SDPnoticias Announces New US Arm, SDPamerica, Launch in Summer 2014
Spanish speakers in the United States will be gaining a fresh, reliant source of information as Mexican independent news gathering website SDPnoticias.com announced Wednesday that it would be launching a new arm in the United States in the summer of 2014.
The move highlights a growing trend among Latino-based media publications to further seep into the upper Western Hemisphere where growing Hispanic populations are creating more demand for like-minded content.
"[We] believe there is a cultural gap with many Spanish speaking news sites and outlets in the U.S. who leverage news and political experts from Spain," SDPNoticias managing director Federico Arreola said. "We believe there is a large number of the U.S. Hispanic population seeking a 'closer to home' news structure, one less in the European style and one more in a Mexican style."
SDPnoticias, according to comScore data, is the second largest news site in Mexico, beaten only by the largest newspaper in the country, El Universal. The new U.S. arm of SDPnoticias will be renamed SDPamerica and headquartered in Los Angeles. According to a press release, SDPamerica will target issues surrounding U.S. and Mexican policies and their effects on the U.S. Hispanic population.
"We have grown SDPnoticias.com to be the second largest news site in Mexico without a physical newspaper or the benefit of being part of a news gathering conglomerate because our journalists are doing two things extremely well: they are gathering and reporting on the news that matters most to our audience and they are doing it in a way and in an internet and social media-friendly language that today's Hispanic consumer is attracted to," Arreola said.
SDPnoticias and many of its journalists boast large followings on Twitter and Facebook, and the large social media presence is something SDPnoticias hopes to bring to the United States with its summer 2014 move.
"I affectionately call what we produce, 'geek news' because of the way we package and present the news," Arreola continued. "It's fresh and simple language that relates to the social media-focused user and is far different than our competitors who still remain on a format more suited for print material."
Other Recent Media Efforts into Expanding Their Latino Market
Other media companies have also made explicit efforts to expand their offerings so that more Hispanics in the United States can enjoy traditional content. Media distribution company Olympusat recently announced that it would be taking New York-based television station BuenaVision national. BuenaVision offers local programming from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, as well as many popular Latin American entertainment and variety shows.
AOL also jumped on the bandwagon, stating that it will syndicate Latin web video network MiTú across its platforms in a one-year non-exclusive agreement. Even Hispanics living as far north as Canada will be receiving some love, as media giant Univision revealed it will be rebranding Telelatino's TLN en Español channel as Univision Canada.