Republicans have had significant influence among Hispanic voters in recent election cycles. Now, the conservative media network is trying to connect and consolidate those achievements in an attempt to become the Fox News of Latin America.
Americano Media, founded in March, is embarking on an aggressive expansion plan to shape center-right Hispanic opinion in the next election cycle. The network has hired more than 80 Latino reporters and producers, is expanding its television presence, and by the end of the year will have studios in Miami, Las Vegas and D.C. with correspondents covering the White House, Congress and the 2024 presidential campaign. Americano is launching a $20 million marketing campaign this month to attract new audiences.
Reaching out and winning over a country's second population is the latest twist in the arms race as it plays an ever-increasing role in election outcomes.
"We don't have Fox News in Spanish, and that's what Americano wants to do," said network founder and CEO Ivan Garcia Hidalgo. He said he's heard Hispanic Republican leaders lament the need for something like this for 25 years, but no one has taken serious action.
Garcia Hidalgo, who served as a Hispanic surrogate for Donald Trump's 2020 campaign after a career in telecommunications at Tyco, AT&T and Sprint, said he wanted to "subvert" the traditional way Hispanic conservatives interact with the media, he said. He is expected to reach out to liberal networks to "apologize for being a Republican, bend over and beat the clock."
Americano began with a series of radio shows outside of Miami, where it is still headquartered, but next year plans to expand to television and radio in battleground states across the U.S., as well as online and live for Spanish-speaking audience. Platform
So far, Americano Media has raised $18 million from its first three investors and is expected to close its first and only equity investment to raise an additional $30 million to $50 million this spring, Garcia-Hidalgo said. Northern Virginia patent attorney Thomas Woolston and San Jose, California investor Doug Hayden provided seed funding. Americano declined to disclose the third investor.
© Andrew Harnick/AP Photo A testament to Americano Media's growth is that the network recently interviewed Donald Trump and several Republican lawmakers.Americano takes every opportunity to build an image in conservative political circles. The network went live from CPAC Dallas in August. In December, they set up a huge booth on Radio Row at Turning Point's AmericaFest with a "No Fake News" show that wowed Phoenix Convention Center attendees who gathered nearby to see interviews with several conservative celebrities. As a sign of its growth, the network recently conducted interviews with several prominent Republicans, including Trump and Sens. Marcia Blackburn (Ten), Rick Scott (Fla), Marco Rubio (Fla) and Mike Lee (Ut). , representatives. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Andy Biggs (Arizona) and Steve Sakles (Los Angeles), as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Ultimately, however, the Spanish-language station's target audience isn't die-hard conservatives who attend political conventions or listen to Steve Bannon's "War Room." Working-class Latinos who live in America and prefer to speak Spanish are not particularly ideological and are not in a position to comment on the news of the day.
"Hispanics are role models," said GOP strategist Giancarlo Sopa, who led Trump's 2020 Latino campaign marketing efforts.
The strategists behind Americano's expansion efforts say they believe the GOP's gains with Latinos in recent years are over. They say the low-hanging fruit has already fallen, and Republicans will have to work a little harder to pick up the rest of the centrist voters, which Americano does with fairly straightforward news mixed with conservative commentary and, ultimately, entertainment. .
Democratic activists, who have long warned that a lack of more aggressive investment in Hispanic media could have a rebound effect, have acknowledged that targeting such a niche audience can be a highly effective strategy.
"There's an information war going on in this country between Latinos and bilingual communities," said Tara McGowan, founder and editor of the Courier Democratic editorial network, which has called for the left to create a new progressive media outlet. "It's a very smart and very troubling move by conservatives to double down on their investment in the American media."
The Americano Project mirrors the liberal Latino Media Network, which in June announced the purchase of 18 Latino radio stations across the country. One such station, Radio Mamby in Miami -- a longtime fixture in the conservative Cuban-American community -- lost several prominent American media anchors after the sale was announced. Lord Obito, Dania Alexandrina, and Nelson Rubio were among those who switched to the American. Most of Americano's hosts, producers, directors and technicians come from Univision, Telemundo and CNN en Español, according to the broadcaster.
© LM Otero/AP Photo Mayra Flores recently signed on as Americano Media's senior political contributor.Mera Flores, a Republican who gave up a South Texas congressional seat in June's special election to become the first Mexican-born woman in the House of Representatives, recently signed on to be one of Americano Media's top political contributors. Flores lost re-election in November after polling stations made the seat more Democratic.
Other top startup executives include Michael Caputo, a longtime Republican operative who advised Trump on the 2016 presidential campaign and briefly served as an official at the Department of Health and Human Services at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid, and Alfonso Aguilar, who served in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Citizenship is the political director of Americano.
After years of trying to create a news network and a series of audio shows, Garcia-Hidalgo launched Americano in March in partnership with Latin American diver Sirius XM. The trick, he admitted, was not to reach the few Hispanics who listen to satellite radio, but to get the attention of investors and top radio station executives. In October, Americano pulled the cast from the satellite channel and moved to Miami-based radio station Audacity.
The network's ambitions are huge. By the end of this year, Americano plans to be on 25 radio stations. They have added content to all major streaming platforms and created a digital news website and phone app. Garcia Hidalgo said they have spent millions of dollars building studios to launch the new TV shows, adding that in the coming weeks before the 2024 election, they plan to bring them to cable television in all major coastal states and Puerto Rico.
"The most disenfranchised consumer of the news is the center-right Latino," Flores said in an interview, adding that many of those somewhat conservative South Texas Latinos traditionally vote Democratic, though some have begun to leave the party, data shows.
Despite being heavily influenced by conservative commentary, Americano also has liberal guests. Democrat Jose Artestimona, a former spokesman for the Democratic National Committee who worked in the Barack Obama administration, debates Republican nominee Jimmy Neves every night. The network said it is adding more Democratic commentators to its roster.
"It's definitely a space that needs to be filled, and I say that as a Democrat," Arstimuna said of the lack of Republican-Democratic Spanish-language talk shows. "Maybe I don't agree with all the principles that Americans stand for, but that's okay. For democracy to work, both sides must talk and discuss together.
US Latinos still prefer Democrats. But those margins have shrunk significantly in recent years.
CNN polling data released in November showed that the Democratic lead among Hispanics had shrunk by about 10 percentage points compared to the 2018 midterm elections, with 60% backing a House nominee this fall and 39% backing the GOP. According to the poll, four years ago, 69% of Latinos preferred Democrats and 29% preferred Republicans.
"The biggest problem the Republicans face is that they usually reach out to Latinos electorally to get their votes, and they usually do it three months before the election," said Aguilar, Amirano's policy director. "It's very difficult to build trust in society when you're so late."
One challenge Republicans still face is reaching Latinos, who are largely Hispanic.
Sopa, whose work includes GOP ads for Latinos, noted that his Visto Media company conducted a customer survey this fall that showed Democrats gained 40 points in the midterm elections and that Latinos were getting all or most of their messages in Spanish. That number fell 13 points, and Latinos prefer English-language news sources.
Subo said it was also difficult to attract Latinos from different countries. What Mexicans like in Texas doesn't always please Cubans in Miami. The mix of conservative culture, news and commentary is probably a "winning formula for Latinos," Sopo said, which is not widely available.
"If they want to grow and gain popularity, the programming needs to be more like Fox and less like Newsmax and OAN," Sopo said, pointing to the two news channels on the right. "Live news with conservative commentary provides some of the entertainment this demographic needs."
