Univision

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For the similar-sounding film format, see Univisium.
Univision
TypeSpanish Broadcast Television Network
Country
United States
AvailabilityNational
Founded1962
by Raul A. Cortez
AreaUnited States, portions of Mexico, Puerto Rico.
OwnerUnivision Communications, Inc.
Launch date
1962
Former names
Spanish International Network
(1962-1987)
Official website
www.univision.com

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]

Selena ¡VIVE! Telecast went on to achieve a record breaking 35.9 household rating to become the highest rated and most viewed Spanish-language TV special ever in the history of American Television and was the #1 program regardless of language among adults 18-34 in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco while tying for first place in New York.


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.

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 El Show de los Sueños: Sangre de mi Sangre La Hora Pico
Monday Querida Enemiga Cuidado con el ángel Fuego En La Sangre Cristina
Tuesday Aquí y Ahora
Wednesday Don Francisco Presents
Thursday La Rosa de Guadalupe
Friday
Saturday La Hora Derbez Sábado Gigante

Current Daytime Telenovelas

Eastern /
Pacific 		Central /
Mountain 		Title
(English Translation) 		Distributor(s)
(Country, Year) 		Cast First Premiered Projected /
Scheduled Finale
1:00 PM 12:00 PM Muchachitas como tu
(Little Girls like you) 		Televisa
(Mexico, 2007) 		Ariadne Diaz
Begoña Narváez
Gabriela Carrillo
Gloria Sierra 		July 14, 2008 December 2008
2:00 PM 1:00 PM
Lola...Érase una vez
(Lola... Once Upon A Time) 		Televisa
(México, 2007) 		Eiza Gonzalez
Aarón Díaz
Grettell Valdez
Lorena Herrera 		March 3, 2008 February 2009
3:00 PM 2:00 PM
Palabra de Mujer
(Word Of Woman) 		Televisa
(México, 2007 / 2008) 		Edith Gonzalez
Yadhira Carrillo
Ludwika Paleta
Lidia Avila 		May 12, 2008 December 2008

Current Primetime Telenovelas

Eastern /
Pacific 		Central /
Mountain 		Title
(English Translation) 		Distributor(s)
(Country, Year) 		Cast First Premiered Projected /
Scheduled Finale
7:00 PM 6:00 PM Querida Enemiga
(Dear Enemy) 		Televisa
(Mexico, 2008) 		Ana Layevska
Gabriel Soto
Carmen Becerra
Jorge Aravena 		June 23, 2008 November 2008
8:00 PM 7:00 PM Cuidado con el Angel
(Don't Mess With The Angel) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Maite Perroni
William Levy
Ana Patricia Rojo
Laura Zapata 		September 22, 2008 March 2009
9:00 PM 8:00 PM Fuego En La Sangre
(Fire In The Blood) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Adela Noriega
Eduardo Yáñez
Elizabeth Alvarez
Jorge Salinas 		April 28, 2008 January 2009

Current Late-Night Telenovela

Eastern /
Pacific 		Central /
Mountain 		Title
(English Translation) 		Distributor(s)
(Country, Year) 		Cast First Premiered Projected /
Scheduled Finale
1:00 AM 12:00 AM GRANDES ÉXITOS:
Amarte es mi pecado
(Loving Is My Sin) 		Televisa
(Mexico, 2004) 		Yadhira Carrillo
Sergio Sendel
Alessandra Rosaldo
Silvia Pasquel 		August 12, 2008 December, 2008

Saturday Morning Telenovela

Eastern /
Pacific 		Central /
Mountain 		Title
(English Translation) 		Distributor(s)
(Country, Year) 		Cast First Premiered Projected /
Scheduled Finale
1:00 PM 12:00 PM Alegrijes y Rebujos
(Alegrijes And Rebujos) 		Televisa
(México, 2003) 		Eugenia Cauduro
Miguel de Leon
Jacqueline Bracamontes
Luis Roberto Guzman 		May 10, 2008 March 2009


Upcoming Telenovelas

Title
(English Translation) 		Distributor(s)
(Country, Year) 		Cast Projected /
Scheduled Debut 		To Replace
(Broadcast Time Slot)
La Verdad Oculta
(The Hidden Truth) 		Televisa
(México, 2006) 		Galilea Montijo
Gabriel Soto
Alejandra Barros
Eduardo Yáñez 		TBA TBA
Tormenta en el Paraiso
(Storm In The Paradise) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Sara Maldonado
Erick Elias
Mariana Seoane
Alejandro Tommasi 		December 2008 Palabra de Mujer
Las Tontas No Van al Cielo
(Dumb Women Don't Go To Heaven) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Jacqueline Bracamontes
Jaime Camil
Valentino Lanus
Sabine Moussier 		2009 Alma de Hierro
Valeria
(Valeria) 		Venevision
(Venezuela, 2008) 		Alejandra Lazcano
Jorge Reyes
Carolina Tejera
Bobby Larios 		December 2008 Muchachitas como tu
Un Gancho al Corazon
(A Hook To Heart) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Danna García
Sebastian Rulli
Laisha Wilkins
Raul Araiza 		December 2008 11 A.M
Juro Que Te Amo
(I Swear That I Love You) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Ana Brenda Contreras
José Ron
Patricia Navidad
Alejandro Ávila 		February 2009 Lola...Érase una vez
En Nombre del Amor
(In Name Of Love) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Allisson Lozz
Sebastian Zurita
Leticia Calderon
Victoria Ruffo 		November 2008 Querida Enemiga
Mañana es para siempre
(Tomorrow Is Forever) 		Televisa
(México, 2008) 		Silvia Navarro
Fernando Colunga
Lucero
Sergio Sendel 		January 2009 Fuego En La Sangre

Shows

Main article: List of programs broadcast by Univisión

Univision's shows include:

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]

Other Properties

In addition to the Univision network, Univision Communications owns several other properties. They include:

See also

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ [3]
  4. ^ [4]
  5. ^ [5]
  6. ^ "Univision sale approved, Abercrombie & Fitch to replace it on the S&P 500," accessed March 29, 2007.
  7. ^ "Univision's new ownership takes over," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2007.
  8. ^ [6]
  9. ^ "'La Fea' Makes Ratings History for Univision," Variety.
  10. ^ "Democratic presidential hopefuls hold TV debate in Spanish," Agence France-Presse.
  11. ^ Univision to continue with Televisa programs through 2017
  12. ^ Disney-ABC International Television Latin America and Univision Sign Unprecedented Strategic Production Agreement

External links and sources

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Univision&oldid=244424280"