Last week Univision settled a lawsuit with Televisa, the leading producer of Mexican telenovelas who provides most of Univision’s primetime programming and basically accounts for 1/3 of Univision’s 2007 revenues. Televisa’s product is so popular in the U.S. since the Hispanic market is mostly Mexican. This is not often the case in Latin America where preferences diverge as you travel further from Mexico. For example, in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Colombian telenovelas are more popular whereas in El Salvador Mexican telenovelas remain dominant; incidentally Mariachi music is also popular in El Salvador. Since Univision’s contract with Televisa expires in 2017, I was curious to see the portion of the U.S. Hispanic market would be Mexican.

In 2000 the U.S. Hispanic population stood at 35 million, equivalent to 12.6% of the total population. By 2050 it’s estimated to reach 132 million or 30.2%.

This Hispanic pie of 35 million consists of various segments, but the Mexican slice is by far the largest- over 20 million or almost 60%. Puerto Ricans are the second biggest segment at 9.6%.

While I couldn’t find any projections based on country of origin, I did locate some data indicating that 60% of future Hispanic population growth would come from individuals being born in the U.S. and while the other 40% would come result from immigration.

Utilizing this information I decided to build my own projections. I assumed that around 50% of the natural increases in population would come from parents of the same origin, and that the other 50% would be of mixed origin resulting in offspring that would fit the ‘Other Hispanic’ category. I also assumed that a 100% distribution of international migration from one of the seven country categories (Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.), not allowing for migration to result in additions to the ‘Other Hispanic’ category. The results show that while Mexican origin would still maintain a majority by a wide margin in 2050.

Of course, this calculation is only hypothetical, and other factors may play into this. Migration from countries other than Mexico might increase more relative to the current proportions. Intermarriage between countries and cultures is also a huge factor. Finally there could also be a more predominant homogenization of Hispanic culture in the United States, resulting in more Hispanics seeing themselves of not one particular origin. At least based on this model it does appear that the Mexican culture will form a strong part of the U.S. Hispanic culture for many years to come and that as a result Televisa’s value in the U.S. market will hold strong well past 2017.