http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/latino-tv-shows-nuvotv-40-million-investors_n_1836645.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
The Latino audience is worth a lot to television networks — at least $40 million worth, to be exact. That’s the amount Hispanic-centric cable channel NuvoTV said it raised from investors to produce a new lineup of original English-language programming for a Latino audience.
The unprecedented capitol investment illustrates the gap in the market, along with the dire need to fill it with Latino TV shows for English-language speakers.
“This is the biggest injection of capital into NuvoTV since it was founded in 2004,” CEO Michael Schwimmer told Variety.
NuvoTV’s announcement comes on the heels of recent reports that Jennifer Lopez, Emilio Estefan and Ricky Martin have their own Latino-oriented programming in the works.
NuvoTV issued the callout for funding, recognizing it needed programming that TV studios weren’t creating on their own, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.
Founded in 2004 as Si TV, NuvoTV has worked to grow its business and expand its client base in the past few years, making dramatic changes — like its name — in order to better appeal to the changing face of its target audience.
NuvoTV, which is available in 30 million homes across the country, currently features shows such as “Fight Factory,” which follows top Latino MMA fighters, and its longest-running series, “Model Latina.”
“Most everyone is focused on total U.S. Hispanics, but the real story is the bicultural Latino,” Rafael Oller, the network’s senior vice president of marketing, told Advertising Age after the name change in 2011. “Three out of four speak English well or very well. These bicultural Latinos self-identify as Latino and American and are looking for culturally relevant programming.”
It seems a similar sentiment has echoed through the entertainment industry as mainstream networks like NBC Universal, Fox and MTV have hopped on the bandwagon with plans to cater to the fastest growing population in America.
“People kind of woke up to the size of this audience following the 2010 census,” Schwimmer told The Los Angeles Times. They now see that not only is the Hispanic population growing, but most of that growth is coming from U.S.-born Latinos.”