Latinos 50% of U.S. Population Growth Since 2000

The Pew Hispanic Center released a report showing that 1 out of every 2 (50.5%) people added to the population in the U.S. since 2000 are Hispanic.

The growth in the 1990s was 40%.

A point of interest to note is that the Latino population growth in the new century has been more a product of the natural increase (births minus deaths) of the existing population than it has been of new international migration.

As of mid-2007, Hispanics accounted for 15.1% of the total U.S. population. That number is expected to be 30% by 2050, according to the Census.

Hispanics still unprepared for digital TV switch

According to The Nielsen Company, more than 9 million households are not ready for the upcoming transition to all-digital broadcasting and would be unable to receive any television programming at all if the transition occurred today. Another 12.6 million households have at least one television set that will no longer work when the digital transition occurs.

The percentage of Hispanic households that are completely unready for the digital transition is 13%. About one-quarter of the households that speak only or mostly Spanish are completely unready, according to Nielsen.

AHAA denounces launch of PPM

From AHAA statement:

"The reckless, irresponsibility of Arbitron’s release of PPM without addressing the methodology and sampling issues is reprehensible,” says José Lόpez-Varela, chairman of AHAA. “It is an economic travesty to consider that an entire industry of cultural radio broadcasters may be wiped out because Arbitron executives wanted to collect their reward for an on-time launch rather than improve ratings accuracy. Minority stations are feeling the pressure of Arbitron’s monopoly on radio ratings and today, the company flexed its corporate muscle again creating even more problems and issues for cultural stations by insisting they begin using PPM today. The deceitful and manipulative move to strong arm stations and the advertising community again is shameful.”

The bottom line on this is that Arbitron decided to move forward despite severe concerns about PPM's accuracy. According to AHAA, some Spanish-language stations in PPM pre-test markets have experienced decreases in ratings and revenue of 50 to 70 percent.