Adi?s a La Voz ?

By: Mark Fitzgerald The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee folded its Spanish-language weekly La Voz on Thanksgiving Day after 26 financially draining months.
"We had significant losses. We just couldn't generate the advertising revenue," said Steve Bernard, the Bee's vice president of sales and marketing.
La Voz (The Voice) never overcame a huge blow to its marketing plan when it was just 2 months old, Bernard said. The tabloid was begun as a joint venture between the Bee and Silverado Broadcasting Co., which operated nine local radio stations, seven of them Spanish-language. "We were counting on the cross-selling and cross-promoting oppor-
tunities," Bernard said. But in December 1997, Silverado was sold, and the Bee continued the paper alone.
"It was a very difficult decision, very difficult. We're committed to the Hispanic community, so this action was not taken quickly," Bernard said. The paper was delivered to 20,000 households, with another 8,000 copies were distributed in news racks. Its 10 employees will be offered jobs at the Bee or its Neighbors community newspapers.
La Voz's demise was no surprise to Bill Larenas, editor and publisher of El Hispano, a 20,000-free-distribution bilingual broadsheet weekly. He said the expensively produced paper never seemed to attract advertisers beyond the limited local retail market.
"We've been doing this for 31 years and have deep roots in the community," Larenas said. "We have seen many, quote, newspapers coming in and going out. La Voz was just another. The only difference was, it was a Goliath."
(Editor & Publisher WebSite:http:www.mediainfo.com) [Caption]
(copyright: Editor & Publisher December 11, 1999) [Caption]