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(SINGING) La Ley! It's Radio Rey.

MARISA HELMS: One station has dominated Twin Cities Spanish language radio for the past quarter century.

SPEAKER: This is Radio Rey, La Ley, 63WDGY Hudson, Saint Paul, Minneapolis. Radio Rey. It's La Ley.

MARISA HELMS: La Ley. That means "the law," the standard. Radio Rey, or Radio King, is the creation of Guadalupe Gonzales. He came to Minneapolis from Mexico in the early 1970s to work in a die casting factory, but says he fell into radio.

GUADALUPE GONZALES: In America, everybody's got a chance. This is where there's dreams-- should always make dreams for everybody.

MARISA HELMS: Today many call Gonzalez, a pioneer, the godfather of Minnesota's Spanish language radio. Wearing his trademark gray fedora around the studios, Gonzales says it's easy to understand the station's success and longevity.

GUADALUPE GONZALES: The people like it, not because it's real professional, because it's been so many years, 27 years service to the people, and we're real, real do simple things, we're not do nothing way high.

[PHONE RINGING]

DEEJAY NANCY: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MARISA HELMS: Radio Rey broadcasts from a small storefront on East Lake Street in Minneapolis. The door to the cramped studio is not soundproof. Gonzales simply walks in while DJ Nancy is on air fielding calls during a dance concert give away.

GUADALUPE GONZALES: This girl is really good. Really good. [INAUDIBLE]

DEEJAY NANCY: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

GUADALUPE GONZALES: This is where we do a lot of talking and do this and do that and do this and kind that tricks in there.

DEEJAY NANCY: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MARISA HELMS: Gonzales plays Mexican regional music nearly all the time on his AM station. It's the sentimental favorite of his listeners. 90% of them are from across Mexico. Gonzales is dismissive of competition. He says other Spanish language radio stations have tried to make it in the Twin Cities, but fail because their radio signal is too weak and they can't get the advertising revenue. But now there's a new AM station just a mile away down Lake Street. It's got lots of energy, money, and dreams of prying open Radio Rey's lock on the market. It's called La Invasora, the invader.

DEEJAY EL VAQUERO: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

ALBERTO MONSERRATE: One of the main reasons we used that name is because it was a popular name in Mexico. And most of our audience is from Mexico.

MARISA HELMS: Alberto Monserrate is President and CEO of Latino Communications Network which owns La Invasora.

ALBERTO MONSERRATE: But we did want to play a little bit with the concept of us invading the airwaves in the Twin Cities and have a little fun with that too. That's probably how the competition took it, that we were invading.

MARISA HELMS: Observers say La Invasora could well give Radio Rey a run for its money and market dominance. That's largely because the station has a deep pocket investor in New York, and the station's owner also owns Minnesota's oldest and biggest Spanish language newspapers and magazines, including La Prensa and Gente de Minnesota.

LUIS FITCH: From an outsider, I think I will be really, really concerned with them.

MARISA HELMS: Luis Fitch owns a design and marketing firm that helps corporate clients gain a foothold in the growing Latino consumer market.

LUIS FITCH: What LCN, Latino Communication Networks, offers, it's a complete package. If I was an advertiser, I would like to negotiate bigger packages than just radio. I want to say, what else can you do for me.

MARISA HELMS: It doesn't cost very much to advertise on Radio Rey and La Invasora, $100 to produce a 1-minute ad, and then $40 to $50 each time it airs. In the biggest markets in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, or New York, you can't do anything for less than $200, and there's usually a requirement to buy multiple spots. La Invasora's managers estimate the ad revenue for Minnesota's Spanish language radio stations is about $1 million a year, but has the potential to grow to millions more as the market for Spanish language radio expands.

Marketing analyst Luis Fitch says advertisers who want to reach the Latino market should be interested in radio, because it's hugely important to many Mexican immigrants living here. Fitch says radio connects the community to the cultural and political happenings, and many listen from when they wake up until they go to sleep at night. Fitch says most people listen four to six hours a day.

LUIS FITCH: I'm going to generalize with this, but the majority of this target market are working at the kitchen, at restaurants, they're working at hotels, they're gardeners, they're working in roofs, and their parts of their entertainment, it's the radio, again. So they're always connected to radio, and radio is extremely, extremely important.

MARISA HELMS: Given that listenership, it's not surprising that the one thing both Radio Rey and La Invasora are focusing on is the current political situation.

DEEJAY EL VAQUERO: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MARISA HELMS: In the La Invasora studio, DJ El Vaquero talks to listeners about their favorite Mexican soccer teams.

ALBERTO MONSERRATE: So it's usually kind of the fun and games you're seeing now, but where we've really gotten the most response out of anything we've done has always been when we deal with the whole immigration issue.

MARISA HELMS: La Invasora's Monserrate says his seven-month-old station was born with the current immigration rallies and recent boycott called "A Day Without Immigrants." Both events aimed to raise the visibility of the economic and political muscle of Minnesota's Latinos. Before the events this spring, Monserrate says station hosts exhorted listeners to show up and be heard at the demonstrations.

ALBERTO MONSERRATE: It's a combination of something that we felt we should do in the radio, because it was very obvious that our listeners wanted, but also we felt that we needed to be part of it ourselves. So it's something that our audience is responded like nothing else we've done.

MARISA HELMS: La Invasora's competition, Radio Rey, also gave hours of airtime to promoting the rallies. An estimated 30,000 people attended the April rally at the State Capitol. Many give Radio Rey and La Invasora credit for the big turnout.

The dominant English language stations like KQRS and WCCO have little to fear from Radio Rey and La Invasora, but Spanish language radio is undoubtedly a growing market. Clear Channel Communications has switched 33 of its stations nationwide to the Spanish language format, and the number one station in Los Angeles, it's all in Spanish.

Competition between Radio Rey and La Invasora is heating up. Radio Rey's owner, Guadalupe Gonzalez, recently learned his ratings are dropping. La Invasora, on the other hand, is talking about expanding its reach to the FM dial. This is Marisa Helms, Minnesota Public Radio news.