Univision
Univision (Spanish pronunciation: [uniβiˈsjon] ⓘ) is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content.[2] The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes telenovelas and other drama series, sports, sitcoms, reality and variety series, news programming, and imported Spanish-language feature films. Univision is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City,[3] and has its major studios, production facilities, and business operations based in Doral, Florida (near Miami).
Not to be confused with Unitel (Mongolia) or Univisium.Type
United States
605 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10158
U.S.[1]
- Univision East
- Univision West
Wade Davis (CEO)
- UniMás
- Galavisión
- Univision Tlnovelas
- TUDN
- see list at bottom
September 29, 1962
Debateable:
Raoul A. Cortez, Emilio Nicolas Sr., Rene Anselmo
Spanish International Network (1962–1987)
Univision is available on pay television providers throughout most of the United States, with local stations in over 60 markets with large Latin American communities. Most of these stations air full local newscasts and other local programming in addition to network shows; in major markets such as Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City, the local newscasts carried by the network's owned-and-operated stations are equally competitive with their English-language counterparts ratings-wise.
Randy Falco, who was executive vice president and COO since January 2011, took over as CEO on June 29 of that year after the departure of its former president and CEO Joe Uva in April 2011.[4][5] In March 2018, Falco announced that he would be retiring and stepping down after seven years as Univision CEO.[6]
In May 2018, Vincent L. Sadusky, having previously served as CEO of Media General Inc. and CFO and Treasurer of Telemundo Communications Inc., formally took over as CEO, replacing Falco.[7]
In February 2020, Searchlight Capital Partners, LP (“Searchlight”) and ForgeLight LLC (“ForgeLight”) acquired a 64% majority stake in Univision, Televisa to keep their 36% minority stake.[8] In December 2020, former Viacom CFO Wade Davis replaced Sadusky to become CEO, effective as of the closing of the transaction.[9]
History[edit]
Beginning as Spanish International Network[edit]
Univision's roots can be traced back to 1955, when Raoul A. Cortez started KCOR-TV, an independent station in San Antonio, Texas, which was the nation's first Spanish-only TV outlet.[10] The station was not profitable during its early years, and in 1961, Cortez sold KCOR-TV – now known as KWEX-TV – to a group headed by Mexican entertainment mogul Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, owner of Mexico-based Telesistema Mexicano (the forerunner of Televisa). Cortez's son-in-law Emilio Nicolás Sr., who helped produce variety programs for the station, held a 20% stake and remained as KWEX general manager for three decades. The new owners helped to turn around the station's fortunes by heavily investing in programming, most of it sourced from Telesistema Mexicano.[11]
On September 29, 1962, Azcárraga and his partners launched a second Spanish-language station, KMEX-TV, in Los Angeles. KWEX and KMEX formed the nucleus of the Azcárraga-owned Spanish International Network (SIN), created in late 1962. SIN was the first television network in the United States to broadcast its programming in a language other than English. From 1963 until 1987, SIN was managed from offices in New York by Rene Anselmo, a U.S. native who had worked for Azcárraga in Mexico City for eight years as head of Telesistema's programming export subsidiary. Having supervised the launch of KMEX, Anselmo spearheaded SIN's expansion, first into the New York City area, when it founded WXTV in Paterson, New Jersey (licensed in 1965 and launched in 1968), next in Fresno, California (licensed in 1969 and launched in 1972 as KFTV), and then by acquiring WLTV in Miami in 1971. That year, Azcárraga and his partners incorporated these five stations (separately from SIN) as the Spanish International Communications Corporation (SICC), with Anselmo named as president.[12]
Over the next 15 years, SIN and SICC would create other top-rated Spanish-language television stations throughout the United States; these included KTVW in Phoenix and KDTV in San Francisco (both owned by Anselmo) and a part-time affiliation with WCIU-TV in Chicago. The Mexican ownership interest in SIN and SICC transferred posthumously from Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta to his son, Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, in 1972. On July 4, 1976, the network began distributing its national feed via satellite, which originally was delivered as a superstation-type feed of San Antonio's KWEX-TV, before eventually switching to a direct programming feed of SIN, allowing cable television providers to carry the network on their systems at little cost. Between the mid-1970s and late-1980s, SIN began affiliating with startup Spanish-language stations in markets such as Dallas–Fort Worth (KUVN) and Houston (KXLN), as well as with independent stations that previously broadcast in English.[13][14]
In Chicago, SIN moved its programming from WCIU-TV to new full-time affiliate WSNS-TV in July 1985. After WSNS was sold to Telemundo in 1988, what had become Univision moved its programming back to WCIU-TV, which agreed to air Univision programming on weekday evenings and weekends.[15][16] In 1994, the network purchased English-language independent WGBO-TV after WCIU-TV turned down Univision's request to become a full-time affiliate in favor of maintaining its longtime multi-ethnic programming format. WGBO-TV became an Univision-owned station on December 31, 1994.[17][18][19][20]
Relaunch as Univision[edit]
1986 became a pivotal year for the Spanish International Network and its owned-and-operated station group; in 1987, Nicolas sold his stake in the network to a partnership of Hallmark Cards and Televisa for 25 years, which formed Univision Holdings Inc. to operate the network and its stations. The Federal Communications Commission and SIN's competitors had long questioned whether the relationship between SIN and the Azcárraga family was impermissibly tight. Both the FCC and other Spanish-language broadcasters had long suspected that Televisa was merely using Nicolas to skirt FCC rules prohibiting foreign ownership of broadcast media.
