First Nationwide Audit of Hispanic Papers Coming Soon

By: In an effort to make Hispanic papers more attractive to advertisers, a media representation firm specializing in minority-owned and niche newspapers is organizing the first nationwide circulation audit of Spanish-language and bilingual community papers.

More than 70 Hispanic papers have signed on to the effort led by Ethnic Print Media Group, a division of San Diego-based Gemstone Communications Inc. The circulation audits are being conducted by Circulation Verification Council (CVC) and will be ready in January. The campaign is also preparing readership profiles of individual papers and a study of Hispanic newspaper readers, which will include national and localized information about demographics, buying patterns, and interests. Some of that preliminary information will be available this fall.

Trevor Hansen, vice president of the family-owned Gemstone, said his company is leading the effort because it wants to measure Hispanic papers on the metrics used by mainstream newspapers and competing ethnic media--and because it believes in newspapers.

"We're publishers at heart, always have been," he told E&P. "I grew up under a light table before there was (Adobe) PageMaker, and I spent my childhood throwing papers off the back of a truck. The other reason we're doing this is because ... all indications are that in order to gain market share and an increased advertising spend for their clients that typically just do broadcast, Hispanic newspapers need to use the standard metric that every other media is measured by."

This latest push to get Hispanic newspapers audited--last year the National Association of Hispanic Publications offered a free audit to Hispanic papers that hadn't ever or hadn't recently been audited--comes as the once-high flying Spanish-language daily Hoy has admitted it inflated the circulation of its New York edition by as much as 50%.

Hansen said that hasn't complicated the large-scale audit, which was planned well before the Hoy revelations. "To tell the truth, it just lends more credibility to what we're trying to do," he said. "It's a great time for publishers to pull together and for the industry to pull together to ensure this one bad mark doesn't undermine the many good community papers out there."

CVC President and CEO Tim Bingamen said a study this big would be a "true cross section of the country and its Hispanic audience."

"Traditionally, Hispanic community newspapers have not regularly participated in audits, and no one has organized a comprehensive national audit to industry standards before," Bingamen said in a statement. "Now the credibility and standardization of circulation audits is coming to niche publications, through Gemstone Communications and Ethnic Print Media Group's investment."

The 70-plus papers enrolled in the program serve traditional Hispanic markets in California, Texas, and New York as well as some of the fastest-growing Hispanic markets such as North and South Carolina in the South and Missouri and Kansas in the Plains.

Fernando Paramo, publisher of the MediaNews Group-owned Impacto USA papers in Los Angeles, said the study will open advertisers' eyes to the Hispanic purchasing power.

"Finally we will have recognition of the amount of money people should be investing in the Hispanic industry compared to mainstream media," Paramo said in a statement. "People don't realize that politically, the Hispanic market is far behind the power curve. But we are way ahead of the spending curve. Hispanic purchasing power is incredibly strong and marketers are just beginning to realize this."

The first step, he said, is an audit: "Advertising is a numbers game and the key number is circulation.... This audit is the key to gaining credibility. If you don't have credibility at this time you might as well hang a 'closed' sign up on your business."