- Della de Lafuente

NEW YORK Ad spending in Spanish-language media reached $5.78 billion in 2007, up 3 percent from $5.63 billion in 2006, with cable TV showing a 76 percent jump, buoyed by the addition of Fox Sports en Espanol and Telemundo's mun2 as measured media, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Similarly, coverage changes among national magazines and spot radio were factors in the dramatic year-to-year upswings and downturns in the Hispanic space, according to Nielsen's just-released spotlight on Spanish-language advertising. Adweek is a unit of the Nielsen Co.

National magazines climbed 13 percent in 2007 to $163.5 million from $144.1 million in 2006, while spot radio fell 20 percent in 2007 to $609.2 million from $760 million in 2006, per Nielsen.

Still, Spanish TV networks maintained their ad spending stronghold, increasing 2 percent last year to $3.01 billion from $2.94 billion in 2006, with spot TV rising 8 percent in 2007 to $1.66 billion from $1.54 billion the previous year, Nielsen said.

Ad spending in local newspapers remained flat year-to-year at roughly $110 million.

Among marketers, Broadcasting Media Partners Inc., parent company of Univision Communications Inc., was the largest advertiser across all Spanish-language media in 2007, though ad spending to market its various business units was down 27 percent in 2007 to $206 million from $283 million the previous year, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Boasting the largest percentage increase, Lexicon Marketing upped ad spending in 2007 by 38 percent to $159 million from $115 million in 2006, pumping up its marketing efforts to mount campaigns for the debut of its Sin Barreras and Olympia Cookware product lines, per the Nielsen report.

Hispanic ad spending at Toyota climbed 23 percent, the second highest percentage increase last year, to $95.9 million from $78.3 million in 2006, attributed largely to the widened push by the automaker to market its hybrid vehicles, per Nielsen.

Conversely, ad spending at General Motors decreased 4 percent in 2007 to $106 million from $110.5 million the previous year.

Other marketers in the top 10 include a range of categories: telcos, Verizon (down, 1 percent to $89 million) and AT&T (up 10 percent to $129 million); and consumer goods, Procter & Gamble (down 3 percent to $169 million).

Among the top consumer product categories for Hispanics, automotive led the pack in ad spending last year, up 4 percent to $660 million, and spending more than two times the ad dollars of the second highest category, wireless telephone services. The wireless phone business boosted 2007 ad spending 37 percent, the largest percentage increase, to $313.6 million.