Money Minute: A cable channel with a Latino accent [Video]

Media companies try to go where the audience is, and that’s what Disney’s ABC News division and Univision are doing with a deal to create an English-language cable channel for U.S. Latinos.

The channel is slated to be up and running by early next year, and the media companies say it will be “a 24/7 news, information and lifestyle network primarily in English that will serve the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the country.”

It’s no surprise the media heavyweights would target this crowd. According to Nielsen, the buying power of Latinos was estimated at $1 trillion in 2010 and will grow to $1.5 trillion by 2015.

Those are the kind of number that get advertisers salivating.

I certainly understand why ABC and Univision would want to launch something like this, and I suspect it will be very successful. My concern is the continuing fragmentation of society.

As more media companies focus on specific groups, it becomes increasingly difficult to have anything that approximates a “national conversation” on specific issues.

Instead, we end up with myriad conversations, mostly among people who already are of a like mind. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes addressing major national issues even more challenging than it is now.

When was the last time, after all, that anyone got anything serious done at a cocktail party?