• USA Today, Monday, April 10, 2006 12 PM

Ethnic media, once considered a business backwater by marketing executives, is emerging as a potent force in the U.S. marketplace. That's because minorities--including Hispanics, Asians, and other audience niches--now account for nearly a third of the nation's buying power. As such, targeting these audiences "is no longer the nice thing to do, or the social thing to do. It's about business," says Gwen Kelly, senior ad specialist for American Family Insurance. The Hispanic market alone is particularly huge. The 2000 Census found that 12.5 percent of the U.S. population of more than 280 million was Hispanic--a bigger market than all of Canada--with this share projected to be nearly 18 percent by 2020. Such numbers have pushed companies that have successfully appealed to Hispanic audiences to look for opportunities to reach other ethnic groups. Cable and satellite companies in particular are scrambling for deals to retransmit shows from China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Poland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Vietnam and elsewhere. Also, audience surges in ethnic media are expected in June and July during soccer's quadrennial World Cup championship. However, ethnic media still can't command the ad rates and revenue that mainstream rivals enjoy, and many marketers fear their pitches might unwittingly offend people from other cultures.

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