TelevisaUnivision: No Advertiser Hesitancy Over Inflation

On Wednesday morning, CEO Wade Davis proudly discussed with Wall Street analysts a 12.2% percent revenue increase for TelevisaUnivision for its first quarter as a merged company. That included both ratings and advertising gains for the U.S. market, which has Davis very optimistic heading into the Upfront.

But with high inflation taking hold in the U.S., Deutsche Bank analyst Aaron Watts wanted to know whether the Spanish-language TV giant is seeing any advertiser hesitation.

“No, to the extent that there’s any categories that are soft it’s not really macro-economic driven,” Davis replied.

“It’s really supply chain driven. The categories that are soft — in addition to auto, which is been an issue for the marketplace over the past quarters — we’re seeing a little bit of softness in food, a little bit of softness in CPG. Other than that, we’re seeing huge strength across the board. Pharma is up 34%. Finance is up almost 50%. Retail is up 40%,” Davis said.

TelevisaUnivision, which had first published its results April 26, reported total revenue up 12.2% pro forma to $925 million. Total advertising was up 12% to $559 million.

“Looking at performance by region, in the U.S. advertising revenue grew 14% to $392 million. We had our best first quarter performance in five years, reflecting growth across all divisions, media networks, digital, local TV, radio and streaming,” said CFO Carlos Ferreiro.

“Networks grew 10% as higher pricing and ratings growth offset lower volumes. We had record pricing in both upfront and scatter sales, with the highest scatter premiums in the company’s history,” the CFO reported.

Just two days ago, TelevisaUnivision announced the acquisition of Pantaya LLC, a streaming platform in the U.S. for Spanish-language movies, which is being integrated with the newly-launched VIX streaming service in the U.S., Mexico and Latin America. Ferreiro disclosed that the price is $150 million in cash and two radio stations in Puerto Rico.

Davis told the analysts that there were no hitches in launching VIX, despite combining multiple existing streaming products and switching from a third-party provider to TelevisaUnivision’s own streaming platform. The ad-supported product will remain the primary focus, but a subscription tier, VIX+, will be added in the second half of this year.