PR Newswire Acquires Triple-Play Hispanic Firm for Ad Network, News Distribution

PR Newswire, a company built on public relations and the dissemination of news releases, has acquired a trio of Hispanic oriented businesses. It hopes the move will give it better access to a fast growing online segment, as well as help it build a publisher network for the distribution of multimedia content and perhaps ads as well.

Previously all operating under the same management, Hispanic PR Wire, LatinClips and Hispanic Digital Network (HDN) were acquired for approximately $5.5 million by PR Newswire. Hispanic PR Wire provides distribution of Spanish language news releases, LatinClips is a Hispanic media monitoring service and the Hispanic Digital Network creates Web sites for 80 news and content firms and manages advertising for them.

First and foremost, the acquisitions will give PR Newswire greater access to the growing U.S. Hispanic market, according to Dave Armon, chief operating officer for PR Newswire. The purchase of HDN in particular also gives the company access to a specialized network of publishers. HDN was created in 2003 to provide Hispanic media with Web site technology while giving HDN access to those sites via its advertising platform. Following the acquisition, PR Newswire intends to expand the network to handle video content, possibly created by its MultiVu division, which specializes in broadband and multimedia news releases. It also intends combine ad buying with traditional news releases.

“We’ve realized that at times in order to get the eyeballs that our customers need beyond just the editorial content, an advertising campaign is appropriate,” said Armon. “A good example of that is when a customer wants to draw attention to their video, we may very well put a search buy with Google or Yahoo or MSN to drive traffic to that video.”

HDN will continue to expand its Hispanic publisher base to additional radio and television stations, according to Manny Ruiz, formerly president and co-founder of the three companies, and now president Hispanic PR Wire. The company also intends to add additional social media features to its technology platform offerings in the next few weeks.

“The most important thing about this deal is with the resources of PR Newswire we will be able to more fully build out a Hispanic advertising platform, which is marketing and PR,” he said.

Hispanic PR Wire, LatinClips and Hispanic Digital Network (HDN) will all close their Miami-based headquarters and be integrated into PR Newswire.