Latin Heat Publisher in Partnership to Launch VIP Latino

Please see my note on the source of this report

“Who are the hottest celebrities? The trendsetters? Who is the number one film-going audience? What group of viewers is impacting TV ratings? If you answered U.S. Latinos, you know our market,” said Bel Hernandez, co-founder of Latin Heat, the first and only entertainment trade publication in the U.S. to focus on Latino talent. Hernandez was talking about a new publication VIP Latino, whose time she feels has come. “VIP Latino is an English-Language celebrity magazine that will deliver the latest news in and about Hollywood and the hottest celebrity events that Latinos want to read about.”

VIP Latino begins publishing as an insert in Latino Future Magazine, a national lifestyle magazine out of Arizona, and will launch as a stand-alone title in the fall of 2008. Latino Future Magazine publisher Matt Molina understood the potential and will give his 25,000 plus readership the first look of the newbie publication. In this manner, the publishers’ plan is to sign up enough subscribers to attract the advertisers to come on board for the official launch.

Brenda Herrera, who has served as Latin Heat’s Director of Marketing and Promotions for four years, will be on board as co-publisher of VIP Latino. “We knew the time had come to tap into this market. People Magazine covers celebrities as a whole, with a few Latinos scattered here and there. People en espanol covers Latino celebrities, but the majority are from Mexico and Latin America. Who is making sure U.S. Latino talent gets the ink? VIP Latino will see to that,” said Herrera.

Marketing for the publication came early on. The initial launch of VIP Latino will be featured on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency Show. Featured on the show will be the booking of three models for the magazine’s first photo shoot which came about when the partner magazines went to the agency to book Latina models. Not only did the publishers find the models, but The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency Show decided to make the fashion shoot the storyline for their premiere episode of their 3rd season which airs on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 on the Oxygen Channel at 10:30 p.m. (ET)/9:30 p.m. (MT).

The models wore Constance Marie’s fashions from her clothing line she launched this past October and are featured in the premiere insert in Latino Future.

Also featured in the VIP Latino section is Eva Longoria’s major fundraising event for PADRES Contra el Cancer, which raised over $830,000 and was attended by Hollywood’s elite; Hot rising star Michael Pena sits down with VIP Latino to talk “shop” and future Latino VIP Oscar Torres (Voces Inocentes) talks about his upcoming films, one of which will be starring Alejandro

Fernandez; and director Franc.Reyes talks about his “independent” director’s life and his new project starring John Leguizamo.

The timing couldn’t be better to launch VIP Latino. Latina Magazine founder Christy Haubegger, now an executive at the Hollywood agency CAA where she supervises the Intelligence Group’s study of Hispanic youth, said in a recent TV Week article: “I started Latina at a time when everyone was beginning to think about the demographics. Ten years ago, while demographers were talking about the Hispanic market, you hadn’t seen it as such a news topic as it is today. This is a group that is now the largest minority.”

There are 42 million Latinos in the U.S., with a buying power of $800 billion and expected to rise to $1 trillion by 2008. The number of U.S. Latinos households earning over $100,000 a year grew by 126% from 1991 to 2003 compared to 77% of the general population. This is the VIP Latino market. An English-language publication that will attract the 18-34, highly acculturated, consumer savvy U.S. Latinos. “*

• Ricardo Salinas Breaks Ground for What Will Be the Most Modern Television Studio in Latin America – Mexico City
• Brazil replaces Mexico as China’s top market in Latin America and boosts its surplus as well.
• Reviewed: Sin Patron: Stories From Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories, edited by Lavaca, 320 pages, Haymarket Books, 2007.
• The mayor of a wealthy suburb (San Pedro Garza Garcia) of Monterrey said Monday that he has sent his family to the United States for their own safety as he pursues his campaign against extortion and kidnapping gangs.
• Expert: Juárez violence a ‘terrorist war’
• Mexican Mennonites Impacted by Drug Violence
• Featured Holiday Book: Las Christmas, by Esmeralda Santiago and Joie Davidow
• Interview with Rose Contreras, founder of Onda Books
• Star Trek On DVD: Few Latinos in Revisionist Version
• Mexican farmers reeling from worst drought in decades
• Mexico City’s famed dance-for-peso halls fading
• Americans Running South: Why We are Flocking to Mexico for Work
• Penelope Cruz steers her own course in ‘Broken Embraces’
• On the mayor’s agenda: ‘Civilize’ Mexico City – Marcelo Ebrard
• Anthology on Juan Bosch spreads Dominican thought abroad
• Juárez violence: Drug-war brutality persists despite presence of military
• Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.
• LatAm Immigrants Are Changing Spain, Sociologist Says
• Pedro Almodovar’s “Los abrazos rotos” (Broken Embraces), his latest film and the fourth collaboration between the former enfant terrible of Spanish cinema and actress Penelope Cruz, has received mostly positive reviews from U.S. critics ahead of its release Friday in New York
• Mexico’s top domestic security official said Friday that sectors of the general public have cooperated with drug cartels in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, and the government is about to launch new social programs there to combat gangs.