• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 8, 2007

PBS is buying a minority stake in V-me, a new Spanish-language digital cable network that launched Monday. The deal means that PBS content can be distributed as part of the network's four basic content areas: children's programming, lifestyles, factual/documentary and movies. The new network reaches 28 million homes in 18 major markets, including New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

V-me's heavy emphasis on educational content makes the partnership an especially good fit, according to president Carmen Direnzo, who described the minority stake as "an extension of the PBS mission to use media to engage and educate as well as entertain."

V-me is pronounced veh-meh, which in Spanish means "see me." The 24-hour digital broadcast network is presented by public television stations and carried on basic digital cable and satellite.

V-me has an impressive corporate lineage: one of its investment partners, Syncom Funds, was a founding investor of BET. Like BET at its inception, V-me is well-positioned to fill an unmet demand in a burgeoning ethnic market, according to Syncom partner Tony Thomas.

The alliance marks the latest advance by mainstream media companies into the Hispanic market, now generally agreed to be the fastest-growing and most lucrative ethnic market in the United States. According to a recent report from the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), from 2000 to 2006, the purchasing power of Hispanics/Latinos climbed more than 63% to $798 billion. The report also cited a prediction from the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth that "by 2011, it will top $1.2 trillion."

Immigration from the Spanish-speaking countries of the Western hemisphere, led by Mexico, is creating America's largest demographic shift since the early 20th century. More than one-third of the country's Hispanic population--about 16 million people--are immigrants. Combined, native-born and immigrant Hispanic Americans now outnumber the 34.3 million Americans who claim Irish descent--and are poised to surpass the nation's biggest ethnic group, German-Americans, who number about 45 million.