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The Spanish-language TV audience is growing, and advertisers are taking notice.
Over the past few years, the Hispanic population in America has seen significant growth in TV viewership, according to experts, becoming one of the most valuable demographics for media companies and advertisers. And as these consumers diversify how they’re consuming shows and other content, there’s been an increase in specialized advertising targeting them, with top networks like Telemundo and Univision drawing more attention and ad dollars.
Hispanic consumers currently make up roughly 20% of the U.S. population and wield more than $4.1 trillion in purchasing power, according to Nielsen. The Hispanic population accounted for roughly 70% of the overall growth of the U.S. between 2022 and 2023, U.S. Census Bureau data shows.
That growing population is “leading and defining” modern media consumption, according to Nielsen’s Senior Vice President of Inclusive Insights Stacie de Armas.
“Hispanics are an audience that is moving beyond or advancing outside of the linear TV model,” de Armas told CNBC. “But this migration is not about leaving TV or TV content — it’s about where it’s distributed and where they’re consuming it.”
Nielsen’s report found that Hispanic consumers are leading in streaming consumption, which makes up nearly 56% of their total TV time, compared with just 46% for the rest of the country. Though Nielsen has noted an overall decline in traditional linear TV viewership, distribution platforms like streaming are far eclipsing broadcast and cable — and Hispanic consumers are at that forefront, de Armas said.
Because the population trends younger, she said, Latino audiences are often consuming content on the go while retaining strong loyalty to the brands and networks that offer their favorite content.
“Hispanic TV audiences overall, and especially Spanish-language dominant audiences, have a strong connection still to broadcast television, and yet, at the same time, a really strong connection to streaming content overall,” de Armas said.
The report found that Hispanic audiences spend more time with YouTube, Netflix and Disney than the rest of the population.
According to new data from iSpot, the top Spanish-language networks in the third quarter were Univision, which saw a 10.2% year-over-year increase in household ad impressions, and Telemundo, which saw a 7.6% year-over-year increase in impressions.
In a Monday report published with McKinsey & Company, Telemundo reported that Latino consumer power far outpaces the average and that the population is 14% more engaged across digital media and over indexes on streaming.
And when it comes to spending on sports, which remain big drivers for media companies and advertisers, Latino fans spend 50% more than non-Latinos when adjusted for income.
“Latinos are essential to the future of sports fandom in America — on the field, in the stands, and across every screen,” said Mónica Gil, Telemundo’s chief administrative and marketing officer. “As the McKinsey report confirms, Latinos are driving one-third of the industry’s growth — spending more, streaming more, and engaging more deeply than ever before.”
The NFL, the most valuable and profitable sports league in the U.S., has also been chasing Spanish-speaking viewers, part of a broader streamer push into sports and capitalizing on Hispanic audiences. The league expanded on those efforts when it announced late last month that Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny would headline next year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
According to the Latino Donor Collaborative, Bad Bunny has been the most-streamed artist globally for the past three years, with the potential to deliver a massive streaming spike for the Super Bowl this year.
Brands are taking notice of the growth, too. On Wednesday, ad-supported streaming platform Fawesome announced that it is expanding its Spanish-language content partnerships to mirror the demand it’s seeing from the population.
“This initiative marks a major milestone in elevating content offerings for one of the fastest-growing streaming demographics we’ve seen across our platforms,” said David Di Lorenzo, senior vice president of content acquisitions and partnerships at Fawesome’s parent company Future Today.
Expanding advertising reach
As the population grows and interacts with various forms of media, advertisers are leaning in.
According to iSpot, Spanish-language programming is now 4.7% of TV advertising reach, up from 4.4% in the third quarter last year, led by growth from Univision. Univision said its streaming platform, ViX, has seen double-digit growth year-over-year and has surpassed a 10 million global subscriber count. But the network is currently in a contract dispute with YouTube TV, which dropped the Spanish-language network earlier this month.
A report from ad data firm EDO found similar growth, noting Spanish-language TV delivered 30% higher ad engagement than its English counterpart across more than 1 million ad airings and $2 billion in spending.
That growth encompassed across-the-board genres, ranging from entertainment to news to live sports.
“Our data shows just how powerful Spanish-language TV is at driving engagement and consideration, helping brands grow with this critical audience,” EDO CEO Kevin Krim said in a statement.
Growing with the audience will prove crucial, according to experts. EDO’s report noted the strength of some culturally resonant campaigns, like Walmart‘s back-to-school ads featuring Stephanie Beatriz, which outperformed department store primetime averages by 96%.
Nielsen’s de Armas said Hispanic audiences are also leaning into content creation and creating environments where they don’t see themselves represented.
“Latinos aren’t seeing themselves in all these spaces, they aren’t hearing about the conversations they want to hear about, and so they’re creating content to reflect a lot of that,” de Armas said. “It’s a bit of a white space, actually, which is a huge opportunity for brands that are looking to have a dialogue with Hispanic consumers around their products or their services.”
But the growth in advertising and media consumption for Hispanic consumers is not new, either, de Armas said. While the numbers are showing recent record highs, she said the population has been at the forefront of transforming the broader environment for far longer.
“We need to be looking to this audience through a lens of not just that these are the trendsetters, but this is where, consistently, this community has been ahead in digital adoption and in new ways of content consumption,” de Armas said.
That sentiment was echoed by Christopher Chávez, the director of the Center for Latina/o and Latin American Studies and a professor of advertising at the University of Oregon.
Chávez said it feels like this market is “always being discovered” with similar conversations throughout the last few decades.
“It seems that whenever there’s one of those big demographic moments in terms of the census, then people start to pay attention to the buying power aspect of it,” he said. “But I think a lot of advertisers are interested in that market.”
Still, he said he’s surprised that the population’s lack of representation in mainstream media and politics doesn’t mirror its skyrocketing growth.
Compounded with political uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and recent raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Chávez said the “strong antipathy” toward Latinos in the political environment stands in stark contrast to their economic growth.
“At its best, advertising is a distorted picture of reality, but there is some congruency where the world that you look at in advertising has some reflection of what it looks like outside,” Chávez said. “I think we’re getting to that moment, and we probably always have, but particularly with Latinos, where the world in advertising is completely incongruent with the world as it exists — the lived experiences of many Latinos just isn’t reflected in advertising.”
