While growth in Hispanic basic cable subscribers will eventually slow along with all basics, the group should form a nice market for advanced services. For example, we see Hispanic digital cable subs growing roughly linearly to about 11.3 million by 2006, up from around 5.8 million today. Considering how underserved the market is, that number might have even more upside. Important bellwethers to watch will be new programming efforts from services like ESPN and others. A template for the possibilities for Hispanics comes from large retailers like The Home Depot and Wal-Mart. These major chains moved into long forgotten urban areas, in part to service the growing Hispanic market, creating some of the most profitable stores in their businesses.
Back to this issue