Spanish language audiences are growing even as television viewership declines

Spanish-language TV viewers are growing, and advertisers are taking notice.

Over the past few years, America’s Hispanic population has seen significant growth in television viewership, according to experts, becoming one of the most valuable demographics for media companies and advertisers. As these consumers diversify how they consume shows and other content, there has been an increase in niche advertising targeting them, with top networks like Telemundo and Univision attracting more attention and ad dollars.

Hispanic consumers currently make up nearly 20% of the U.S. population and hold more than $4.1 trillion in purchasing power, according to Nielsen. The Hispanic population will account for nearly 70% of overall U.S. growth between 2022 and 2023, U.S. Census Bureau data showed.

This population growth is “driving and defining” modern media consumption, according to Nielsen senior vice president of comprehensive insights, Stacey de Armas.

“Hispanics are an audience that is transcending or progressing beyond the linear television model,” de Armas told CNBC. “But this migration is not about leaving TV or TV content – ​​it is about where it is distributed and where they consume it.”

The Nielsen report found that Hispanic consumers lead in streaming consumption, which makes up nearly 56% of total TV viewing time, compared to just 46% in the rest of the country. Although Nielsen has noted an overall decline in traditional linear TV viewership, distribution platforms like streaming are far outpacing broadcast and cable — and Hispanic consumers are at the forefront, de Armas said.

As the population becomes younger, Latino audiences often consume content on the go while retaining strong loyalty to the brands and networks that deliver their favorite content, she said.

“Hispanic TV audiences in general, especially Spanish-dominant audiences, still have a strong connection to broadcast TV, and yet, at the same time, there is a really strong connection to streaming content in general,” De Armas said.

The report found that Hispanic audiences spend more time with YouTube, Netflix and Disney From the rest of the population.

According to new data from iSpot, the top Spanish-language networks in Q3 were Univision, which saw a 10.2% year-over-year increase in home ad impressions, and Telemundo, which saw a 7.6% year-over-year increase in impressions.

In a report released Monday with McKinsey & Company, Telemundo said Latino consumer strength is well above average and the population is 14% more engaged across digital media and more than broadcast indicators.

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 America’s sports audiences – on the field, in the stands, and across every screen,” said Monica Gil, Telemundo’s chief administrative and marketing officer. “As the McKinsey report confirms, Latinos are driving a third of the industry’s growth – they are spending more, streaming more, and engaging more deeply than ever before.”

The NFL, the most valuable and profitable sports league in the United States, has also been pursuing Spanish-speaking viewers, as part of a broader drive to stream sports and tap into Hispanic audiences. The league expanded on those efforts when it announced late last month that Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny would headline the halftime show of next year’s Super Bowl.

According to the Latino Donor Collaborative, Bad Bunny has been the most-streamed artist globally for the past three years, with the potential for a huge rise in Super Bowl live streaming this year.

Brands are noticing this growth too. On Wednesday, ad-supported streaming platform Fawesome announced that it is expanding its partnerships for Spanish-language content to reflect the demand it’s seeing from the demographic.

“This initiative represents a major milestone in elevating our 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.

As the population grows and interacts with different forms of media, advertisers are turning to it.

According to iSpot, Spanish-language programming now accounts for 4.7% of TV ad reach, compared to 4.4% in the third quarter of last year, led by growth from Univision. Univision said its streaming platform, ViX, saw double-digit year-over-year growth and surpassed 10 million global subscribers. But the network is currently locked in a contract dispute with YouTube TV, which dropped the Spanish-language network earlier this month.

A report from advertising data firm EDO found similar growth, noting that Spanish-language TV achieved 30% higher ad engagement than its English-language counterpart across more than 1 million ad broadcasts and $2 billion in ad spend.

This growth spanned various industries, from entertainment to news to live sports.

“Our data shows how powerful Spanish-language TV is in driving engagement and interest, helping brands grow with this important audience,” EDO CEO Kevin Krim said in a statement.

According to experts, growing with the audience will be crucial. The EDO report noted the power of some culturally resonant campaigns, e.g WalmartBack to School ads featuring Stephanie Beatrice, which beat department store peak-time averages by 96%.

Hispanic audiences also tend to create content and create environments where they don’t see themselves represented, Nielsen’s De Armas said.

“Latinos don’t see themselves in all these places, and they don’t hear about the conversations that they want to hear, so they’re creating content that reflects a lot of that,” de Armas said. “It’s actually a fairly white space, and it’s a big opportunity for brands looking to have a dialogue with Hispanic consumers about their products or services.”

But the growth in advertising and media consumption for Hispanic consumers is also not new, de Armas said. While the numbers show record highs recently, she said residents have been at the forefront of changing the wider environment for much longer.

“We need to look at this audience through the lens of not only that these are trendsetters, but that this is where this community is constantly moving forward in digital adoption and in new ways of consuming content,” de Armas said.

Christopher Chavez, director of the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies and professor of advertising at the University of Oregon, echoed that sentiment.

This market seems to be “always being discovered” through similar conversations throughout the past few decades, Chavez said.

“It seems like whenever there’s one of those big demographic moments in terms of population, people start to care about the purchasing power aspect of it,” he said. “But I think a lot of advertisers are interested in this market.”

However, he said he is surprised that the population’s lack of representation in mainstream media and politics does not reflect their meteoric growth.

Given the political uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and recent raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Chavez said the “strong antipathy” toward Latinos in the political environment stands in stark contrast to their economic growth.

“Advertising at its best is a distorted image of reality, but there is some congruence in that the world you look at in ads has some reflection of what it looks like on the outside,” Chavez said. “I think we’ve reached that moment, and maybe we always have, but especially with Latinos, where the world of advertising is completely mismatched with the world as it exists — the life experiences of many Latinos are not reflected in advertising.”