I wanted to follow my last post on U.S. Spanish language TV ratings by focusing just on telenovelas, and how their similar storylines draw similar audience flows.

This analysis is based on the same data as the previous post, a consolidation of household (HH) ratings data from archived newsletters, dating back to April 3, 2009. Ratings were not available for certain dates when the newsletter was on hiatus, most importantly between December 18th and the 28th.

The following graph charts the ratings from beginning to end for various 8 p.m and 9 p.m. telenovelas on Univision. Initial episode ratings for certain titles are not shown since they began before April. The biggest performer within this group is Mañana Es Para Siempre, who began to rise in viewership during its last 46 episodes.  Similar audience increases are also seen for Sortilegio and slightly for En Nombre del Amor. These rises demonstrate how viewers tune in more often once a telenovela becomes “caliente,” once the viewers have become engaged with its characters and the plotline begins to reach climactic points before reaching a big finish. It’s the natural cycle of telenovelas. Not all titles follow this rule however, as in the case of this group’s underperfomer, Ciudado con el Angel. This title market the lowest rating (1.5 on April 10) and also experienced a gradual ratings decline during its final episodes, an unusual reversal of the norm.

For Telemundo I also got together various titles, albeit from a broader time periods since Telemundo programs telenovelas during their entire primetime at 8, 9 and 10 p.m. The highest overall performer seems to have been Mas Sabe el Diablo, but it might be usurped by the recently started ¿Dónde ésta Elisa? which opened up at 10 p.m with a respectable audience of 826,000 viewers and a 0.7 HH rating.

¿Dónde ésta Elisa? has maintained or increased its HH rating since then, which is quite extraordinary, as audience normally decreases for a a telenovela after the premiere episode before bouncing back. This enduring viewership could be due to the title’s mystery plot, which focuses on a young girl who is kidnapped in the first episode. This effective plotline will likely be replicated in future telenovelas.

I love reading about television ratings but not much coverage is given to Hispanic channels, an unusual discrepancy considering that 16% of the U.S. population and 11% of TV households are Hispanic. The lack of coverage may be due to the fact that Hispanic programming is so diferente. During weekday primetime Univision and Telemundo program mostly telenovelas, which run around 120 episodes or five months long. This stripped programming results in a more stable audience flow, which occasionally changes in the event of substituted programming or as a telenovela becomes frio or caliente.

Utilizin email newsletters archives between April 2009 and February 2010 I compiled the weekday ratings for these Univision and Telemundo during the 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. time periods. Certain dates were not available but I believe that an overall performance picture emerged. The numbered points in the graph indicate notable highs and lows.

Highs and Lows for Univision at 8 PM

1) April 10, 2009 (Good Friday): 1.5 rating for Cuidado Con el Angel. I am not completely why this telenovela dropped this much that day (37% on a week to week basis). It may have something to do with the fact that it was Good Friday, and that many Hispanic Catholic families were at church. This might not be the case since Telemundo dropped only 16% from the previous day and 28% from the previous Friday. Angel’s bigger decline might really indicate a poor performance. The telenovela does continue to have lower audience levels until on July 3, upon which the time period improves with the new novela En Nombre del Amor.

2) October 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for the finale of Mañana Es Para Siempre (average for the night). This night a special three hour finale for wildly popular 9 p.m. telenovela Mañana Es Para Siempre was programmed. More about this later.

3) November 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for Latin Grammys (average for the night). This demonstrates how Hispanic-themed awards specials can greatly improve a time period, by about 50% in this case.

4-5) November 26 and December 31, 2009 (Thanksgiving and New Year’s): 0.8 and 0.9 ratings for special holiday programming. These drops of roughly 50% are parallel to what Telemundo experiences during the same nights (see points 10 and 11 below). The low audience levels may be due to either the holidays lowering television viewing or lack of interest in the special programming. I don’t have information for Christmas for comparison.

6) February 18, 2010: 2.9 rating for Premio Lo Nuestro (average for the night). Just like the Latin Grammys, this award special greatly improved the time period’s ratings.

Highs and Lows for Telemundo at 8 PM

7) April 23, 2009: 1.0 rating for Premios Billboard. This 50% bump is the same that the Latin Grammys and Premio Lo Nuestro gave Univision.

8 ) June 24, 2009: 1.0 rating for soccer match between Mexico and Venezuela. Games or specials, often programmed by Telemundo, boosted their ratings between 20% and 100%.

9) October 14, 2009: 1.2 rating for soccer match between Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago; another big winner.

