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Published on Tuesday, 26 July 2011 09:00
Diario de Mexico USA, the Mexico City-based daily newspaper, will be expanding into the Chicago market with a Chicago-targeted edition, starting early next month. The Monday through Friday newspaper will be sold for 50 cents each.
Originally, the Chicago version of Diario de Mexico USA will begin with two test areas, selling the paper mainly in the Little Village/La Villita neighborhood and in the south-suburban town of Cicero -- both of which contain large percentages of Mexican and Mexican-American populations. The newspaper will be sold at newsstands, new newspaper vending machines and through old fashioned newspaper sales people, or "voceadores." The expected launch date for the newspaper is August 8th.
The initial circulation run will be around 2,000 issues each, but the company hopes to have that increased to a circulation of around 6,000 issues within the first year, with continued growth in the second year. The market ranges are hoped to be expanded out from the two communities mentioned above, to a much wider range, covering much of Chicago and suburban towns from northern Indiana to the Wisconsin border -- wherever there is a large enough Mexican community that can support the publication. Each paper will contain approximately 24 pages.
This will be the second time that Diario de Mexico USA will have a special edition for a particular market. The newspaper previously began a New York edition, which has seen an annual increase of circulation growth of 35% in the over eight years it has been there. The paper's circulation in the New York market is around 17,000 copies daily.
The Chicago edition of the newspaper will feature local and national news targeted for the Chicago reader. The paper will share, along with the New York and basic editions, a basic core of content from Mexico, including Mexican national news, entertainment/culture, and sports news. According to the publishers, the newspaper will take into consideration the segmentation of the Mexican reader, having content originating from different parts of Mexico, as well as their level of involvement with the US culture. The goal is to appeal to the migrants who are still very attached to their previous lives in Mexico, along with those who are more assimilated into their new lives here in Chicago.
For Chicago's edition, the newspaper will be a combined effort from Chicago, New York and Mexico City. The Chicago offices will have a small group of editors, reporters and sales executives. Much of the US national content will come from the New York offices, while Mexican content and overall editorial decisions will come from the home office in Mexico City.
The Chicago editorial team will funnel local content to the office in Mexico City. That content will be merged together with content from the publisher's other content from Mexico and some US content from New York, designed in an eye-appealing way and then sent back to Chicago in a PDF format, where it can be printed and distributed locally. This method not only saves money, but gives the paper a true Mexican perspective for its readers.
Diario de Mexico USA was started in 2002 and is published by Mexico City's Grupo Bracamontes, which owns a few newspapers and radio stations in Mexico.
The projected bulk of the advertising will be local to Chicago. While there will be some national advertising, combined with the New York edition, the newspaper's goal is to be an outlet for businesses to reach the Chicago Mexican communities.
The new Chicago version of Diario de Mexico USA will face competition from other periodicals that have long been available, including the Chicago Tribune-owned daily Hoy! and the ImpreMedia-owned weekly La Raza. Diario de Mexico USA is hoping that with recent cutbacks and downsizing at those two publications, leaving them as shells of what they were just a couple of years ago, the local market will be ready for a new publication that understands the target reader better.
Despite a steep downturn and decline in print media's fortunes, Diario de Mexico USA has seen its circulations and good fortunes continually increase. Also running contrary to most Hispanic newspapers in the country, Diario de Mexico USA will not be given away as a free newspaper. The publishers feel that its targeted and exclusive Mexican content is worth charging a small fee for. So far, their strategy has worked.
The newspaper's front page is known for being colorful and eye-grabbing, as well as usually having a scantily-clad woman in its upper right hand corner or somewhere on the cover.
