Advertising Age - Here’s how to harness the Hispanic market. Marketers who look long-term and avoid assumptions can come closer to capturing that elusive Latino demographic

“As tv and cable networks unveil their programming plans for next year, there is huge buzz around the fact that some-in an effort to stop the corrosion of their audiences-are borrowing a page from their Spanish-language counterparts and warming up to the idea of the telenovela, a type of Spanish-language soap that drives millions of viewers every day in the United States and around the world.

The interest, no doubt, comes as a result of the success of “Desperate Housewives,” which is nothing more than a telenovela in the true sense of the genre. ABC recently announced plans to roll out “Betty the Ugly,” based on a popular Colombian telenovela that reigned supreme on Telemundo a few years ago, and NBC is leveraging its knowledge of the Hispanic market by developing an English-language telenovela called “Body of Desire.” But many people in the TV industry still ask themselves: “Will this new format work in the general market and, more important, will English-dominant Hispanics watch?”"

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