10-11) November 26 and December 31, 2009 (Thanksgiving and New Year’s):  0.4 and o.3 rating for special holiday programming.

Highs and Lows for Univision at 9 PM

1) April 10, 2009: 2.1 rating for Mañana Es Para Siempre, lower than the usual  This is mostly due to the poor lead-in that night from Cuidado Con El Angel. Mañana Es Para Siempre would later attract much greater audience levels, finishing out with the highest rating for any program within the data I obtained.

2) October 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for the three hour finale of Mañana Es Para Siempre (average for the night). The finale had an average of 7.3 million viewers, and was the #2 broadcast of that night among Adults 18-34. This ratings peak was followed by a lower start for Sortilegio, which eventually also found rose in ratings, until its conclusion on February 17, the day before Premio Lo Nuestro (see point 6), upon which the ratings dropped again for the start of Corazon Salvaje.

3) November 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for the Latin Grammys (average for the night).

4) November 26, 2009: 0.8 rating for movie special.

5) December 31, 2009: 0.9 rating for special programming.

6) February 17 and 18, 2010: On February 17 Univision had the finale for Sortilegio, which drew a 3.1 household rating, with an average of 6.6 million viewers and beating ABC, CBS and the CW. On the following night Premio Lo Nuestro had a 2.9 rating. The drop that follows reflects the start of a new telenovela, Corazon Salvaje.

Highs and Lows for Telemundo at 9 PM

7) April 23, 2009: 1.0 rating for Premios Billboard. See point 7 in the 8 PM analysis.

8 ) October 14, 2009: 1.2 rating for soccer match between Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago.

One of the big takeaways from this analysis was that both Telemundo and Univision have relatively stable ratings resulting from the telenovelas, which requires loyalty required to follow plotlines, the absence of repeat episodes, and the fact that telenovelas are stripped programming. On the major broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC, audience levels are often more volatile, as popular shows are much more widely scattered across the grid. It would be interesting to study this historical volatility and see if it’s attributable to the far more fragmented audiences of today. Given their ratings stability, and a younger skewing audience (a benefit of the Hispanic Market Univision often beats major broadcast networks in the 18-49 demographic, especially on Fridays nights when the ratings for other broadcast networks dip significantly allowing Univision to sometime lead that night.

Last week Nielsen announced the number of Hispanic TV households had increased by 2.3% to a current total of 12.95 million. Among the top 10 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) the average growth was 1.7%. The big standout was the Dallas-Fort Worth market (#5 Hispanic  and overall DMA) which grew an incredible 3.7% to 506,020 households.

The Hispanic segment is the fastest growing segment in the Nielsen report, growing 2.3% over last year and an average of 3.8% per year since 2007. In comparison total U.S. homes grew only 0.3% last year and 1.0% per year since 2007. These latest figures give Hispanic households an 11.3% share of the national total.

As a result of this growth, Hispanic media outlets may be able to attract a greater portion of local and national advertising (Hispanic shares of media budgets normally trail the segment’s share of the market). Paradoxically it might also create an incentive for advertisers to maintain existing media budgets since their GRP objectives would be more easily attainable.

Last week Nielsen released its Television Audience Report which includes projections through 2050 for TV households (HH) and the 18-49 demographic. The projections for the Hispanic TV households have it more than doubling in size between 2010 and 2050; growing from 13.1 million to 38.9 million households.

In terms to the 18-49 segment, which is very important to advertisers, Hispanics are projected to grow from 23.2 million to 56.8 million, more than triple the current size today.

These figures would give the Hispanic segment a 33.3% share of the total TV household market in 2050, and a 22.7% share of the 18-49 demographic. Both share figures would be approximately double 2009. The “third” portion roughly in line to with the 30.2% share the U.S. Census is projecting for the Hispanic population in 2050. I have a post analyzing the U.S. Census projections for the Hispanic segment here.

Much of this growth for the Hispanic segment is coming from the young composition. In the teen segment, between the ages of 12 and 17, Hispanics already have an 18.2% share with 4.5 million teens, which is projected to grow to 11.4 million by 2050.

Given Nielsen’s projections, particularly in the 18-49 demo, it will be interesting to see how new media options proliferate in order to fulfill the demands of this rapidly growing segment.

I recently read an Ad Age article regarding the popularity of Univision’s content on YouTube. It focuses on how popular certain network content is on YouTube. A major point is how Univision’s telenovelas (Latin soap operas) are the most popular fare by far.

