A Very Brief History of Spanish on US Media

 

Printed Press

The first newspaper in Spanish in the US was founded in New Orleans as early as in 1808: El Misisipí, and a year later El Mensagero Luisianés began the competition for audience. 

 

Radio

Spanish entered the radio somehow late. Anglo-Americans owned all radio stations and transmitted only in English, but during the Great Depression radio station owner’s had off-hours (chunks of empty spaces) not filled with programming as there were no advertisements and no money to pay for anchors or programmers. As a result, Spanish speakers hired these blocks of off-hours and began transmisisons across the US. 

There is no clear record of who was the first Spanish Speaking radio brokers, but the first star was Rodolfo Hoyos, who aired in Los Angeles from 1932 and as late as 1967.

 

Television

TV in Spanish entered the US market not so late in 1955 in San Antonio. The foudner was Raúl Cortez who started KCOR-TV. The station was not profitable and in 1961 it was sold to Telesistema Mexicano. Since 1989 it is known as Univision.   

 

Internet 

There are many magazines and news sites in Spanish, but in retail Amazon.com was the first, huge, retailer that began to offer its full web site in Spanish as late as March 2017, few months after amazon.com.mx was launched. At that time e-retailer eBay announced they had no plans to offer a site in Spanish.   

To this day, January 15^th 2019, even the international websites of Target, Safeway and Kmart have no Spanish language option. In the finance market only Santander Bank has a website in Spanish but no social media in the US.   

 

Social Media

In 2008 Facebook allowed a second language besides English, yep, it was Spanish. 

Up to this day, no nation-wide retailer in the US has a dedicated social media account specifically to serve Spanish speaking clients.

In the realm of financial services no US bank nor an insurance company have a dedicated channel in social media for Spanish speakers. Even State Farm insurance that has approximately a base of 10% of its total clients as Hispanic, does not provide a medium.    

 

The opportunity is NOW!

Initiate a social media channel in Spanish to cherish and listen to your audience.