In this report we examine demand for Spanish language content in the United States so far this year. We reveal the demand share of Spanish language content in the US relative to English and other Non-English languages. Additionally, we show the top Spanish language series in the US and what their impact is to demand for Spanish language content as a whole.
Not surprisingly, English language content dominates American audiences’ attention. In the first half of this year, 84.5% of demand in the US was for a series originally produced in English. However, in the same time period in 2019, English language series accounted for 87.4% of demand. This suggests a trend towards linguistic diversity in American audiences’ content demand.
Shows that were originally in Japanese account for the largest share of demand for non-English series in the US with a 31.7% demand share. This is primarily due to the popularity of Japanese Anime content in the US market. Content originally in Spanish is the second most in-demand among non-English content in the US with a 16.3% demand share of all non-English content. It is important to note that this is only measuring series by their original language so does not factor in subtitles or dubbing for example.
Demand for Spanish language series in June is up 3.1% compared to its average demand in January. This result outperforms how English language content has fared so far this year – down 8.5% (January average compared to June). Demand for Spanish language content has also outpaced the growth in demand for non-English content in general. Spanish language content has helped drive the broader increase in demand for non-English content from American audiences.
A select few Spanish language series make an outsize contribution to the demand for Spanish language content in the US. The above six series account for 19.7% of total demand for Spanish language content in the US so far this year. The top two, La Casa de Papel and Elite, are Netflix digital originals. La Casa de Papel was by far the most popular in the US during this time. Its demand was 26.9 times larger than the average series in the US. This naturally raises the question of how much a dominant hit like La Casa de Papel is driving the larger trend in demand for Spanish language content. Below, we’ve broken down the demand trend to show the impact of this one series.
During the peak of La Casa de Papel’s popularity, following the Season 4 release on April 3, this one show accounted for over 10% of the growth in demand for Spanish language content in the US. This is an impressive amount of growth driven by a single show in a category that includes 657 other Spanish language series. However, as is characteristic of all-at-once episode releases, the large peak diminished quickly and by July this show explained around 2% of the category growth from the beginning of the year. This shows the growth in US demand for Spanish language is a trend larger than a single hit show.