Number of views of clips from the 10 most-pirated shows on each major network

1. Univision: 583,750,247 views
2. Fox: 289,074,325 views
3. ABC: 260,299,418 views
4. CBS: 127,334,729 views
5. NBC: 120,890,835 views

However, as one of the commentators noted, many of the Univision videos didn’t seem to come from that network since they had an embedded logo bug for El Canal de las Estrellas, Televisa-owned Channel 2 from Mexico. It is easy to confuse the two network since they broadcast many of the same telenovelas, produced in Mexico and very popular with Univision’s Hispanic audience as well as in many other foreign markets.

As I searched YouTube’s site for telenovelas I also noticed that many of these telenovela videos were hosted by a few specialty YouTube ‘channels,’ who seemed to specialize in the telenovela genre.

YouTube Channels with Telenovela content

1. Laurisgar: 1,415 videos
2. Tvnovelasmx: 1,414 videos
3. Mundomexicotv: 1,077 videos
4. Felsesnovela: 418 videos
5. rBd24RbD: 434 videos

The hosts of these channels seemed to be based in Mexico, and some of them even explained how they posted the videos ‘as soon as the programs were transmitted’ by Canal 2 in Mexico. What’s noteworthy was although these channels originate in Mexico their content seems to draw more traffic from outside that country. For example the Laurisgar channel is currently ranked as the #5 YouTube channel worlwide, but it doesn’t even place in the Mexican rankings (YouTube channel rankings after changing the ‘country of content preference’). I believe this discrepancy is due to Televisa’s new online video site, TVolucion. This site, launched in October 2008 is sort of a Mexican version of Hulu, so it’s been a major draw for Mexican telenovela watchers. Also similar to Hulu, this site cannot be utilized by outside of its home country so ‘foreign’ telenovela fans need to get their fix elsewhere, hence YouTube’s attraction.

However, as the Ad Age article also mentions, this situation will probably not last much longer. Univision doesn’t currently offer any telenovela video online since the rights have not been cleared with Televisa but talks have been ongoing for some time. Also, just last month, Univision named Kevin Conroy as the President of Univision Interactive Media; previously Mr. Conroy was AOL’s Executive VP of Global Proudcts and Marketing. Expect further online developments from Univision soon, as well as clean-up of YouTube’s telenovela material.

CrunchBase Information on Televisa

CrunchBase Information on YouTube

Last week Univision settled a lawsuit with Televisa, the leading producer of Mexican telenovelas who provides most of Univision’s primetime programming and basically accounts for 1/3 of Univision’s 2007 revenues. Televisa’s product is so popular in the U.S. since the Hispanic market is mostly Mexican. This is not often the case in Latin America where preferences diverge as you travel further from Mexico. For example, in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Colombian telenovelas are more popular whereas in El Salvador Mexican telenovelas remain dominant; incidentally Mariachi music is also popular in El Salvador. Since Univision’s contract with Televisa expires in 2017, I was curious to see the portion of the U.S. Hispanic market would be Mexican.

In 2000 the U.S. Hispanic population stood at 35 million, equivalent to 12.6% of the total population. By 2050 it’s estimated to reach 132 million or 30.2%.

This Hispanic pie of 35 million consists of various segments, but the Mexican slice is by far the largest- over 20 million or almost 60%. Puerto Ricans are the second biggest segment at 9.6%.

While I couldn’t find any projections based on country of origin, I did locate some data indicating that 60% of future Hispanic population growth would come from individuals being born in the U.S. and while the other 40% would come result from immigration.

Utilizing this information I decided to build my own projections. I assumed that around 50% of the natural increases in population would come from parents of the same origin, and that the other 50% would be of mixed origin resulting in offspring that would fit the ‘Other Hispanic’ category. I also assumed that a 100% distribution of international migration from one of the seven country categories (Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.), not allowing for migration to result in additions to the ‘Other Hispanic’ category. The results show that while Mexican origin would still maintain a majority by a wide margin in 2050.

Of course, this calculation is only hypothetical, and other factors may play into this. Migration from countries other than Mexico might increase more relative to the current proportions. Intermarriage between countries and cultures is also a huge factor. Finally there could also be a more predominant homogenization of Hispanic culture in the United States, resulting in more Hispanics seeing themselves of not one particular origin. At least based on this model it does appear that the Mexican culture will form a strong part of the U.S. Hispanic culture for many years to come and that as a result Televisa’s value in the U.S. market will hold strong well past 2017.