Phoenix buys into El Planeta
Mirroring a national scramble for Spanish-language newspaper readers, Phoenix Media/Communications Group, parent company of The Boston Phoenix, has purchased a 35 percent stake in El Planeta, the largest Spanish-language weekly in the Boston area. Officials at Hispanic News Press of Brookline, which publishes El Planeta and distributes 40,000 free copies each week in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, say the investment marks the first time an English-language media company in New England has invested in a Hispanic one.
The partnership reflects a growing belief by mainstream media outlets struggling to reverse declining circulation that Hispanics, the largest minority group in the country, represent an undertapped market for readership and advertising.
Javier J. Marin, editor of El Planeta and a cofounder of Hispanic News Press, said Phoenix Media's investment would allow the 16-month-old newspaper to ''grow at a faster pace than we expected before" and give it ''greater resources in terms of print technology," as well as access to national advertising accounts.
For Phoenix Media, he added, ''I see this as a great opportunity for them to enter into a different market in the media industry."
The two companies had an existing relationship -- El Planeta is printed by Mass Web Printing Co., which is owned by Phoenix Media -- and had been discussing partnership possibilities for several years, said Bradley Mindich, executive vice president of Phoenix Media. Marin and Mindich declined to divulge the dollar amount of the investment, ''but we hope it's worth a lot some day," Mindich said.
''You sort of have to have your head under a rock not to see the growth in the Hispanic market, and we saw an opportunity here with El Planeta," he added. ''The combination of synergistic editorial and advertising opportunities lets us really take advantage of the beginning of the wave of Hispanic media in this part of the country."
Marin identified El Planeta's main competitors as El Mundo in Boston, Vocero Hispano in Worcester, Siglo21 in Lawrence, and Providence En Espanol, in Providence.
With roughly 900,000 Hispanics in New England, including 437,000 in Massachusetts, according to the 2000 Census, Hispanics pose significant business potential. The US Hispanic advertising market has grown 12 percent in the past year, Marin said, while the national market has grown only 2 percent. That striking disparity has not gone unnoticed by big media.
Last year, New York-based ImpreMedia LLC acquired the Chicago weekly newspaper La Raza to compete with the Tribune Co., which publishes the newspaper Hoy in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, as well as Spanish-language papers in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in Florida. ImpreMedia also publishes La Opinion in Los Angeles and El Diario/La Prensa in New York. In June, two investment groups said they would invest $18 million in Meximerica Media, which publishes several Spanish-language papers in Texas.
Hispanic News Press, with 12 full-time employees, was founded in 2001 to distribute news and advertising to Latin American radio stations. Marin, who was born in Venezuela, declined to disclose annual revenue, but said it was in the ''low seven figures." It launched El Planeta in May 2004, the company's first foray into the US market.
El Planeta is now published in three editions, one in Greater Boston, one for Lawrence, Lowell, and Southern New Hampshire, and one in the Providence area. A fourth edition will debut in Worcester in about three weeks, and a fifth is planned for Connecticut next year, Marin said.
The paper is distributed free in newspaper boxes, at restaurants and retailers, and by handlers at bus and subway stations, as well as through subscriptions.
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com. 
