Ethnic outlets survive in sinking media market

Many of these newspapers and broadcast stations are doing well because they've tapped into an expanding audience — the sons and daughters of immigrants.

In Los Angeles, the No. 1 TV station isn't NBC, CBS, ABC or Fox — it's Spanish-language KMEX, the flagship of Univision. And it isn't just Los Angeles' top station — Nielsen says it's No. 1 in the U.S. with viewers aged 18-49. KMEX built big numbers with immigrant audiences, but is now drawing their sons and daughters — and even their grandchildren.

University of Southern California journalism professor Felix Gutierrez says it's more than just language that's attracting those younger viewers.

"I was watching last night, and they were talking about the border wars — drug smuggling and all that. But they were covering it from the Mexican side. They had the same kind of footage, but it was a different perspective, a different angle that I don't see on CBS, NBC, CNN and the other networks," Gutierrez says.

Another Los Angeles station, KSCI, offers other options: programs in Korean, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Tagalog.

"We're the largest Asian TV station, serving the largest Asian population in the United States," says KSCI vice president Eric Olander. "People refer to us often as the Asian Univision."

Olander says that while other media companies are laying people off or closing down, his station is actually expanding. KSCI recently launched a new local evening news show in Korean, and a local morning show in Chinese.

The two-hour, live Power Breakfast spotlights local traffic and weather reports, news and quirky features from Los Angeles and Asia. The perky show is anchored by Yiyi Lu and Andy Chang, who both grew up in Los Angeles watching Chinese TV with their parents, and American shows like Friends and The Simpsons.

"The key thing for the show is energy," Olander says. "That's why we call it Power Breakfast. It's a culture shock in terms of news — we are trying to jump out of the ordinary Chinese TV news."

Olander says stations like his used to rely on ethnic audiences that had few other options because they weren't comfortable in English. But that's not necessarily true of immigrants' children.

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