Univision
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Type | Spanish Broadcast Television Network |
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| Country | United States |
| Availability | National |
| Founded | by Raul A. Cortez |
| Area | United States, portions of Mexico, Puerto Rico. |
| Owner | Univision Communications, Inc. |
| Launch date | 1962 |
| Former names | Spanish International Network (1962-1987) |
| Website www.univision.com |
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Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States and Puerto Rico. It has the largest Latin American audience, largely due to repurposed telenovelas and other Mexican programs produced by Grupo Televisa. Joe Uva is the CEO of Univision Communications, Inc.
Univision is headquartered now in New York City, after years of being in Los Angeles,[1] and its major production facilities/operations are in Miami. It is available on cable in most of the country, with local stations in over 50 markets with sizeable Latino populations. Most of these stations air full local news and programming in addition to network shows. Univision's major programming is closed-captioned in Spanish, but unlike main competitor Telemundo, it almost never provides English subtitles.
The network was sold on March 12, 2006, to a consortium led by Haim Saban (who had previously owned the entity Saban Entertainment), TPG Capital, L.P., Providence Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners, and Thomas H. Lee Partners for $13.7 billion or $36.25 per share plus $1.4 billion in acquired debt.[2] The buyout left the company with a debt level of twelve times its annual cash flow, which was twice the norm in buyouts done over the previous two years.[3]
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[edit] History
In 1955, Raul Cortez founded KCOR-TV, Channel 41, in San Antonio, Texas. It was the first Spanish-language television station in the United States.[citation needed] However, the station was a money-bleeder, even after a call letter change to KUAL-TV. In 1961 Cortez sold the station to a group headed by his son-in-law Emilio Nicolas, Sr. and Mexican entretainment guru Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta. Nicolas had helped produce channel 41's variety shows, while Azcarraga was the owner of Telesistema Mexicano, forerunner of Televisa.
The new owners quickly turned the station around, and in 1962 signed on KMEX-TV, channel 34 in Los Angeles. This was the beginning of the Spanish International Network, the first foreign-language television network in the United States.
Over the next 20 years, SIN would acquire other high-rated Spanish language television throughout the Western United States, then expanded the market to Florida, New York City, and Chicago.
1986 was a pivotal year for the station group and the network. Nicolas sold his stake in the network to a partnership of Hallmark Cards and Televisa. The new group changed the network's name to Univision. Univision's new CEO, Joaquin Blaya, was to sign the contracts for two programs that would change the network. Blaya signed Cristina Saralegui, who became a famous talk show host, and Mario Kreutzberger, better known as Don Francisco, who brought from Chile his famous program Sábado Gigante. Also, the network began production of its first morning television show. The program was Mundo Latino, anchored by Lucy Pereda and Frank Moro, who were both Cuban. Moro left for Mexico to continue his career as a soap opera actor and the network brought in Jorge Ramos.
In 1988, the network began to produce television shows with a national audience in mind. The first production was titled "TV Mujer" (Woman TV). The program was a magazine styled show aimed to the Hispanic woman living in the United States. Anchored by Lucy Pereda during its first year and Gabriel Traversari, the program consisted of a melange of cooking and entertainment segments.
Pereda was replaced shortly after finishing her first year by Mexican-American Lauri Flores who hailed from KXLN-TV in Houston, Texas where she was director of programming, promotions, special events, and public information as well as producer and host of a local community affairs show "Entre Nos". During Ms. Flores' time as host of TV Mujer, the show remained the number one daytime show on Spanish-language television, according to Strategy Research Corporation's (SRC) 1989 fall sweeps performed from May to November 1989, outperforming its time period competition by 33 percent. Telemundo's Dia a Dia, launched before the arrival of TV Mujer, saw its rating diminishing.
A model from Sábado Gigante became the add-on host in its last year, hired to sit in while Flores was on maternity leave -- Jackie Nespral. Jackie became a formal host during the show's final season. TV Mujer begat a series of other programs: "Hola, America", "Al Mediodia" before they were all canceled never really getting the ratings of the original concept.
