Univision

Venezuelan billionaire businessman Gustavo Cisneros, who grew the family business Cisneros Group into an influential media conglomerate across Latin America and the U.S., has died at age 78.

When the U.S.’s largest Spanish-language network ran a friendly interview with the former president, Democrats cried foul. Executives say they’re seeking more balance.

Jorge Ramos, the Univision star anchor who has become as defined by his clashes with the Trump administration as he has by his coverage of major world events, has become the latest of the Spanish-language network’s top anchors to take issue with an interview broadcast by the news division earlier this month with the former president.

Members of Congress plan to ask for a meeting with a company executive as a famous actor, a Univision founder and Latino rights advocacy groups speak out.

León Krauze, one of the most prominent anchors at Univision’s news division, has left the network in the wake of a controversial interview with former President Donald Trump that took place last week and has spurred concerns among journalists at the company that the Spanish-language media giant is no longer challenging Republican politicians.

The presence of corporate executives at Mar-a-Lago raises alarm among Democrats who are used to Latino media criticism of the former president’s policies.

The move, on Jan. 1, 2024,  spells the end not only of national Spanish-language programming but also the region’s lone, locally produced TV newscast in Spanish.

The Wednesday night debate was the second in a row that the front-runner, former President Donald Trump, skipped to have the spotlight follow him instead of his distant rivals. Viewership was down from the 12.8 million who tuned into August’s debate, which marked the first time much of America heard from the other Republicans hoping to take on Trump.

The Univision anchor, one of three moderators, caught some candidates off-guard with questions on immigration and hate crimes.

Fox News Media and Univision have announced the co-moderators of the second Republican presidential primary set to air across Fox Business Network and Univision on Sept. 27, at 9-11 p.m. ET at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. Fox Business’ Stuart Varney and Fox News’ Dana Perino have been named as co-moderators for the event by Fox News Media, while Univision named its evening news anchor Ilia Calderón as co-moderator.

The second GOP presidential primary debate will take place on Fox Business on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. The business news network will partner with Spanish-speaking broadcaster Noticias Univision, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute and conservative media streaming platform Rumble.

Several of the country’s biggest entertainment and streaming companies are teaming up to fight hundreds of local broadcasters over a years-old provision that would determine whether they are forced to negotiate directly with those local stations for distribution deals.  The Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition, which launched Wednesday, is made up of major entertainment companies and their broadcast networks, including Disney/ABC, Paramount/CBS, Fox Corp./Fox, NBCUniversal/NBC/Telemundo, Warner Bros. Discovery, Univision and Roku.

Univision has come to terms with virtual MVPD provider FuboTV on a broadcast retransmission deal, ending an impasse that threatened to black out channels including the flagship Univision, UniMas, Galavision and TUDN.

Wade Davis, CEO of the just-merged TelevisaUnivision, said 2021 was “the first time in more than 15 years that Univision has grown ad sales sequentially after a political year.”

Spanish-language media giant Univision has agreed to license the ad industry’s Ad-ID advertising assets coding system to identify, track and “significantly improve targeting and delivery” for ads aimed at its Hispanic viewers. The deal follows NBC Universal’s agreement announced last summer, and provides new impetus for the advertising asset management system jointly owned by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers.

Shammas was part of the original team that re-launched WUVG Atlanta for Univision in 2002. It was the market’s first Spanish-language stations. Most recently he was GM of WKTB, the Telemundo affiliate in Atlanta.

The new entity, known as TelevisaUnivision Inc., builds on a previous production alliance created by the companies as they looked to fend off a rising number of rivals aiming at Hispanic viewers in the age of streaming. As of the merger close, the company claims reach to more than 60% of TV audiences in both the U.S. and Mexico. Across television, digital, streaming and audio, the company says its audience is more than 100 million Spanish speakers daily.

Univision Communications has named Michael Schwimmer to the new post of president, global platform strategy and revenue. One of those platforms is the Spanish-language broadcaster’s new unified streaming service that is slated to launch later this year. Univision is in the process of merging with Mexico’s Televisa to form what the broadcasters say will be the world’s largest Spanish-language media company.

Univision has added four new executives to strengthen its streaming team in preparation for the launch of its upcoming two-tiered global platform that is slated to deliver Spanish-language content to 600 million people worldwide. Roger Sole has been appointed chief marketing officer, Vincenzo Gratteri SVP of development, Adam Waltuch SVP of streaming partnerships and Rita Chertorivski SVP of business and legal affairs.

A nearly two-year-old collaboration between Florida International University and Univision puts the station group’s newsrooms a STEP ahead.

Noticias Univision 24/7 is now reporting live on PrendeTV. More than 100 Univision newsroom jobs announced in October have been filled throughout the U.S.

IPG’s Mediahub unit this morning announced a deal with Spanish-language media giant Univision to utilize third-party performance data as a “currency” for ad buys on its media outlets. Describing it as a “first-of-its-kind partnership,” the companies said they would utilize data and analytics from two suppliers — EDO Inc. and DatafuelX — to measure consumer behavior and to “predict engagement performance” for ad campaigns across Univision’s linear TV networks.

Christian Nodal and Olga Tanon, two popular Latino musicians, no doubt thought they were reaching core fans when they agreed to give interviews yesterday to Univision’s recently launched Sunday broadcast of Despierta America. But they were also helping the Spanish-language network make inroads in a weekend-morning news war that has grown increasingly competitive.

They are designed to propel the Spanish-language media company’s local media division into the next phase of growth.

Univision has selected Comscore as its exclusive linear local audience measurement provider for Hispanic TV stations it is acquiring in Washington, D.C., and Tampa and Orlando, Florida. The companies said they will also work together to “refine” Comscore’s measurement capabilities to capture more of the Hispanic audience.

CEO Wade Davis: “We actually grew the auto category” low- to mid-single-digits, “which is pretty remarkable relative to some of the performance of our peers.”

Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications, which late last year sold a majority stake to an investor group led by former Viacom CFO Wade Davis and then agreed to a merger with Mexican TV giant Televisa, reported a big increase in third quarter advertising revenue. The company said on Thursday that its quarterly revenue rose 20.3% to $754.7 million.

Univision will operate two Florida stations — WVEN and WOTF Orlando — and named executive Eddy Elguezabal the president and general manager of its Orlando and Tampa operations. Univision will also take over operations WMDO-CD Washington.

Starting Sept. 15, Univision, UniMás and Galavisión networks are available on YouTube TV. Subscribers in top Hispanic markets, including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas and Chicago, will also be able to access Univision and UniMás local news, weather and programming.

The appointments come as the Spanish-language service prepares to launch a two-tier streaming service upon the close of the Televisa-Univision merger.

The new team will manage the combined global operations upon the closing of Televisa-Univision merger.