• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 24, 2013

Univision’s decision earlier this week to cancel its popular Spanish-language morning show, “Piolín por la Mañana,” reflects a growing trend. More U.S. Hispanics are turning to English-language media -- at least in some content categories. That trend has been confirmed by a separate study from Pew Hispanic, which found that a growing number of U.S. Hispanics are getting their news in English.
 
According to Pew, the proportion of U.S. Hispanic adults who said they get at least some news in English increased from 78% in 2006 to 82% in 2012. The proportion who said they get their news exclusively in English jumped from 22% to 32% over the same period. Meanwhile, the proportion who said they get at least some news in Spanish fell from 78% to 68%, and the proportion who said they get their news exclusively in Spanish fell from 22% to 18%.
 
The number of U.S. Hispanics who say they get news in both languages has bounced around, but appears to be generally decreasing, with 55% doing so in 2006, 51% in 2008, 57% in 2010, and 50% in 2012.
 
A growing proportion of U.S. Hispanics also say they are getting their news online, rising from 37% in 2006 to 56% in 2012; over the same period, the proportion who say they get their news from TV dropped from 92% to 86%, while the proportion getting their news from newspapers fell from 58% to 42%. Radio fell from 64% to 56%.
 
The shift in language preference reflects a broader demographic transition in the U.S. Hispanic population in recent years, as more Hispanics are now being born in the U.S. than immigrating. This, in turn, has resulted from the combination of a high birth rate among Hispanics and a sharp decrease in the number of immigrants of Mexico during the economic downturn.

Overall, the number of U.S. Hispanic adults who were born in another country has decreased from 55% in 2006 to 51% today.
 
As might be expected, language preferences shift with country of origin: just 11% of foreign-born Hispanics said they get their news exclusively in English, but the proportion jumps to 47% among second-generation Hispanics, and 74% among Hispanics from the third generation or later.
 
Currently, 31 million out of the U.S. Hispanic population of 52 million, or 60%, speaks English fluently, up from 54% in 2006. However, a large proportion -- 35 million, or 67% -- say they still speak Spanish at home.

"Watching TV" photo from Shutterstock.

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