Each weekday morning on AM 1700, disc jockeys Ahydee Urrieta and Antonio Aburto crank out hit music, discuss community issues with a variety of professionals, review the morning’s top news stories and take calls from listeners.

Though it may seem like a typical morning program found on dozens of other frequencies throughout Iowa, the station, La Indomable, is broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week in Spanish.

“I want to have the go-to Hispanic radio station in Iowa,” said Terry Peters, vice president for Citadel Broadcasting Corp.’s Urbandale-based operations, which owns La Indomable and several other stations. “If you’re a Spanish-speaking individual living in Des Moines or the state of Iowa, I want you to think of La Indomable as your best friend, your information source and your entertainment vehicle.”

The influx of Hispanics into Iowa has resulted in an increase in the number of Hispanic-owned businesses, such as automobile repair shops, beauty salons, restaurants and grocery stores. As that segment of the business community has emerged in the state, so too have Spanish-language media outlets that serve not only to entertain and inform the growing Hispanic population, but also provide a route for businesses to market to the Hispanic community.

For two years, Citadel leased AM 1700 to an individual who broadcast Spanish-language programming under the name La Ley. When Peters took the helm of Citadel’s Greater Des Moines office earlier this year, he saw an opportunity for the company to take over 100 percent control of the station’s programming and make improvements. “There were some interests, especially in the Hispanic community, that weren’t being served from a programming perspective,” Peters said.

Citadel terminated the lease agreement and AM 1700 became La Indomable, which officially went on the air Sept. 8. La Ley was picked up by Perry Broadcasting Co. Inc. and began to broadcast in mid-September.

“We started off with all Hispanic advertising, and now we’re going to a large number of English-based businesses,” said Chester Coleman, owner and general manager of Perry Broadcasting, which broadcasts La Ley on 105.5 FM. “It’s a whole new audience to tap into that they’ve never reached out to. It’s not for everybody. It just depends on if they’re comfortable doing it or not.”

As a result of these moves, Central Iowa now has two Spanish-language radio stations, a first for the area and part of a nationwide trend. Coleman said it is the fastest-growing radio format nationwide with more than 900 stations now on the air. But is there a market for that much Hispanic programming? Peters says yes, but with some caution.

“Obviously I’m a big fan of competition,” he said. “But the flip side of this is the market is not that big, unless there are some things behind the curtain that aren’t being seen.” La Indomable has exceeded Citadel’s initial expectations, and Peters said the Las Vegas-based company has seen great success with Spanish-language stations in markets such as Oklahoma City. But he added that many of those markets have much larer Hispanic populations than Central Iowa.

The need for a Spanish-language station in Perry was obvious, Coleman said, from the perspective of listeners and advertisers. Of the town’s 8,200 residents, 35 percent are Hispanic.

“There have been a few squawks from people who are not really up to the challenge of Spanish radio, and some people may never want to see any change,” he said. “But overall, I’d say 60 to 70 percent of advertisers have said, ‘I’m really interested. Tell me more.’”

At La Indomable, the primary focus is Latin American music. But the day’s air time is also filled with news and information on everything from upcoming events to financial issues. With a signal that extends from Coralville to Council Bluffs and Clarion to Creston, the station is able to reach pockets of Hispanics located throughout the state.

Gloria Mendez keeps La Indomable on at her Des Moines office during the day. She enjoys the music variety that goes beyond Mexican to include genres such as salsa and merengue. She has been able to learn from listening to informational segments during the morning show with guests that include police officers, bankers, attorneys and health-care professionals.

But Mendez, a native of Mexico and an agent for Farmers Insurance who opened a South Side office last year, is also on the other end of the station’s operations, serving as a weekly on-air guest to answer listeners’ insurance questions, such as what to do when you’re in a car accident and the other driver is uninsured. She insists she’s not doing it to promote her business, but to help the Hispanic community.

“It is great that the community is getting more information, since there is a language barrier,” she said. “They don’t know where they can go. I have people who come in here asking for different information, like how to get a driver’s license, things that have nothing to do with insurance.”

Mendez is also one of La Indomable’s many Hispanic advertisers. But as the station finds its footing, Peters expects it will expand to include more non-Hispanic advertisers, which often requires clients to take a new approach to marketing.

“I would tell my sales team that if you have a customer or a prospective customer that’s a bank, go in and talk to them about marketing to Hispanics,” he said. “What about bilingual tellers at a bank? What about insurance products that are targeted toward Hispanics? These businesses are certainly not predisposed to be thinking in terms of Hispanics, but the world is changing.”

Banks and other financial institutions in particular have taken the lead in marketing through Spanish-language media outlets, Peters and Coleman said. Other businesses, such as Tyson Foods Inc., have used radio stations and newspapers to advertise employment opportunities, which continues to provide a major boost to Jose Ramos and his weekly Spanish-language newspaper, El Latino.

He started the newspaper five years ago out of a spare room in his home. It was a one-man operation for two years. But as the Hispanic population increased, so did the number of Hispanic-owned businesses and therefore the number of advertisers spending money in El Latino.

Now with an office on East Grand Avenue and a six-person staff, many of whom have other full-time jobs and work for the newspaper on evenings and weekends, Ramos focuses on covering issues and events, such as soccer games, and other topics of interest to the Hispanic community that aren’t covered by the traditional media. His efforts were helped through a subscription to a Spanish-language news wire service, EFE, that covers news and events passed over by other wire services, such as The Associated Press.

“Sometimes we publish very good news that isn’t published in the (Des Moines) Register,” Ramos said.

As he continues to build El Latino, he has contemplated adding an intern and hopes to eventually buy a printing press. He has also considered printing a bilingual edition of the newspaper to reach the portion of the Hispanic community that may not be able to read Spanish. He continues to operate under the constraints of a limited staff and a tight budget.

But for El Latino and other businesses that are still struggling through their infancy and sometimes faced by new competitors, their focus remains the same: to help the members of the Hispanic community and to make sure that their efforts to stay informed are not hindered by a language barrier.

“There’s always music in there,” Peters said of La Indomable, “but we’re focusing a lot on how we can continue to embrace the Hispanic community.”