WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission is drilling into Hispanic-owned and targeted television. The commission said it will “conduct a study of the relationships among Hispanic television station ownership, Hispanic-oriented programming and Hispanic television viewing.” Hispanics comprise 17 percent of the U.S. population, or 53 million people, according to 2012 Census data, making them the largest ethnic/racial minority in the country.
The commission said this study would be its “first systematic examination of the Hispanic television markete comprehensive data from the FCC’s recently improved 323 ownership form.”
The commission will study, among other things:
- The impact of Hispanic-owned television stations on Hispanic-oriented programming and Hispanic viewership in selected local television markets;
- The extent of Hispanic-oriented programming on U.S. broadcast television; and
- The role of digital multicasting in increasing the amount of Hispanic-oriented programming.
“Additionally, the FCC’s Office of Communications Business Opportunities has taken the next step in its Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs. Incorporating feedback received from its draft Research Design Model released in May 2013, this next phase will field test in a single market the model that could be later applied to markets nationwide in determining whether the critical information needs are being met.”
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