Hispanic Targeted Online Video

Ad Age reported today that Hulu.com, the Fox-NBC joint online video venture, is now the second most trafficked video site - trailing YouTube.

Given Hispanics' propensity to watch videos online, I wondered, where does Telemundo fit into all of this? Telemundo afterall, is NBC-Universal's Spanish-language flagship network. It's suppose to be their crowning, visionary achievement in understanding the opportunity that Hispanics pose to the marketing world. But Telemundo's content is no where to be found on Hulu.

Telemundo owns its content, unlike most of the programming airing on it's gorilla sized competitor, Univision. That includes the right to distribute it on digital platforms.

Yet, Telemundo has struggled in the online space. It recently divorced its distribution partner, Yahoo!, partially dissolving a strong Spanish-language portal that attracted over 1.6MM unique visitors in January 2008, according to Comscore. In January 2009, a Telemundo-less Yahoo! en Español attracted 1.3MM unique visitors, a 19% drop.

But a stand-alone Telemundo.com audience is a shell of its former self. In January, the struggling new site attracted just 133,000 unique visitors despite a televised media blitz on Telemundo network and on MSN Latino - their new online distribution partner.

It remains to be seen whether or not Telemundo.com will be able to regain even a fraction of the audience it once enjoyed through its partnership with Yahoo!. But it begs the question - why not tap into Hulu.com instead of going at it alone?

Online Killed the Video Star?

In these tough economic times, everyone is looking to cut corners and save a few bucks. No doubt, multicultural audiences who are some of the hardest hit are taking a really close look at every expense. One that seems like a luxury is cable. I pay over $100 a month....for hundreds of channels where ironically I can never find anything worth watching!!

I've mentioned in the past that Hispanics trail the general market in cable penetration - primarily because we live in relatively flat cities like LA and Dallas to name just a couple.

Telemundo shared some data today that said that Hispanics were considering cutting premium channels like HBO and Showtime. But, I started thinking...why end there? With sites like Youtube and Hulu.com (a joint venture between NBC and Fox) attracting millions of video viewers - isn't online video the proverbial TV killer?

Nielsen reported that last year, Americans watched on average 5 hours of TV a day! (I don't have that much time, do you?) Well, apparently the average American does. But, internet users watched 14.3 billion online videos in December 2008, that's up 41% from a year earlier.

With busy schedules because of family and personal commitments and for those of us fortunate to still have jobs - television schedules can be rather rigid. But with online video, you can watch your favorite shows whenever you want - on demand. Yes, I know, DVR is better...does the same thing and you avoid those annoying Hawii Tourism Board ads on Hulu.com, but still. DVR is an added expense...internet video is free. Is it just a matter of time before internet video gives cable a deafening blow?