Comcast is looking to win Hispanic viewers with Now TV Latino

Comcast’s StreamSaver bundle, which includes Apple TV+, Netflix, and Peacock, got lots of attention when it debuted last year. But it’s not the only bundled package the company has recently rolled out.

Now TV Latino is a Comcast streaming package that includes more than 25 Spanish-language streaming and FAST channels like Sony Cine and Estrella News as well as Peacock Premium for $10/month—subscribers must be Comcast’s Xfinity internet customers in order to subscribe to the bundle. Comcast debuted the package in July. The package comes as the number of multilingual and Spanish-speaking households in the US continues to grow, and amid a concerted push from Comcast to find ways to package TV offerings in ways that can appeal to specific sets of customers and encourage interest in its internet offerings, all while reducing churn on platforms like Peacock.

“The Hispanic audience [is] multigenerational, multilingual, [and]…really heavy on streaming,” Fernando Cardenas, Comcast’s senior director of community engagement and culture and language, told Marketing Brew. Now TV Latino is “meeting the needs of a multigenerational household, because it’s giving you bicultural content. You have the best of English through Peacock, and then you have some really great Spanish-language content as well.”

Rumor has it

Comcast’s approach to marketing Now TV Latino involves activating around events that it sees as relevant to the Hispanic community, Cardenas told us. One such event is the annual Miss Universe pageant, which was last held in September, two months after the package debuted, and which airs on Comcast-owned Telemundo. Since the Now TV Latino package contains Peacock Premium, which streams Miss Universe live, Comcast included that messaging in its marketing.

“Miss Universe is really big in the Hispanic community,” Cardenas said. “What we’ve been seeing is that live events actually are really important to this segment.”

Also in September, Now TV Latino also showed up on the ground in Miami for Hispanic Heritage Month, Cardenas said, activating with a carnival celebration complete with product brochures and games. This month, Comcast will activate at Calle Ocho, a Latin music festival in Miami, to promote the product.

Outside of that, Comcast highlights the product in retail locations and through a “very, very minimal” push on social, Cardenas told Marketing Brew. But one of Now TV Latino’s main sources of marketing, he said, is simply word-of-mouth marketing among its customer set.

“This is me speaking personally, just being a Latino, the fact that we’re so community based,” Cardenas told us. “Once we find something that we really feel resonates with us, it’s really the word of mouth.”

Have it your way

Now TV Latino is looking to grow at a time when both Spanish-speaking and multilingual populations in the US have been increasing. Roughly 42 million people in the US speak Spanish at home, second only to English, according to the Census Bureau.

Now TV Latino “speaks to who we are as a community that’s evolving in this country,” Cardenas said.

The offering isn’t the only recent one Comcast has put out as it seeks to court viewers and reduce churn. In January, it debuted a package called “Sports & News TV” that includes channels like ABC, ESPN, and Telemundo and retails for $70/month. And in May, Comcast also partnered with Apple TV+ and Netflix on StreamSaver, which also includes access to its streaming service Peacock.

Now TV Latino itself comes after Comcast unveiled Now TV in May 2023, a broader package that debuted with more than 40 live channels, 20 FAST channels, and access to Peacock Premium.

In October, David Watson, president and CEO of Comcast Cable, touted Now TV Latino during Comcast’s Q3 2024 earnings call.

“Now TV [and] Now [TV] Latino: These are products that we segment, use surgically, and [that] have helped video,” he said. They’re “a nice way to reimagine the platform [and] to be able to deliver good content for the right segment.”