• by Parker Morse , Columnist, July 10, 2018

If you were to survey the Spanish-language media landscape in the United States a few years ago, you would have noticed that it was mostly dominated by one key player: Univision. Recently, however, the picture has become more complicated. As the population of U.S. Hispanics continues to grow and cord-cutting continues to accelerate, large networks have begun to invest significant sums of money in programming designed to attract them.

Five years ago, Univision’s domination of Spanish-language television was all but guaranteed, but now in the wake of Telemundo managing to secure the rights to air the next three World Cups and narrow the ratings gap between the networks, Univision finds itself in an unfamiliar position as it tries to keep up with Telemundo.

Ultimately, Univision’s challenges and Telemundo’s ascendancy can be linked directly to one thing: the changing viewership habits of the TV-watching public. As television consumption moves online, networks have had to come up with new ways of appealing to people in that coveted 18 to 49 demographic, such as producing “edgier” content instead of shipping in the usual Latin American telenovelas.

The Hispanic audience today is largely bilingual, equally comfortable in both English and Spanish, and very attuned to its roots. But it’s also true that a majority of Hispanics were born in the US, a fact that content providers have to be attuned to as it can have an effect on the type of content that people prefer to watch.

Lance Rios, the founder of social media marketing firm Being Latino, points out that shows set in the U.S. often resonate more deeply with younger generations of Hispanics than the “classic telenovelas that have long been a staple of Spanish-language TV” because they are more relatable.

What Telemundo has understood — and what Univision is learning — is that today’s dominant Hispanic demographic (Millennials) has a completely different set of expectations for the content they consume. The twists and turns of a telenovela plot aren’t always going to be enough to draw viewers in; instead, networks have to recognize that their audience is more interested in action-packed shows along the lines of “Game of Thrones” and “Stranger Things.”

Currently, Telemundo is in the midst of a record-breaking season, thanks to its coverage of the FIFA World Cup. Yet, despite the fact that its coverage is consistently drawing more viewers than its English-language counterpart, ratings are down compared to 2014. Some of this can be attributed to the failure of the United States to qualify, but it probably also has a lot to do with the fact that fewer people are watching the matches on television, preferring to stream them online or wait and watch the highlights.

If this trend continues, even Telemundo will have to come up with a new way of reaching people online and on their platforms of choice. The company’s recent deal with Hulu to bring some of its Spanish-language television to the streaming site as well as its decision to promote its shows heavily on digital networks are just a few indications that Telemundo is thinking seriously about its digital future.

The way people consume content is changing: Networks have to come up with ways to keep viewers interested, such as adapting content so that it can display better on mobile or creating supplementary content to round out the viewer experience through landing pages, exclusive digital content, promotions, and so on. Digital isn’t so much the future as it is the present — one that networks like Univision and Telemundo are racing to keep up with.