Honey .. pass the Control Remoto

Buried under the 6 billion Hurricane Wilma stories, the Miami Herald has a story today about the growth of Hispanic specialty/niche paid channels. Reporting on the Hispanic TV Summit, writer Christina Hoag quotes Leland Westerfield, managing director of Harris Nesbitt, who says more Hispanics will sign up for cable and satellite because, ''there's a hunger for culturally-relevant programming. There is ample demand among viewers for choice of programming.''

He added that advertiser support for these channels is likely to be concentrated in the nation's major media markets where Nielsen Media Research operates its Local People Meter.

As a viewer of specialty progamming like Caracol (de Colombia) and Wapa America (even though La Comay drives me crazy), this further illustrates the point that the Hispanic market is very nuanced and Hispanics can't be marketed to as a homogeneous group.

OK, I know I've beat the "you can't just translate English messages to Spanish" horse to death, but there's an important analogy here. Namely, if cable and satellite companies followed this logic that many marketers take in trying to reach Hispanics, wouldn't they simply offer English programming with subtitles? Instead, they are becoming more sophisticated in what they offer; and will continue to see an increase in viewership as a result.