Latino TV eyes political windfall

June 16, 2012 | by Anna Marie De La Fuente

With Latinos now accounting for approximately 10% of the U.S. electorate, Hispanic media -- led by Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Espanol (CNNE) and NuvoTV -- are hoping to see a bigger share of ad spending for the coming presidential election than they did in 2008, when the Obama and McCain campaigns allotted a paltry 1% of their ad budgets to Spanish-language spots.

Traditional ad buyers are already laying out more to target Latinos. "Companies are now setting aside 7% to 10% -- some even 20% of their total ad budgets -- for Latino media," says Enrique Perez, Telemundo's senior vice president of sales and marketing.

Politics has been a tougher sell, however. More than half of the Latino population resides in California (32%) and Texas (19%) -- the former a solidly Democratic state, thelatter unwaveringly Republican -- where political ads have little strategic value.

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