Thursday, November 7, 2013

Consumption in the United States

Today's consumption project about the telenovelas on air right now really got me thinking about the future. It was awesome to learn that Santa Diabla is reaching and English-speaking audience, an audience that is invested enough to post their thoughts in forums in English. Although I am not exactly sure who this audience may be, it sort of just opened my eyes to the direction that the communications industry is heading. 

Here in the US, the Hispanic population continues to grow year after year and this influence has become apparent in almost every aspect of our lives. Where as before the majority of Hispanics here identified more as immigrants to the US, now we see an increase in a population that has grown up here  yet they still identify with their Hispanic roots. 

As an Advertising major, I've learned all about the millennials generation, our generation, and the new trends on how to reach this specific audience. Of course, our generation is much more digital and social media has become extremely important. Getting out attention has become harder that ever before and the industry is working hard to come up with innovative ways to reach this unique millennial generation. Yes, in fact the millennial generation is extremely unique, not just in the way they consume media, but in the demographics too. Right now, there are a few new channels that are trying to cater to this audience: fusion, el rey, and pivot just to name a few. The goal of most of these new TV networks?  To reach English-speaking millennials of diverse backgrounds. Fusion, for example, is a joint venture between ABC and Univision trying to reach millennials through news, pop culture, and entertainment for English-speaking millennials, particularly those of Hispanic backgrounds. 

You might be wondering what all this has to do with telenovelas, and well, I believe that the US market has a lot more telenovela influence in its future! It is already apparent just by the fact that telenovelas in Telemundo and Univision have won ratings on some nights even surpassing big networks like ABC and NBC. I could go on for a while because this is a topic I am extremely passionate about, but I'll just stop here. It will be interesting to see these new TV channels evolve, and see how this unique millennial audience will consume and react to these innovative ventures trying to get our attention in any way that they can. 


Here is a video about Fusion from Noticias Univision (the channel launched already!): 

5 comments:

  1. I agree with you Manuela. We have learned in both my PR and advertising classes that we are slowly becoming a minority in our own country and minorities are growing rapidly.

    I recently read that "since 1980, the U.S. Hispanic population has grown from 14.6 million people, per the Census Bureau, to nearly 52 million as of 2011. And in that time, the geography of the demographic has expanded dramatically, too." This means that Hispanic culture is going to spread too. Since Telenovelas are such a large part of Hispanic culture, I think they are going to grow as well. Already if I flip through my channels on demand on my TV at home, I see at least 100 different Spanish channels and most of them are playing a Telenovela. I think we are going to see a lot more Telenovelas in our future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I definitely agree. I think it's great that people of different origins have TV stations here in the United States that are broadcast in their native language. I feel like maybe it provides them with a little piece of their home. I know that if I were in a country where English wasn't spoken (even if I could speak the language of that country), I would be elated to have an English channel to watch to give my brain a break from speaking another language and give my heart a little reminder of where I grew up.

    Honestly, with so many different language channels-- primarily Spanish, but a few others too-- I would hope that our education system will start to emphasize learning a second language from the time students are very young. The prevalence of telenovelas and Spanish language channels in general should serve as an eye-opener that Americans can't continue to be ignorant of other languages and cultures if we're going to keep peace in our country. I'm really excited to see how telenovelas continue to come into the culture of the United States, and I can only hope they will spark people to educate themselves instead of becoming more biased against other cultures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Manuela,

    I'm glad you wrote on this topic! I actually recently read an interesting article about how Telemunodo is blending English in their mostly Spanish lineup. The article appeared online on the NY Times website in 2011.

    A lot of our classmates this semester watched their telenovelas with English subtitles. The article describes bilingual hispanics as people who spoke English and Spanish equally or speak more English than Spanish. Bilingual Hispanics make up 82 percent of the United States Hispanic population.

    In efforts to appeal to a broader audience, the article explains how they are blending both cultures together. English-language movies are being turned into Telenovelas (Una Maid en Manhattan), English speaking actors now appear on talk shows in order to promote new movies, and even Hispanic actors/TV personnel are appearing in English-speaking talk shows. I think this blending is extremely important now that 2nd and 3rd generations Hispanic Americans are entering in the consumer market and are having a huge influence.

    Here's the article if you are interested. Even though its from 2011, I found it really interesting!
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/business/media/telemundo-seeks-spanglish-speakers-in-aim-for-new-viewers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think the fact that we have 2 spanish channels broadcasted in the US is just the beginning of an increasing awareness of the spanish culture in the US. when I moved to Moultrie,ga from Atlanta out of middle school, I was stunned to learn that students did not start learning spanish until at least the 10th grade. I was told when I took the placement test that 'this test is only for native speakers to pass.' Needless to say I passed it anyway. There needs to be a raise of awareness that our country is increasing in its Latin American population. We have to adapt to that as well. I think that students should begin learning another language while their minds are still very volatile at a young age. This leaves room for maybe a third language in the future as well. The world is a much bigger place than just the United States, and that needs to be accepted all over our country.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You bring up really interesting points here! I think the same thing about the future of telenovelas, and quite possibly English telenovelas in the near future. With advents like Netflix and online watching I thing people in the U.S. like being able to watch a show every day, or even binge watch it like the netflix series Orange is the new Black and House of Cards did to how people think about television. But with telenovela's watching them every night along with (what feels like) the rest of the world is an experience. I think social media is feeding into that familial feeling. This post is going all over the place haha but I want to end with something that your post reminded me of and it was something mentioned in the Colbert Report that some enlish morning show like good morning america switched with Despierta America! the number one Spanisg morning show in the states. And they did that switch because Good Morning America is trying to get those viewer, which is a telling of the changing times.
    It's really exciting!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.