MTV Tries Again with Tr3s

MTV relaunched its old MTV en Espanol today as "MTV Tr3s" a souped up bilingual version of MTV geared towards the emerging acculturated American Hispanic youth. The audience share is likely to start small but New York Times reporter Mireya Navarro, whose feature on the channel ran today, interviews a bunch of people who seem to think it's the beginning of a powerful business that will benefit from the growing number of advertisers savvy enough to put their dollars into ventures aimed at bilingual or even English-dominant Latinos.

The "new" revamped cable channel, which will reach about 14 million people at launch, has partnered with Latina magazine and is co-sponsoring its national tour througbhout Hispanic heritage month. Click [here] for details.

As NYT's Navarro notes, other cable channels that have been recast successfully include Mun2 the bilingual cable channel owned by Telemundo. Both find themselves in the company of the successful cable channel SiTV.

I'm really excited about this new channel (though I'll have little if any time to actually watch it). The newly competitive environment is certainly shaping up to be a terrific case study for the Ethnic Marketing course at teach in the Master in Communication program at Johns Hopkins University.

Click [here] to read the positive spotlight piece in today's New York Times.

Click [here] to read the Billboard story on washingtonpost.com

Will Televisa Make a New Bid for Univision?

Andrew Ross Sorkin & Peter Edmonston report in the business section of today's The New York Times that, "A consortium of investors led by Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest media company, is considering a plan to make a $13 billion bid for Univision Communications after losing an auction for the company this summer, executives involved in the negotiations said yesterday."

It's surprising given that the group led by media mogul Haim Saban appeared to have won the auction and was well on its way to Univision board approval only two weeks from today.

Click [here] to read the Times article.

- Adam

Naive... What else is there to say about Survivor's producer?

Washington Post columnist, Lisa de Moraes, who writes about television has written a devastating column which exposes the sad intentions behind the Survivor program on CBS which will feature a sort of battle of the races where racial or ethnic teams face off against each other. It appears to have only been about attracting ethnic viewers (big surprise).

Survivor's producer makes terribly naive comments about race and ethnicity in society which lead me to believe that there was little deep thinking that went into developing this season's show which I had hoped might be able to contribute to a discussion about race and ethnicity in American society.

Click [here] to read the article.

- Adam

New York Advertising Agencies Adjust to Reality - They Must Hire more African American Senior Executives

In a positive turn of events, New York's major advertising agencies have acknowledged that they have kept African Americans out of their senior ranks and are taking steps to change (or will accept punishment if they don't). Both the government and the agency clients have expressed frustration over the hiring and promotion practices at Madison Avenue agencies.

The New York Times, which has reported on this issue in the past, reports today on its front page that the agencies will make changes after pressure was exerted by the City's government leaders.

Given the stereotyping of African Americans and other minorities in corporate advertising it really should come as no surprise that these groups have not been active participants in the leadership decisions made about the direction of advertising.

It depresses me that students who I help train to take junior or mid-level positions in marketing and advertising may never be able to reach the higher levels of agency leadership simply because of a broken system that is out of step with the changing society and changing demographics of our nation. I continue to hope that, sooner or later, corporate advertisers will avoid agencies that avoid diversity at all levels, including the most senior positions.

Click [here] to read the Times' story by Dianne Cardwell and Stuart Elliott.

- Adam