• by Wayne Friedman , November 12, 2014

Hispanic TV and cable network owner Hemisphere Media Group announced that total revenues jumped 21% from $23.7 million in the third quarter of 2013 to $28.8 million in the third quarter of 2014, reflecting the acquisition of a number of cable networks as well as growth in its subscription base.

In April Hemisphere completed its acquisition of Media World and its three cable networks -- including Pasiones, a cable net devoted to telenovelas and series, with a total distribution of 3.8 million subscribers in the U.S., as well as 7.2 million subscribers across Latin America; Centroamerica TV, targeting U.S. Hispanics from Central American countries with news, entertainment, and soccer programming, reaching over 3.3 million subscribers in the U.S.; and TV Dominicana, targeting Hispanics from the Dominican Republic with news, entertainment, and baseball programming, reaching over 2.2 million subscribers in the U.S.

In addition, Hemisphere CEO Alan Sokol noted, “all of our cable networks grew their subscriber bases, demonstrating the unique and significant upside of the U.S. Hispanic pay TV market.”

Hemisphere itself was originally formed by the merger of InterMedia, owner of Spanish-language media properties, including Cinelatino, WAPA America and WAPA TV, with Azteca Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company, back in January 2013. 

It has been a busy couple of months for Hispanic media companies. Earlier this month NBCUniversal’s mun2 announced that it would rebrand itself as NBC Universo effective February 1, 2015, when it will become the exclusive Spanish-language telecast network for Super Bowl XLIX in the U.S.

In October, Spanish-language digital entertainment outfit GoTV merged with Latin Anywhere, which owns the rights to thousands of hours of Spanish-language film and TV programming, forming a new company called Latin Everywhere.

And in September, Comcast and Univision Communications struck a long-term deal for the distribution of the Spanish-language Univision Deportes Network, under which Comcast will deliver Univision Deportes to XFinity TV subscribers who opt for the Digital Preferred or XFinity Latino cable packages.