I love reading about television ratings but not much coverage is given to Hispanic channels, an unusual discrepancy considering that 16% of the U.S. population and 11% of TV households are Hispanic. The lack of coverage may be due to the fact that Hispanic programming is so diferente. During weekday primetime Univision and Telemundo program mostly telenovelas, which run around 120 episodes or five months long. This stripped programming results in a more stable audience flow, which occasionally changes in the event of substituted programming or as a telenovela becomes frio or caliente.

Utilizin email newsletters archives between April 2009 and February 2010 I compiled the weekday ratings for these Univision and Telemundo during the 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. time periods. Certain dates were not available but I believe that an overall performance picture emerged. The numbered points in the graph indicate notable highs and lows.

Highs and Lows for Univision at 8 PM

1) April 10, 2009 (Good Friday): 1.5 rating for Cuidado Con el Angel. I am not completely why this telenovela dropped this much that day (37% on a week to week basis). It may have something to do with the fact that it was Good Friday, and that many Hispanic Catholic families were at church. This might not be the case since Telemundo dropped only 16% from the previous day and 28% from the previous Friday. Angel’s bigger decline might really indicate a poor performance. The telenovela does continue to have lower audience levels until on July 3, upon which the time period improves with the new novela En Nombre del Amor.

2) October 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for the finale of Mañana Es Para Siempre (average for the night). This night a special three hour finale for wildly popular 9 p.m. telenovela Mañana Es Para Siempre was programmed. More about this later.

3) November 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for Latin Grammys (average for the night). This demonstrates how Hispanic-themed awards specials can greatly improve a time period, by about 50% in this case.

4-5) November 26 and December 31, 2009 (Thanksgiving and New Year’s): 0.8 and 0.9 ratings for special holiday programming. These drops of roughly 50% are parallel to what Telemundo experiences during the same nights (see points 10 and 11 below). The low audience levels may be due to either the holidays lowering television viewing or lack of interest in the special programming. I don’t have information for Christmas for comparison.

6) February 18, 2010: 2.9 rating for Premio Lo Nuestro (average for the night). Just like the Latin Grammys, this award special greatly improved the time period’s ratings.

Highs and Lows for Telemundo at 8 PM

7) April 23, 2009: 1.0 rating for Premios Billboard. This 50% bump is the same that the Latin Grammys and Premio Lo Nuestro gave Univision.

8 ) June 24, 2009: 1.0 rating for soccer match between Mexico and Venezuela. Games or specials, often programmed by Telemundo, boosted their ratings between 20% and 100%.

9) October 14, 2009: 1.2 rating for soccer match between Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago; another big winner.

10-11) November 26 and December 31, 2009 (Thanksgiving and New Year’s):  0.4 and o.3 rating for special holiday programming.

Highs and Lows for Univision at 9 PM

1) April 10, 2009: 2.1 rating for Mañana Es Para Siempre, lower than the usual  This is mostly due to the poor lead-in that night from Cuidado Con El Angel. Mañana Es Para Siempre would later attract much greater audience levels, finishing out with the highest rating for any program within the data I obtained.

2) October 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for the three hour finale of Mañana Es Para Siempre (average for the night). The finale had an average of 7.3 million viewers, and was the #2 broadcast of that night among Adults 18-34. This ratings peak was followed by a lower start for Sortilegio, which eventually also found rose in ratings, until its conclusion on February 17, the day before Premio Lo Nuestro (see point 6), upon which the ratings dropped again for the start of Corazon Salvaje.

3) November 5, 2009: 3.0 rating for the Latin Grammys (average for the night).

4) November 26, 2009: 0.8 rating for movie special.

5) December 31, 2009: 0.9 rating for special programming.

6) February 17 and 18, 2010: On February 17 Univision had the finale for Sortilegio, which drew a 3.1 household rating, with an average of 6.6 million viewers and beating ABC, CBS and the CW. On the following night Premio Lo Nuestro had a 2.9 rating. The drop that follows reflects the start of a new telenovela, Corazon Salvaje.

Highs and Lows for Telemundo at 9 PM

7) April 23, 2009: 1.0 rating for Premios Billboard. See point 7 in the 8 PM analysis.

8 ) October 14, 2009: 1.2 rating for soccer match between Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago.

One of the big takeaways from this analysis was that both Telemundo and Univision have relatively stable ratings resulting from the telenovelas, which requires loyalty required to follow plotlines, the absence of repeat episodes, and the fact that telenovelas are stripped programming. On the major broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC, audience levels are often more volatile, as popular shows are much more widely scattered across the grid. It would be interesting to study this historical volatility and see if it’s attributable to the far more fragmented audiences of today. Given their ratings stability, and a younger skewing audience (a benefit of the Hispanic Market Univision often beats major broadcast networks in the 18-49 demographic, especially on Fridays nights when the ratings for other broadcast networks dip significantly allowing Univision to sometime lead that night.