This Week in Las Noticias

A Hispanic Hit at the Cineplex (Time) - The No. 1 movie last weekend at Los Angeles' Landmark Pavilion theater, an art-house mecca, was the same as the one that drew the biggest crowds at the Block Orange, a 30-screen AMC theater in a sprawling Orange County shopping mall: a tiny, Spanish-language sleeper called Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna).

Cellphones dial remittances across borders (Los Angeles Times) - Remittance giant Western Union Corp. said Tuesday that it was rolling out a service that would enable consumers in the U.S. to send money to relatives in Latin America using their cellular phones.

'New' Univision Opens Up (Mediaweek) - As this year’s upfront marketplace approaches, Univision, the once rigidly siloed Hispanic broadcast and radio company, has been restructured to resemble its counterparts in the English-language media—many of whom it is out-rating on certain nights in prime time among key younger demos.

McClatchy to Boost Spanish Content (Associated Press) - Hoping to offset its losses in the U.S. newspaper market, McClatchy Co. will sharpen its focus on the rapidly growing Hispanic community by sharing articles and other content with a major publisher of Spanish-language publications.

Houston Cathedral Offers Vietnamese Mass as Demographics Change (Bloomberg) - Houston's newest addition to downtown isn't another skyscraper. It's a $50 million cathedral for an archdiocese whose diversity may offer a glimpse of Roman Catholicism's future in the U.S.

Wilmington gets 1st Spanish-language radio station (Star News) - In North Carolina, the Hispanic population grew nearly 58 percent, to 595,376, between 2000 and 2006, according to Pew. The buying power of Hispanics is booming, so radio executives are hoping to attract advertisers to the new format, said Barry Brown, regional vice president of NextMedia.

State Farm Shows Latinos at Life's Intersections (Adweek) - The first of five TV spots in the "Aqui estoy" ("I am there") campaign have started to air on Hispanic TV. Ads tell culturally iconic human interest stories, reflecting the situations that consumers often encounter during life's various stages, such as going out on your own, affording ballet lessons for a budding ballerina, daring to dream and going after a big record deal.