The FCC and the U.S. Justice Department eventually encouraged a sale of the network to a properly constituted domestic organization. Spanish International Communications ultimately began discussions with various prospective buyers, culminating in Hallmark Cards (which owned a 63.5% interest), private equity firm First Chicago Venture Capital (which acquired 21.5%) and several other private investors (which collectively owned the remaining 15% held in a trust) purchasing the SIN stations for $600 million, while forming a new relationship with Televisa for the distribution of programs; the new group also adopted a new name for the network, Univision.
The first reference to the new Univision name was in "América, esta es tu canción", a song interpreted by Lucerito on her 1982 album Te prometo. The lyric that mentions the network is "cantaremos al mundo fantástico mágico de Univisión" ("we'll sing to the fantastic, magical world of Univision").
The initial logo under the Univision name Spanish International Network, that was used from 1987 to 1989; the logo was similar in resemblance to Televisa's station logo. Televisa still uses this logo today.
Joaquin Blaya, the network's new chief executive officer, would sign agreements to carry two programs that would change the face of the network. He signed contracts to develop programs hosted by Cristina Saralegui (who became the host of the long-running talk show El Show de Cristina ("The Cristina Show"), which aired on the network for 22 years) and Chilean-born Mario Kreutzberger – better known as Don Francisco (who brought his popular variety series Sábado Gigante ("Giant Saturday") to the U.S., which aired on Univision for 29 years until its cancellation in September 2015)[21][22][23] – for the network. Univision also began production of its first morning program, Mundo Latino, which was anchored by Cuban natives Lucy Pereda and Frank Moro; Moro left the network to move to Mexico to continue his career as a soap opera actor, the network then brought in Jorge Ramos to replace him.
To appeal to Hispanics and Latinos of all nationalities, the network soon instituted a policy of maintaining neutrality with its use of Spanish dialects, slang and humor on its domestically produced programs, enforcing program producers to limit the use of humor and slang relatable only to a specific Hispanic nationality. It also prohibited the use of English in its programming or advertisements (outside of product titles and dialogue featured in film trailers), most obvious in the use of Spanish equivalent placenames such as "Nueva York" rather than New York.[13] In 1988, Blaya also substantially ramped up production of American-based programs on Univision's lineup, reducing the share of programming imported from Latin America (most of which came from Televisa) on its schedule. With this, the network began producing programs for a national audience in mind, resulting in Univision's schedule consisting of 50% foreign programming and 50% U.S.-produced programming.
The first such program, TV Mujer ("Woman TV"), was a magazine-style talk show aimed at American Hispanic women - originally hosted by Pereda and Gabriel Traversari – featuring a mix of cooking and entertainment segments. The following year, Pereda was replaced as co-host by Mexican-American Lauri Flores, who previously served as director of programming, promotions, special events and public information at Houston affiliate KXLN-TV – where she also hosted a local community affairs program, Entre Nos. During Flores' tenure as host of TV Mujer, the program remained the #1 daytime show on Spanish-language television,[24] outperforming its competition in its time period by 33%. Telemundo's Dia a Dia, which debuted prior to the premiere of TV Mujer, saw its ratings diminish as a result. Sábado Gigante model Jackie Nespral was added as host of the program for its final year on the network; she was originally hired to serve as a fill-in co-host while Flores went on maternity leave, before becoming a full-time host during the show's final season. TV Mujer inspired a series of other programs, including Hola, America ("Hello, America") and Al Mediodia ("At Noon"), which never garnered the ratings of the original concept and were ultimately canceled.
