 |
 |
|
Luis Villarreal
Vice President Hispanic,
McVay Media
The son of life long broadcasters, Luis Villarreal is a successful radio operator. Always a programmer at heart, he has worked in all facets of radio. His professional career has experienced a number of success stories that began at the age of 18.
As Vice-President for the Hispanic Division of McVay Media, Luis is currently consulting stations in Washington, Texas, Florida, North Carolina.
Recently, Villarreal was Vice-President & Market Manager for Amigo Broadcasting cluster in Laredo, Texas. During his tenure in Laredo, the cluster generated record breaking revenues in 2002 and 2003.
|
|
|
Most Hispanic programmers in the ever popular Regional Mexican format have built their strategy on the concept that the station must reflect the region where the Hispanic population in the audience originated from. In markets where much of the Hispanic population came from northern Mexican states they focus on “norteño” other regions feature “Vallenato”, “Tierra caliente”, “banda”, etc. But does this take an overly narrow view and over niche the music and image of the station? While it is important to know the regional origin of your audience, there are three important reasons why you must take that information with a grain of salt.
First, the “maturity” of your market is very important. That is to say that if you are serving an area that is relatively new, you might find a greater need to satisfy that “home town music” syndrome. If you serve a more mature market, then that “need” decreases in direct relation to the maturity level of your market.
Second, main stream media is NOT niched. Regardless of how mature your market is or is not, the influence that TV and print have on the population outweighs any other influence. Univision and Telemundo networks promote and back those “Regional Sounds” only when they appeal to the masses. The “People” type magazines available to our culture deal almost exclusively in the mainstream. Even in Mexico, mainstream media behaves in the same fashion, so unless the entire market that you serve had been living under a rock and then magically transported to their new soil, chances are that they have been and will continue to be exposed to mainstream media.
Third, it's not what you don’t play that hurts you, but rather what you DO play. A concept that is widely misused in general market, finds perhaps its best advocate in this scenario. By definition, these “niched” rhythms might not be popular with your entire audience and may drive some of your audience away. In contrast, the chances of driving a listener away playing the more popular sounds and music are far less than with “niched” music.
Bottom line is, if the music is good and if it is in tune with the socio-economic make up of your market, then it does not matter if the artist or group is from a particular part of Mexico. As stated earlier, if the maturity of the market suggests that you do play some of those more regional sounds; it should never over shadow the overall sound of your station.
|
