The music streaming service Pandora has enjoyed a substantial increase in the number of Hispanic users this year, despite the absence of Latin superstars on the US’ ‘Billboard Hot 100.’
Details on Pandora’s findings below…
According to stats pulled by ComCast in June, a quarter of ‘Dora’s 76.4 million viewers are Hispanic, making it the #1 streaming service among the powerful demographic, helping it beat efforts made by the Spanish-geared Univision Digital, ran by media executive Randy Falco.
Billboard Biz explains:
Pandora is not a Spanish site, nor does it advertise to Hispanics. So why the Latin traction?
For one, Pandora has made a concerted effort to broaden its Latin listener base and build up its Latin library. It boasts three separate genre subdivisions for the music — “Latin,” “Mexico” and “Puerto Rico” — with 27 stations under the “Latin” umbrella alone, and 15 stations under the “Mexican” umbrella. That’s more than the number of stations found under dance, metal or even country. The diversity of stations, in turn, reflects Pandora’s ability to target its users.
“The biggest part is we survey our user,” says Mike Reid, Pandora’s executive director for multicultural. “Once we identify this user base as someone who is potentially Hispanic we survey them.”
Grossly underrepresented on a US Pop music front, one has to wonder when statistics like the above will force the majors to wake up and service the Hispanic market with a brand new artist.
For, when one really thinks about, the last Spanish superstar that was marketed as as an international Pop act was Shakira with the release of her first English speaking album, ‘Laundry Service‘, in 2001.
Pretty sad, right? Especially when the lane for a bilingual stage-slaying beauty has been wide open for years.