Univision then decided to expand news programming in the afternoon and launched "Noticias y Mas" with the before mentioned Nespral and a team of three other anchors: Ambrosio Hernandez, Myrka de Llanos and Raul Peimbert. In 1990, Hernandez bolted for the local Telemundo station, WSCV to anchor its evening news programming, being joined by Peimbert shortly after that being wooed to anchor the new Telemundo evening news. Nespral left to join the weekend edition of the "Today" show leaving De Llanos on the anchor desk by herself. Univision had other plans for the moribund show. They revamped it, changed the name, the theme music and installed a weekend reporter to be De Llanos' partner: Puerto Rican born Maria Celeste Arraras who joined the now tabloid news program called "Primer Impacto".
In 2002, Univision entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Raycom Media to operate two television stations in Puerto Rico: WLII in Caguas and WSUR in Ponce. At the time, WLII had a longtime LMA with another Puerto Rican station, WSTE, which Univision honored. It was also around this time that Univision resumed broadcast expansion by signing affiliation agreements with stations in Raleigh, North Carolina (WUVC), Cleveland, Ohio (WQHS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (WUVP) and Atlanta, Georgia (WUVG) among many others — most of which were acquired from USA Broadcasting and had previously been affiliated with the Home Shopping Network. Both WLII and WSUR were sold to Univision in 2005.
In 2003, WIIH in Indianapolis, Indiana began broadcasting, owned and operated by LIN TV affiliated with Univision.
In late 2004, a feud began between Univision's chairman, 78-year old entertainer A. Jerry Perenchio, and the 36-year old head of Televisa, Emilio Azcárraga Jean.[citation needed] The dispute was about Univision's continual editing of Televisa's programming, and failure to pay for transmission of Televisa produced sports and specials. The feud intensified to the point where Televisa's most famous stars have been banned from appearing on any Univision-produced shows and specials. In addition, Televisa has filed a lawsuit against Univision for breach of contract. In recent years, Univision also lost several key on air personalities to Telemundo, including long time weekend news anchor Maria Antonieta Collins, tabloid news anchor Maria Celeste Arraras, and sports announcer Andres Cantor.
Univision previously overtook the now-defunct English-language networks UPN and the WB, now the CW Television Network as the fifth-most popular network overall, and in the 18-to-34-year-old and 18-to-49-year-old demographics it sometimes ranks higher than that. More advertising on TV is targeted toward those age groups than toward any other part of the viewing audience.
On February 9, 2006, Univision Communications confirmed that it was putting itself up for sale. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, stated that his company was considering buying Univision, but backed off that position.[4] Other expected bidders announced were Time Warner, CBS, Disney, Grupo Televisa of Mexico (under a partnership due to foreign ownership laws), Bill Gates, and several private equity firms. Tribune Company was rumored to be interested in buying Telefutura.[5]
Then on June 27, 2006, Univision announced that it accepted a $12.7 billion dollar bid from a group of private equity investors led by TPG Capital, L.P. and Thomas H. Lee Partners. The investor group also included Madison Dearborn, Providence Equity, and children's television mogul Haim Saban — founder of Saban Entertainment. This marks Saban's return to broadcast ownership, as Saban (minus partner Shuki Levy) was 50% owner, along with News Corporation, of the Fox Family Channel (now known as the Disney-owned ABC Family Channel). On March 27, 2007, federal regulators approved the sale. [6] According to the Los Angeles Times, the deal was closed and the ownership change was made official on that same day. [7]
However, Univision's shareholders filed two class-action lawsuit against the company and its board members to stop the buyout. One lawsuit claims that the board members structured the deal to only benefit the company's insiders and not the average stockholders. The other lawsuit was filed on behalf of a shareholder identified as L A Murphy, who claims that the board put its own personal interests and the interests of the winning bidder ahead of shareholders, and also failed to adequately evaluate the company's worth. In the meantime, more lawsuits were filed, one against Univision's records division for heavy handed tactics, and the other from a winner of a "Despierta America" $30,000 makeover contest for breaking its own rules and cancelling the makeover right in the middle of it. A long awaited trial, it's expected to start in April 2008, at a Los Angeles court.[8]
Also, Univision yet again continues to gain broadcast penetration and has done so since 2004, with stations in Detroit, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), Minneapolis and Nashville, among many others.
