L.A. magazine parent to launch publication catering to Latinos.

From their makeshift office high above Wilshire Boulevard, Jaime Gamboa and Gabriel Grimalt say they want to do more than create another glossy magazine destined for the coffee tables of wealthy Angelenos.

The co-publishers of Tu Ciudad, an Emmis Communications Corp. title expected to debut in May, are trying to tap the burgeoning demographic of upwardly mobile Latinos who speak English but still want publications that speak to them culturally.

Tu Ciudad will join Tribune Co.'s Distinction, Brentwood magazine and Emmis' long-running Los Angeles magazine in the growing local market for titles that offer celebrity profiles, restaurant reviews and lifestyle features.

As an English-language title aimed at Hispanics in metropolitan Los Angeles, Tu Ciudad (or "Your City") has aspirations to become the flagship publication for a network of regional titles serving a demographic that spent $78 billion in 2004, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.

Gamboa, who was West Coast advertising director for Time Inc.'s People En Espanol before creating Tu Ciudad, declined to identify advertisers who have bought space in the inaugural June/July issue. He said the largest categories so far are automotive, financial and alcoholic beverages.

Tu Ciudad will start as a bimonthly with a circulation of 110,000 (70,000 copies of the first issue will be given away to targeted households, 35,000 will go on sale at newsstands and 5,000 will be given to businesses frequented by potential readers). Emmis wants to shift to a monthly schedule after the first three issues.

There are plans for Tu Ciudads in New York, Chicago and Miami, but those launches depend on the success of the Los Angeles publication.

Plenty of competition

It is not the first to go after the high-end market. In September, San Antonio, Texas, investor Julio Gudino debuted Bello, an English-language Latino lifestyle magazine by including 351,000 copies in a Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. At the time, Gudino said the magazine, which has national aspirations, would be published quarterly, then bi-monthly, then monthly, as ad sales and circulation grew. Unlike Tu Ciudad, it is distributed nationwide (although most of its readers are expected to be in California).

Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, chief operating officer of the Hispanic marketing agency Enlace Communications, said advertisers are awakening to the potential of the Hispanic market.

"Without any quantifiable indicators--just the pulse of the market--the appetite of corporate America is really starting to focus on the affluent, bilingual Hispanic market," she said. "There's definitely interest. The trick is translating that interest into sales."

The odds for a magazine start-up are routinely low. More than 1,000 titles were launched in the United States in 2004, the highest number since 1998, said Samir Husni, a professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi. On average, about 62 percent fail within a year.

But glossy titles aimed at high-end readers are among the most successful. "This craze of regional magazines aimed at the cream of the crop of society is exploding like we've never seen before," he said. "All of them are advertising-driven and you are driving the audience to advertisers on a sliver platter."

Unlike the African-American market, which has the venerable national magazines Jet and Essence, there is no general-interest national magazine targeting Hispanics. People, Reader's Digest, Vogue and Cosmopolitan all have Spanish-language companion publications.

Gamboa said Tu Ciudad and similar publications should be more successful on a regional level because the Hispanic market is split among Mexican-Americans in California and Texas, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in New York, and Cuban-Americans in Florida.

"To produce a national magazine for such a fragmented market is really a challenge," Gamboa said.

Tu Ciudad in Los Angeles will have a staff of about 25, including 11 in editorial. It will be edited by Oscar Garza, who most recently was deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

Garza said the magazine will aim for a wide range of Hispanic readers with articles about music, culture, food, personalities, fashion, politics and the arts. "Like our sister publication downstairs, we are a city publication," he said, referring to Los Angeles magazine. "The difference is, we're looking at our city through a distinctly Latino prism."

Gary Thoe, president of Emmis' publishing division, said Tu Ciudad and Los Angeles magazines will have separate advertising and editorial staffs, although Los Angeles magazine ad representatives will suggest placing ads in Tu Ciudad and both magazines will offer package deals.

Fernando Diaz, Bello's editor-in-chief, said the marketplace is big enough for both Bello and Tu Ciudad, although he said he doesn't know whether Tu Ciudad represents a threat to his magazine's readership. "Until you see something, you never know, especially here in the United States," he said. "We're the kings of media hype and spin."