Azteca America breathes Gotham air
B'caster picks up WXNY
With the addition of WXNY Channel 39, Azteca America brings its total number of Stateside stations to 18. Newest will reach more than 10 million viewers in New York and New Jersey, 2.5 million of whom are Hispanic, Azteca execs claimed.
However, "it's a low-power station. That means that it will not have cable carriage as a must carry," countered Ted Faraone, spokesman for market leader Univision's WXTV Channel 41, who also questioned whether the signal, broadcast from the top of the Citicorp Center will be easy to pick up on regular sets.
Nonetheless, establishing a station in New York is of symbolic importance -- bringing the number of Spanish stations there to four --- and Azteca America has upped its reach of the U.S. Hispanic population of 33 million from 42% to 53%.
Increased competish
Analysts believe that the new net, owned by Mexico's No. 2 broadcaster, TV Azteca, may now start truly competing with rivals Univision and Telemundo for national ad revenue.
"New York brings us to our goal of network coverage for 2002 with a month remaining in the year," TV Azteca CEO Pedro Padilla said. "We are now in a position to leverage our excellent Madison Avenue sales team for preseason sales."
Without question, Gotham is a thriving Spanish-lingo market. Viewership of Spanish-language broadcast TV increased 127% in the November 2002 sweeps compared with the same period in 1999.
From sign on to sign off, Univision 41 registered an average Nielsen station index rating of 1.8. Its sister station, WFUT Telefutura, which launched in January, had an 0.3 rating in November.
Meanwhile, Telemundo's WNJU Channel 47 clocked in a record 1.2 NSI average rating sign on to sign off during the sweeps.
Together, the three stations attracted some 240,000 households.
The greater N.Y. metropolitan area is home to over 3.7 million Hispanics, of whom about 55% are Spanish dominant, Faraone noted.
Whether Azteca America will draw in viewers remains to be seen. Ratings grabber Univision airs exclusive programming from Mexico's Televisa, which routinely trounces Azteca in the ratings at home.
Market focus
Even so, the Spanish-lingo stations should benefit overall.
"This should be a wake-up call to marketers to go after those consumers in their language of choice. If they do so, it will translate into sales," Faraone said. "And the more sales people out there selling Spanish-language media to advertisers, the more sales there will be for everyone."
Azteca America launched in the summer 2001 but had a falling out with partner Pappas Telecasting, which failed to win funding to back the stations.
Azteca America has since adopted a different strategy, with Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca providing programming in exchange for 50% of ad coin from its affils.
WXNY majority owner Enrique Grau is the owner of Azteca America's Miami affil WPFM 13.