On June 25, 2007, Univision made history in the television ratings with the finale of La Fea Mas Bella, which beat all English-language television broadcasting networks with a 3.0 rating out of 9 share, making it the most watched show for the night and the 2nd most watched show of the week. [9]
On September 9, 2007, Univision hosted the first Spanish-language presidential debate in the United States at the University of Miami.[10]
On March 29, 2008, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? and Bill Nye the Science Guy were taken off of the Planeta U Saturday morning children's block.
On April 5, 2008, the children's block was replaced with Planeta U, with the brand-new shows like: Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go!, Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks, Inspector Gadget's Field Trip and Beakman's World.
[edit] Primetime Schedule
News/News Investigation shows are in red; Reality/Game Shows are in green; Primetime Talk Shows are in blue; Telenovelas are in purple.
| 7:00 PM | 7:30 PM | 8:00 PM | 8:30 PM | 9:00 PM | 9:30 PM | 10:00 PM | 10:30 PM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | La Hora Pico | La Familia P.Luche | Noche de Estrellas | El Pantera (Segunda Etapa) | ||||
| Monday | Querida Enemiga | Al Diablo con los Guapos | Fuego En La Sangre | Cristina | ||||
| Tuesday | Aquí y Ahora | |||||||
| Wednesday | Don Francisco Presenta | |||||||
| Thursday | La Rosa de Guadalupe | |||||||
| Friday | La Rosa de Guadalupe | |||||||
| Saturday | Fabrica de Risas | Sábado Gigante | ||||||
[edit] Shows
Univision's shows include:
- Noticiero Univision (Univisión News)
- Cristina (talk show hosted by Cristina Saralegui)
- Don Francisco's Sábado Gigante (Giant Saturday)
- Despierta América (Wake Up America) (morning show)
- El Gordo y La Flaca (The Fat Man and the Skinny Girl) (variety/gossip show)
- Primer Impacto (First Impact)
- Republica Deportiva (Sports Republic) (sports show hosted by Fernando Fiore)
Univision has contracts with Venezuela's Venevisión and Mexico's Televisa to showcase some of their novelas and other shows. They are listed by the year in which they first went on the air in their respective countries. On July 6, 2006, Univision and Televisa reached an exclusive program licensing agreement in which the network and its sisters, Telefutura and Galavisión would lose all rights to all programs produced by or for Televisa after 2017, unless a new agreement is reached before then. [11] Meanwhile, at this time little is known about Univision's agreement with Venevisión. Also, on May 14, 2007, Univision signed a deal with Walt Disney and ABC to produce programs for the network. Programs include a Spanish version of ABC's Desperate Housewives (Amas de Casa Desesperadas). [12]
[edit] Other Properties
In addition to the Univision network, Univision Communications owns several other properties. They include:
- The Galavisión cable television network.
- The TeleFutura broadcast television network.
- 21 full-power and 9 low-power television stations that air Univision programming.
- 22 full-power and 15 low-power television stations that air TeleFutura programming.
- 1 English-language television station, MyNetworkTV affiliate KUVI-TV, Bakersfield, California.
- 1 Spanish-language Independent station, WSTE in Ponce, Puerto Rico -- operated under a Local Marketing Agreement.
- Univision Radio: a group of 47 radio stations throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
- The Univision and Fonovisa record labels, as well as 50% of the Disa record label.
- Univision.com (also known as Univision Online), an official website that launched in 2000.
[edit] See also
- Univision Communications, Inc.
- Selena ¡VIVE!
- List of Univision affiliates
- List of United States television networks
- Televisa
[edit] References
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5]
- ^ "Univision sale approved, Abercrombie & Fitch to replace it on the S&P 500," accessed March 29, 2007.
- ^ "Univision's new ownership takes over," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2007.
- ^ [6]
- ^ "'La Fea' Makes Ratings History for Univision," Variety.
- ^ "Democratic presidential hopefuls hold TV debate in Spanish," Agence France-Presse.
- ^ Univision to continue with Televisa programs through 2017
- ^ Disney-ABC International Television Latin America and Univision Sign Unprecedented Strategic Production Agreement
[edit] External links and sources
- Official Site (in Spanish)
- Corporate Site (in English)
- Spanish International Network Historical site (in English)
- Univision, from the Museum of Broadcast Communications website
- Univision Blows Competition Away with Explosive February Sweep Results, a March 2005 press release
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