Forget music videos – New Yorkers want their Spanish-language TV!

For the first time ever, the city’s top rated prime-time TV network was a Spanish-language one, Univision announced yesterday. The network says, in the August 2005 survey period, more adults in the most desirable demographics tuned in to watch Univision’s prime-time programming than those who tuned in to watch local English-language programming on CBS, ABC, or NBC.

The Nielsen Station Index Local People Meter survey found that an average of 203,000 viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 watched Univision’s WXTV one quarter of each hour between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., and it was the most watched station by adults in the 18 to 49 and 25 to 54 age ranges, regardless of language. By comparison, an average of 185,000 people between the ages of 18 to 49 tuned in to CBS (the second most-watched channel) each quarter hour; 172,000 tuned in to NBC every quarter hour; and ABC came in fourth during the month, garnering 163,000 viewers every quarter hour.

Univision’s success didn’t rely on reality TV programs featuring participants getting liposuction or drinking snake bile. It grew its ratings by broadcasting original soap operas – apparently they’re very addictive – five nights a week, free of reruns. It’s a somewhat novel approach in TV today.

“The major networks have traditionally shown repeats during the summer because their regular season ends in May,” a broadcast research analyst at Manhattan-based Magna Global, Lisa Quan, said. “In the last few years they’ve been trying to introduce original content, the majority of which is reality-based, and they’ve tried some scripted programs, but they haven’t worked as well.”

Univision’s biggest ratings triumph, according to a spokesman, Ted Faraone, is a soap opera called “La Madrastra,” or “The Stepmother,” a dramatic series that follows an innocent woman who is falsely imprisoned for murder. Her husband suspects she is guilty, divorces her, and tells their children that their mother is dead. After 20 years, she is released for good behavior and seeks revenge by assuming a false identity, remarrying her husband, and winning back the love of her children. She is, as one might predict, torn between the love for her husband and the desire to see him suffer. Univision’s soap operas, also called novelas, typically last for between four to six months, and “La Madrastra” is scheduled to end next month, according to Mr. Faraone.

Programming may play a key part of Univision’s August victory, but demographics undoubtedly play an equally significant role. Nielsen Media Research estimates there are 10.91 million Hispanic TV households in America, and the Hispanic population is often cited as the fastest growing population in New York. Nielsen first launched the Nielsen Hispanic-American Television Index in 1992. In New York, according to Nielsen, of the 7.355 million television-watching households, 16.4% are Hispanic. Mr. Faraone believes the market is much bigger.

“Based on the last Census figures, we have every reason to believe that the Hispanic population of the New York television market has grown in excess of 20%,” Mr. Faraone says. “And there’s no reason to think that the trend will come to a screeching halt any time soon.”