Television

Ten years after launching as the first national Spanish-language sports network in the United States, and four years since becoming the lone Hispanic cable sports programmer to be fully measured by Nielsen, Fox Sports en Español has evolved into a dominant sports brand in Spanish-language television. Hosting its seventh upfront presentation before an audience of nearly 1,000 media and advertising professionals, Fox Sports en Español served up a powerful combination of exclusive live sports programming and best-in-class multiple content delivery platform offerings that position it to capture an even greater share of viewers and advertisers in BY’08.

TV Azteca, S.A. de C.V. announced that its fully-owned subsidiary for the US Hispanic market, Azteca America, launched its fifth national upfront campaign in New York City.

The event gathered more than 900 people, primarily advertisers related to the dynamic US Hispanic market, who received information on the network’s coverage gains, a strengthened US sales operation, new programming options produced in both Mexico and the United States, as well as a multimedia platform and new media options that set the stage for increased growth for the 2007-2008 season.

Univision and Disney-ABC International Television Latin America, the international television
distribution and production arm of The Walt Disney Company, have signed an unprecedented strategic production agreement. The agreement, which extends Univision’s commitment to present the most captivating programming of interest to Hispanics and carries on Disney-ABC International Television Latin America’s expansion strategy, involves the special production of the successful ABC series Desperate Housewives for Hispanic viewers in the United States.

Telemundo announced that its Station Group has entered an exclusive Spanish-language wireless content deal with LSN. Branded “A la Mano/On hand,” the business initiative launching in early May, will make Telemundo local stations news, weather, sports and other local relevant content available to consumers on their cell phones and PDAs. Participating Telemundo local stations include Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago and Dallas.

While broadcast and cable networks kept their clutter relatively flat in 2006 versus previous years, they are still running on average 15 minutes of non-program material per hour in primetime, according to MindShare’s annual Clutter Watch. The study, which identifies trends based on an analysis of prime-time commercial minutes and non-program minutes data from TNS, found one exception in FOX News. The cable news network increased more than 10% to 15 minutes and 10 seconds per hour in non-program minutes over 2005.