DavidEduardo said:
... or being the CEO of Coca Cola.
Most Hispanic are NOT gardeners. It's just that you see gardeners because they are outdoors. You don't see the Atlanta based Latin American audit team at one of the big name auditing firms, or center for Latin Ameican operations at Delta or any of the hundreds and thousands of places that high level white collar Hispanic work.
And, of course, Hispanics in the age range that might be gardeners don't customarily use AM at all.
Please excuse me for a rather hasty and callous expression in my original post.
However, if we are going to discuss current and future Latino/Hispanic oriented radio in Atlanta, we will probably need to find language that allows us to be candid in our analysis.
I live in the fringes of metro Atlanta.... where sprawl is being built. And when houses are framed, and roofs installed and landscaping installed, if I am out in my yard doing some work, I am likely to be treated to the sound of Latino/Hispanic radio blaring away at the construction site. Up until a couple of years ago, It WASN'T F.M. because the market place for Latino/Hispanic advertising had not made it feasible to capitalize the purchase of F.M. channels. The first to make the change was the F.M. in Buford, GA. More recently was the acquisition of the F.M. licensed to Talking Rock, GA.
This is not South Texas. This is not California. The arrival of a "critical mass" of Latino/Hispanic ears for radio is a much more recent event for Georgia. You are the seasoned veteran and pro for this type of broadcasting. Are the accountants and the operations people for airline activity in the southern hemisphere of America likely to be listening to Latino/Hispanic radio, or will they be listening to the same broadcasts as the general population here? I don't know.
I'll tell you what I do know. I grew up in the cotton fields within 20 miles of the Mexican border. In the public school system as an Anglo Saxon, I was part of the minority. I know that men who swam that river to come and work on our farm as illegals made it possible for my father's farm to function. The political part of me has a chip on my shoulder about the shabby way we as a nation have dealt with the Latino/Hispanic immigrant. I have personal knowledge and experience of more than 60 years that we have continually promised these people that we are going to get our act together and make it possible, make it legal, and make it humane for them to come and participate in our economy, but we never get around to doing it.
Now, have I established that maybe I can comment on radio listening without being a bigot? :
I make regular stops to refill my coffee cup at the QT. (A very well run convenience store/gasoline operation with CONSISTENTLY brewed coffee!!!) Early in the morning and at the lunch hour, expect to stand in line to pay for your purchase, and expect the crowd to be 75% Latino/Hispanic. And young. And you can tell their trade by their clothing and the stains: paint, drywall, brick mason, grass clippings. Try shopping at our Walmart on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, or Sunday. Now we are running into the Tyson employees blended into the crowd.
Unfortunately I did not maintain what limited amount of Spanish language skills I once possessed, but I retain just enough of those skills to smile, assure the young man who feels some kind of requirement that he step back from the coffee urn for me, that he is to go ahead and take his rightful turn at the spigot. The look on their face tells me that they often do not get treated with courtesy.
If I were calling on ad agencies in the Class A high rises in down town Atlanta, or trying to sell hardware merchandise to the Home Depot corporate purchasing team or down at Coca Cola corporate HQ trying to get some Voice Over work I would be more focused on that other part of the Latino/Hispanic market of which you have reminded me.
I Listen from time to time to the radio stations that reach the northern Atlanta area, and I remember just enough Spanish to figure out who they are targeting with their programming. And who some of the advertisers are. And what they are trying to sell. They seem to agree with me on where the money is currently for Latino/Hispanic broadcasting in Georgia.
P.S. David: I live on a peninsula out into "the big lake". I have a neighbor down the street who has a nicer house than mine and who drives nicer cars that I do. We meet while walking. He and his wife are Hispanic. He is a crew leader for a group that does framing for condos and apartments. At the end of the peninsula we have a new 5 or 6 million dollar house owned by Pablo... the rumor on the lane is that he is the second richest man in all of Spain. I've not met Pablo, but I speak regularly to his Property Manager who is Hispanic. Maybe I should ask the two them what they listen to.
