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Trib, ImpreMedia duking it out;
Spanish-language weekly La Raza's circulation up 30% as it adds zones

April 4, 2005

Copyright 2005 Crain Communications
All Rights Reserved
Crain's Chicago Business

BYLINE: JEREMY MULLMAN

La Raza, Chicago's largest Spanish-language newspaper, is proving to be one tough hombre against competition from Tribune Co.

Since 2003, when Tribune launched a Chicago edition of its weekday Hoy, weekly La Raza's circulation has increased nearly 30% as it has added zoned editions in the southern and western suburbs and in Northwest Indiana.

La Raza Publisher Robert Armband says more new zones, including one in Milwaukee, are in the works, as is a weekend edition dubbed Domingo. He also says the paper is weighing whether to publish more frequently, but he won't disclose details.

On the advertising front, Mr. Armband has entered an agreement with the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times that will let the two papers offer cross-buying opportunities to advertisers, much as Hoy does with the Chicago Tribune.

La Raza boasts a mostly free circulation of 190,786, while free Hoy distributes an average of 48,000 papers per weekday. La Raza's determined defense of its turf mirrors the early success its parent company, ImpreMedia LLC, has enjoyed in New York and Los Angeles, Hoy's other markets.

"This is war," says an ImpreMedia spokeswoman. "And we think we're winning."

Ad buyers say both groups of publications have merits, but most say they tend to spend more with ImpreMedia titles.

"When people give me a budget, La Raza is at the top,'' says Trevor Hansen, a vice-president at San Diego-based Ethnic Print Media Group, one of the nation's largest Hispanic-targeting ad buyers. "Hoy gets less.''

Hoy Publisher Digby Solomon Diez declined an interview request, but in an e-mailed response to written questions said, "There is room in each market for many daily newspapers.''

Ad spending up in segment

Growth in Hispanic publishing says as much. According to the trade group Latino Print Network, ad spending in Spanish-language papers grew nearly sevenfold since 1990, and 34% since 2000, to $1.1 billion in 2004, as the fast-growing, young-skewing Hispanic population has found itself increasingly coveted by advertisers.

Still, the competition between Tribune and ImpreMedia to be No. 1 in each of the three largest Hispanic markets has been rancorous.

When Hoy developed what appeared to be a wide circulation lead in New York over ImpreMedia's El Diario La Prensa, El Diario's editor accused Hoy of circulation fraud in an interview with the New York Times. Hoy eventually admitted overstating its circulation by more than 40,000 copies per day.

ImpreMedia has taken pains to remind advertisers of that ever since. In the Feb. 14 Hispanic Market Weekly, for instance, an ImpreMedia-sponsored mock classified advertisement sought 42,923 in "lost" circulation. "If found,'' the ad reads, "call Hoy.''

As it stands, ImpreMedia holds a wide lead in Los Angeles and a narrow edge in New York over its $5.73-billion competitor. Tribune may owe some of its underdog status to its decision to morph Hoy, a six-year-old weekday New York tabloid it acquired in 2000, into a Hispanic USA Today-like paper, with content leaning more national than local.

"If you're a hard-core news reader, you wouldn't like Hoy,'' says Danielle Gonzales, media director at Tapestry, the multicultural arm of Starcom MediaVest Group, a Chicago-based ad-buying firm. "It's not very local and it's not very hard-hitting.''

Ad buyers prefer impremedia

Rudy Lopez, director of operations at the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Initiative in Chicago and a reader of both papers, concurs. "Hoy is more national, more of a corporate deal, and some people like that. La Raza pays more attention to neighborhood stories.''

Backed by several private-equity groups, ImpreMedia opted to buy established, market-leading publications-including Los Angeles' dominant La Opinion, in which Tribune had just months earlier discarded a 50% stake.

Ad buyers say ImpreMedia's papers are more appealing.

"You definitely want the heritage and the value that ImpreMedia's papers give you,'' adds Ms. Gonzales. "Consumers have long ties to those papers.''

Contact: jmullman@crain.com

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