2 Apr /13

The rise of the bilingual United States

media translation servicesAlmost 7 months after the successful launch of MundoFox, a joint television venture between Fox International and Colombia’s RCN, the question isn’t whether or not the venture has been successful, the question is what can be learned from this venture and what comes next.

Whether or not MundoFox can emulate the success Fox had in the English-speaking market in taking on established competition in the Spanish-speaking media world remains to be seen. However, merely the establishment of the network points to the growing demands for more diverse Spanish-speaking content for a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population and will certainly force market leaders Telemundo and Univision to rethink their programming.

In the 1980s, the general consensus among entertainment professionals was that there was no more room in the American market for another national network beyond the big three: NBC, ABC, and CBS. Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, however, was not convinced and founded Fox Broadcasting Company. Murdoch’s agenda was to lure away audiences from the established nationals by revamping network programming. Expansion and diversification was the key to Murdoch’s success as Fox added consistently added new formats to its line-up.

Signing up shows like The Simpsons, The X-Files, and Married with Children attracted audiences by presenting innovative formats and allowed Fox to gain a foothold in the market, that was subsequently cemented with an aggressive push for the broadcasting rights in the early 1990s. By 2004, Fox had become America’s most popular network among 18-49 year olds.

While the way television networks operate has certainly changed over the course of the last 20 years, the playing field that MundoFox is entering looks eerily similar to the situation Fox faced in the mid-1980s. The Spanish-language market is currently dominated by three major networks, Univision, Telemundo, and UniMas (formerly Telefutura and now an affiliate of Univision). Similar to its parent company, MundoFox is poised to add diversity and innovation to Spanish-language programming and thereby quickly establish itself as the benchmark provider of quality programming for the Spanish television market. Critically acclaimed shows like El Capo and Nat Geo Kids are paired with exclusive broadcasting rights to the UFC to ensure a quick influx of both audiences and advertising revenue.

Backed by a multi-national media conglomerate, MundoFox will surely succeed in the Spanish-speaking market, but executives are already looking ahead to the next logical development in American media – the development of bilingual content and networks. The 2007 American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, found that 20% of Americans use their native (non-English) language inside the home and English in the workplace or in social settings. Of this 20%, 62% listed Spanish as the language spoken inside the home, which translates to approximately 34 million people. To date, media companies have sought to appeal to one aspect of the bilingual individual’s identity: English programming from traditionally English-language media outlets and Spanish programming from the traditionally Spanish-language media outlets. However, television networks that want to successfully address a growing bilingual population will have to successfully entertain both parts of the audience’s identity – the American and the Hispanic one. Logically, the prevailing notion among network executives is that future audiences will no longer seek solely separate programming in separate languages, but that they will demand bilingual programming. Currently, only the digital music and entertainment channel LATV is providing bilingual content in the U.S. market. The network is targeting audiences 18-34, exactly those viewers who grew up as bilingual citizens and whose preferences will shape the future of American entertainment.

The production of bilingual content does, of course, require a large amount of language-based integration for TV broadcasters, on-air personalities, as well as advertisers; yet, as has been the case in the past, providers will have little choice than to adapt the diverse needs of a growing bilingual audience. EVS Translations provides a full range of translation services suited to meet the needs of the media and entertainment industry: subtitles, voiceovers, dubbing, video and audio transcription, on-site interpreting and localization.