Univision Grew Auto Advertising Last Quarter

Spanish-language media giant Univision has been making a lot of changes since an ownership reorganization last year and grew core advertising 37% in the third quarter to $356 million, recovering from an upfront last year that CEO Wade Davis candidly says “was one of the worst in the company’s history.”

Since the beginning of this year, Univision has hired more than 500 people, not only beefing up ad sales, but also adding functions that hadn’t previously existed, such as product design and development, next-generation data and analytics, and engineering.

The payoff? Davis points to a 17% improvement in ratings, with Univision’s networks now claiming 64% of Spanish-language viewership and 6.9% of total market — the highest ever.

He had something to report that we haven’t heard on any English-language TV company’s call this quarter.

“From an auto standpoint, we actually grew the auto category this quarter, which is pretty remarkable relative to some of the performance of our peers. We did see some softness in Tier 3 auto in local, but the strength of our national Tier 1 brand-driven spend more than offset that to drive kind of low- to mid-single-digits overall growth in the auto category,” Davis told analysts.

CFO Carlos Ferreiro had earlier pointed to entertainment, tech and pharma as categories driving ad growth in the third quarter.

“Advertisers are returning,” he said, and noted that advocacy spend is strong for both Univision’s TV and radio businesses.

Univision put in place a Washington, D.C.-based political ad sales operation for the 2020 election and increased political ad revenues by more than triple the 2016 election. That team is now expected to produce big results in the 2022 mid-terms.

“Historically, Univision’s gotten nowhere near its fair share of political advertising,” Davis noted.

“We’ve all read about the kind of tidal wave coming in political spend coming into the market. Obviously, our ability to perform is a function of the states we’re in and the states that have contentious races. And those line up well for us this year — we expect aggressive spending in Florida, in Texas, in Arizona. And the last thing I would say, with the Census data coming out, with Hispanic political affiliations being a little more fluid, it opens the door to spending from both parties,” the CEO said of next year’s campaigns.

Davis reported that all needed regulatory approvals have been obtained in Mexico for the pending merger of Univision with Televisa, but not yet in the U.S., although no issues have been raised. Rather than a fourth quarter closing, the companies are now looking to close early in the first quarter of 2022.