Indeed, the Frog has experienced explosive growth the past couple of seasons, and is touted as the only television broadcast network to actually add viewers.
No es verdad. Nielsen numbers released Thursday reveal the Spanish-language broadcast network Univision to be the fastest growing network of any kind--broadcast, cable, Spanish, English, Eastern Timor, you name it--gaining 600,000 viewers in the key 18-34 and 18-49 "demos" (industryspeak for age groups).
That makes Univision the nation's fifth-largest broadcast network, ahead of the WB and rival UPN.
Spearheading the network's success is the performance of its KMEX affiliate in Los Angeles. Serving the area's burgeoning Latino population with hits like Despierta America (a morning show), the Cristina Show (an Oprah-competing talk show) and the sitcom El Gordo y La Flaca (translates loosely to "The Fat Guy and the Skinny Woman"), KMEX enjoys a larger audience share than any other network in the nation's second-largest television market.
Other large Hispanic markets--New York, Houston, Miami, Fresno and Bakersfield, California--are also helping fuel the growth.
Univision boasts that it "delivers more teens than MTV, more 18-49 male viewers than ESPN, more women viewers than Lifetime and three times as many news viewers as CNN."
Unfortunately, these large viewership numbers don't necessarily translate to big advertising revenue, since the most expensive commercial time is still aimed at young, white, urban viewers, not the nation?s 30 million or so Hispanics.
As comedian Steve Harvey--star of the most popular show among blacks, the WB's Steve Harvey Show--lamented, popularity in a minority market is often overlooked by ad buyers.
"Advertisers won't pay for African-Americans," he told a reporter at this week's Television Critics Association tour. "They don't think we buy cars and detergent and homes. They think all we do is eat candy and drink soda."