I’m not sure how others are reacting to this news, but I am a bit stunned at the MTV Tr3s announcement. Stunned, excited but with nervous trepidation. How are they going to pull this off without making it utterly annoying?

Music network MTV announced today it will launch a new English-Spanish hybrid channel. The new outlet will be dubbed MTV Tr3s, and will feature music and other programming appealing to the 12- to 34-year-old US Latino demographic.

As others have commented on a previous post, the whole Spanglish thing can be very irritating to some, especially with regard to people who are talking at you (as in an advertisement) rather than in the course of a normal conversation. It’s almost like they are trying too hard to be bi-cultural. Normally, I’d say “when not done right, can be irritating”, but the thing is here that I don’t know if it can be done right if you don’t just naturally speak that way. I mean are the VJs going to switch back and forth mid-sentence, or are some going to speak Spanish and some in English? I think the key here is that the tone needs to be natural and not self aware, a feat which may be impossible for MTV. Let’s wait and see.

Aside from the Spanglish aspect, bounding for the 18-34 US Latino market = very smart. Let’s see if advertisers’ creative can keep up.
Via TV.com
Related: Media Week, Reuters

Technorati Tags: MTV, spanglish, latino marketing, television, TV, cable, music, hispanic marketing, Tr3s