ABC and Univisión have come together and launched Fusion, a new channel directed mainly at young English-speaking Hispanics residing in the United States.
According to news agency EFE, the new television channel's purpose is to approach young Hispanic millenials, with an editorial line based on humor and transparency, said Isaac Lee, director of Fusion.
With 55 million Hispanics on American soil (the ethnic group with the largest growth in the last decade), the new channel will attempt to access the untapped market through quality content for the English-speaking Hispanic community.
News agency Reuters said that Fusion began its broadcast on Monday, October 28 with 20 million viewers, a figure that doesn't compare to CNN's 99 million; however, Ben Sherwood, President of ABC News, told Reuters that they're planning to reach 60 million homes in the next five years.
With a rising Hispanic population, ABC and Univision's gamble is to become a TV landmark for young Latinos in the US, a group that is growing at an accelerated rate and is comprised of younger audiences than those of channels like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.
To make all of this possible, the effort to be made by the members of this new channel will be great. In an interview with EFE, Isaac Lee said that humor and transparency of information are the two characteristics most valued by the Hispanic audience between 18 and 34 years of age in the United States.
"We realized that humor plays an important role for this hyper-connected generation as a way to see the world", Lee revealed, who also pointed out that the new generations of Latinos are very smart and are always looking to corroborate the information they find in other sources.
In its first phase, Fusion will broadcast informative shows focused on cutting-edge content that will include satire, a light tone and seriousness, and anchors like Karla Martínez and Raúl González from Univisión and Lara Spencer from ABC will also participate in Fusion.