However, the network's fortunes began to wane following the Hallmark purchase, when Televisa terminated its programming agreement with Univision, taking along with it the company's popular telenovelas. The network opted to replace the Mexican-produced serials with novelas produced in South America; however, viewership for its telenovelas declined with the programming shift.[13] To make matters worse, with limited revenue from advertising, the sale to Hallmark left Univision with a huge debt load to cover. On February 1, 1990, Univision Holdings disclosed that it had failed to make an interest payment of about $10 million (totaling about $3 million to be paid to its bank lenders and about $7 million to holders of its junk-bond debt) that was due a day prior as part of its efforts to restructure its debt, citing insufficient cash flow for the missed payments. At the time, Univision had owed about $315 million to a group of banks led by Continental Bank of Chicago, about $135 million in senior subordinated zero-coupon debt and $105 million in 13 3/8% in outstanding subordinated debentures.[25]
On March 30, Univision filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to seek Chapter 11 creditor protection and financial reorganization unless it could convince its bondholders to accept an increased offer by Hallmark Cards Inc., in which they would receive $131 million for a face value of $270 million in securities on a blended basis, following an initial bid that was widely turned down by the bondholders.[26] The holders of two different series of Univision Holdings' debt accepted the bid and tendered their securities by April 13, preventing the bankruptcy protection proceedings, with Hallmark's offer to purchase the debt securities being completed by April 25.[27][28]
Broadcasts in North and Central America[edit]
Mexico[edit]
Univision programming is available in Mexico through affiliates in markets located within proximity to the Mexico–United States border (such as KBNT-CD/San Diego (and repeater KHAX-LD); KUVE-DT/Tucson, Arizona; KINT-TV/El Paso, KLDO-TV/Laredo and KNVO/McAllen), whose signals are readily receivable over-the-air in border areas of northern Mexico.
Carriage disputes[edit]
Univision, UniMás, Galavisión, Univision Deportes Network and Univision tlnovelas were dropped by AT&T U-verse on March 4, 2016, because of a carriage dispute.[141][142][143][144] Although AT&T also has DirecTV as a subsidiary of AT&T, along with U-Verse, despite being in the process to integrate with DirecTV and U-Verse, DirecTV customers were not affected, as they were taken in a different deal, which had been agreed to before the dispute ever occurred. All of Univision's channels and cable networks were later returned to the U-verse lineup on March 24, 2016.[145][146][147][148]
On January 27, 2017, Charter Spectrum (along with Time Warner Cable and Bright House, the latter merged with Charter Communications in 2016) faced another dispute with Univision, warning Charter Communications that Univision could be removed from Charter by January 31, 2017. Prior to then, Univision sued Charter over pay carriage rates at the New York Supreme Court in July 2016. On January 31, 2017, Charter customers lost access to all of Univision's channels, including UniMás, UDN, and Galavisión (including access to its Owned-and-Operated Stations via Charter). On February 2, the New York Superior Court ordered Univision to end the blackout on Charter as negotiations continue.[149] This blackout affects all Univision affiliates, even if Univision does not own them, so this dispute includes all stations owned by Entravision Communications, even if Entravision was not involved in the dispute.[150][151]
On October 16, 2017, at around 5 PM EDT, Verizon FiOS, without any warning, pulled Univision, along with UniMás, UDN, and Galavisión despite the extension of an agreement arranged by the two.[152] It also caused FOROtv to be removed during the dispute as well, despite not being owned by Univision.
On Sunday, July 1, 2018, Univision entered into a dispute with Dish Network and Sling TV. Dish and Sling subscribers lost access to Univision and UniMás east and west channels, affiliated stations, Galavision, Univision Deportes Network, ForoTV news channel and Univisíon tlnovelas channel. Many subscribers cancelled their subscription to Dish or Sling and switched to DirecTV, other streaming TV service, or to a cable provider that offered the Univision-owned channels. On April 1, 2019, a new agreement was reached between Univision Communications and Dish, restoring the channels that had been removed from the lineup, This does not affect Sling TV subscribers.