics in order to show content preferences of the GDA audience.

Online Content Preference Consumption by Country, based on the last report available from ComScore.

The countries included are Argentina (AR), Brazil (BR), Chile (CL), Colombia (CO), Costa Rica (CR), Ecuador (EC), Mexico (MX), Peru (PE), Puerto Rico (PR), Uruguay (UY) and Venezuela (VE).

The table compares rankings between each country and their favorite content. Level of interest is ranked from 1 to 10, with 1 being the most interest. The contents are divided into 11 categories, including online products.

The table shows that in Argentina, Brazil and Peru, Entertainment content is the category most preferred by users.  In Chile, entertainment is ranked second after national and political content.

Sports content is highly valued in nearly all Latin American countries surveyed, with the exception of Venezuela, where the category ranks sixth in level of interest. By contrast, in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay, the sports category occupies the number one spot in terms of greatest interest, while placing second in Argentina, Mexico and Peru, and third in Brazil and Chile.

The category with the lowest level of interest in most countries is Opinion, varying from fifth place in Ecuador to next-to-last in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, and taking up last place in Peru. Health and Lifestyle are the next categories of online content drawing a lesser interest among Latin American consumers, ranking fifth and sixth in Argentina and Puerto Rico, and last place in Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay.

In Mexico, the Local News category draws the biggest audience. This category also leads the rankings in other countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay, where it places second. The exception is Argentina, where local news falls to last place among all categories.

International News occupies the middle of the rankings for all countries, from seventh place in Argentina and Uruguay, to third in Peru and Puerto Rico.

The following table shows which countries with GDA audiences prefer formal or informal content. Formal content categories include Opinion, Economy, International News, Justice, Politics, National and Local News. Informal content categories are comprised of Sports, Entertainment, Health and Lifestyle, and Technology.

Overall, countries are reading lighter news online. Sports and entertainment outranks hard news and politics as the online news content of choice in six of the countries ranked. According to Lyn-Hou Ramirez, this may also be due to younger audiences reading digital content, as opposed to the audience that reads printed content.

In Chile and Puerto Rico, more people are reading national and political news. Mexico, home to the largest capital in Latin America, favors local news. In Venezuela, online content is focused on the economy, with "a special focus on exchange rates and changes in financial regulations, which directly impact that country’s daily cost of living," says Ramirez.

In comparing online contents by region, we observed no patterns or similarities. In this sense, local content predominates over produced content.

"Each country lives the news at its own pace, according to its own reality", adds Ramirez.

As such, a line can be drawn between countries that prefer "lighter" news focused on entertainment, such as Argentina and Peru, and countries that focus on "hard" economic and political news, such as Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

In Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, we observe a balance between online reading of local political and legislation-related news, as well as entertainment, sports, health and other content? which reflect the pattern of the standard reader.

According to Ramirez, local content has become more relevant in countries where there is relative economic stability, such as Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico.

Related Articles:

BREAKING NEWS: GDA Introduces GDA Digital

Content for The Latin World: GDA, Grupo de Diarios America

GDA Newspapers to Provide Content for AP Mobile

PAL Focuses on Monetizing US Hispanic Audiences

Gina Tinoco is the New Digital Account Director atPublicitas Charney Palacios

Get our e-letters packed with news and intelligence!

Meet & Learn
Portada Live Events

Popular Now

Boost Your Sales

Who is Moving Now

The Latest