Oct. 18, 2024 – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists regrets the decision by Sinclair Broadcast Group station to drop Univision from its Portland television station, less than a year after a similar move in Seattle.
KUNP-TV, Sinclair’s Portland Spanish-language television station, will drop its affiliation with Univision and switch to English-language news and sports programming in 2025. The move will leave the Portland area’s growing Hispanic population without a source of national Spanish-language news programming.
Sinclair will be broadcasting Portland Trail Blazers games on KUNP-TV, after recently acquiring rights from the NBA franchise.
“The civic value of Spanish-language broadcast news is inestimable in the Pacific Northwest, where Spanish-speakers have few sources of reliable information,” said NAHJ President Dunia Elvir. “Spanish programming provides immigrant communities with a way to understand and connect with the society and economy of their adopted country, and it curbs the spread of disinformation.”
“Broadcasters have to make business decisions, but they too often overlook the growing influence and buying power of the Hispanic community,” she added.
Oregon is home to 583,000 who identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 14% of the state’s population. Around 8% of the state’s population speaks Spanish at home.
Latinos have grown to more than 19 percent of the U.S. population, and their collective purchasing power reached $3.4 trillion in 2021. While 72% speak English proficiently, a majority say they speak Spanish at home, and 28% say they are not fluent in English. Despite the size of the market, Spanish programing is often the first to go when news organizations scale back.
In November 2023, Sinclair’s Seattle station KUNS-TV decided to end its affiliation with Univision, leaving the area’s growing Hispanic population without a source of national Spanish-language programming and cut off access to the region’s lone, locally produced TV newscast in Spanish.
In the past two years, the Washington Post cut its Spanish-language podcast and opinion section, the Dallas Morning News disbanded the staff of 18-year-old publication Al Dia and assigned them to other teams, and the LA Times announced deep cuts that disproportionately
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About the National Association of Hispanic Journalists
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is an educational and charitable association dedicated to the recognition and professional advancement of Hispanic students, professionals, and educators in the field of journalism. NAHJ focuses heavily on advocacy, addressing injustices and political issues that affect Latino journalists throughout the country, while also supporting a growing network of members and chapters. For more information please visit NAHJ.org or follow us on X @NAHJ.