Fusion

For Gizmodo, The Onion and other Univision-owned sites that are thinking about TV, it helps to have a TV channel in the family.

Univision executives gave a big plug to the multicultural programming on cable net Fusion and the efforts to diversify the range of programming on the mothership broadcast networks during its upfront presentation in New York today. “What marketers thought of as multicultural media is fast becoming mainstream,” Steve Mandala, Univision’s EVP of ad sales, told the crowd of media buyers gathered at the Lyric Theater.

The red-carpet event will take place May 20 in New York. A joint broadcast of that program is scheduled to air June 2. The collaboration marks the first time the awards ceremony will be telecast on both national broadcast and cable television.

While a majority of editorial staffers at Fusion signed union cards earlier this month, their efforts face new resistance from upper level management at the millennial-geared web publisher. According to Fusion staffers, executives have told employees at meetings in New York, Miami, Oakland and Los Angeles over the past two weeks that unionization would alter benefits, impact hiring and firing, hinder communication between writers and editors and cap salaries.

Ricardo Bilton lays out a few key details about Univision and Fusion now that Disney is out of the picture. First, the millennial site is now part of a new Fusion Media Group division, which also includes The Onion and The Root. Reportedly, Disney and Univision also clashed over the brand’s edginess and “political tone.” But the move, along with Univision’s many recent ones in digital, is costly. Univision is $50 million in the hole to buy Disney out, and meanwhile Fusion had $63.5 million in revenue last year and $37 million in losses.

Univision won’t say how it came to assume the Disney-owned network’s stake in Fusion — which had been a joint venture — or, assuming it’s a sale, how much it paid. But it does say that it has already replaced ABC in distributing the network, and handling ad sales.

Fusion | Booth SL11030 | Website: http://www.fusionbroadcast.com/ Two longtime broadcast industry professionals, Carl J. Dempsey and Steve Farmer, have announced the launch of Fusion, which will debut at the 2016 […]

In the latest of an ongoing series on how different news organizations are deploying distributed content strategies, Mădălina Ciobanu looks at Fusion’s operation. Fusion deploys a 12-person team for content production on Instagram, Vine, Tumblr and Snapchat Discover, the latter to which eight members are devoted daily. The team, which collaborates on Slack, is also divided between Oakland, New York and Fusion’s Miami HQ.

Disney is planning to sell its stake in cable network Fusion. The network launched two years ago as a joint venture of Disney’s ABC News and Univision. But Disney now plans to sell its stake, with Univision as a likely buyer, according to a person familiar with the matter but unauthorized to speak on the subject. The deal could still fall through and other bidders could emerge, but the source says that Disney’s plan to sell its stake has become an open secret in the Fusion offices over the last six months.

The cable channel and digital media network is getting a trial run as a channel on Snapchat’s Discover feature, starting today. Fusion has had a presence on the international version of Discover since January, when it launched, but will get “a couple months” on the U.S. and U.K. edition.

Fusion is wasting no time equivocating about whether or not it should jump into the distributed content game. The site, which has struggled to find an audience, said Monday that has assembled a 12-person team for the task, eight of whom are devoted to Snapchat. Lucia Moses reports on why new platforms are so important to Fusion (one reason is that they’re a testing ground for possible TV content).

After announcing a change in programming priorities in September, the Doral, Fla.-based Fusion, a joint venture between Univision and the Walt Disney-owned ABC News, has revamped its overall television schedule and laid off 30 full-time employees.

As expected, Fusion CEO Isaac Lee outlined, in a Thursday memo to staff, a series of changes to the television network’s “existing in-house, studio-based shows” that includes the discontinuation of its latenight series Come Here and Say That, hosted by Alicia Menendez. Another series, Soccer Gods, will become a “digital-first brand.”

Fusion, the multimedia company formed from a joint investment of Univision and Disney-ABC, is preparing an overhaul of its television business strategy. Fusion’s in-house-produced television programming will be pared back, and job cuts will be part of the TV strategy shift, sources said. The changes could be announced as early as this week.

It may be struggling to find an audience and identity, but at least Fusion will now have a virtual reality unit. Benjamin Mullin reports on the nascent effort outlined in a memo from Alexis Madrigal, Fusion’s EIC, who cautions that VR’s audience will be small (ahem) at first.

For Fusion, it’s all about building an audience. That’s why the digital media company and cable TV network today announced a new app on the over-the-top streaming service Roku.

Eighteen months after its launch, Fusion, the Univision-ABC News joint venture cable network, is still trying to carve out its identity in a crowded field of programmers vying for the attention of millennials. It is struggling to seize the fragmented, short-span attention of its target demographic.

Univision’s IPO filing has yielded some interesting information about Fusion, which is jointly owns with The Walt Disney Co. It posted a net loss of $35 million in 2014 based on $28.1 million in revenue and $63.4 million in expenses.

The news and pop-culture multi-platform outlet has received commitments from its owners — Disney and Univision — for $30 million in additional financing, sources say. The 19-month-old TV, streaming and online news outfit, which is in 40 million homes, was initially aimed at English-speaking Latinos but now is looking to broaden its audience.

Fusion will bring five original shows to Snapchat’s Discover platform. The shows will be unscripted and will court an international audience. They include The Artisans, Weird Threads and Science Fiction, Science Fact.

Fusion, the cable news channel owned by ABC News and Univision, will be running a show dedicated to covering the 2014 midterm elections — and making it accessible to viewers that don’t get the channel as part of their cable package. Fusion will run the series, Midterm Mayhem: The Ultimate Political Smackdown, Sunday through Thursday at 9:30 p.m., and will also stream it on its website Fusion.net.