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Univision
 

Univision (pronounced Univisión in Spanish; ) is the largest Spanish-language television network in the United States, and overall, the fifth-largest American network (right behind Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS); and is one of ten major mainstream/commercial broadcast networks in the United States, alongside NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC, i (formerly Pax), The CW (a merger of the UPN and The WB networks planned for September 2006), Fox's sister network My Network TV (planned to launch two weeks before The CW launches), its sister network TeleFutura and top rival -- NBC-owned Telemundo. Univision is credited with turning what used to be three separate markets (Puerto Ricans in the eastern United States, Cuban-Americans in south Florida, and Mexican-Americans in the southwest) into what advertisers now consider a 'single, national Hispanic market'. Univision was recently sold to a consortium led by Texas Pacific Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners for $12.3 billion or $36.25 per share plus $1.4 billion in acquired debt.

Currently with today's large Mexican and Mexican-American audience in California, Texas, and other parts of the Southwest, as well as the fast-growing Mexican population in the South and Northeast, many shows — especially the news — cover Mexican issues.

Univision's main competitor is Telemundo. It has maintained a lead in ratings, due in large part to Mexican telenovelas and other programming produced by Grupo Televisa.

Evening news program Noticiero Univision, co-anchored by Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, has on several occasions out-rated its major network English-language network evening news competitors.

Univision is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, but its major production facilities/operations are in Miami, Florida. It is available on cable in most of the country, and has over-the-air stations in several markets with large Hispanic populations. Most of these stations air full local news and programming in addition to Univision network shows.

History

Univision dates its origins to 1961, when KWEX began broadcasting to the Hispanic community in San Antonio, Texas. That station was part of the Spanish International Network (SIN), Univision's predecessor. It was owned by Telesistema Mexicano, Mexico's largest private broadcaster and the forerunner of Televisa. Miami though with its proximity to Latin America would become the powerhouse for SIN.

1986 was a pivotal year for the network. The name of the network was changed from SIN to Univision and two programs began production: Mundo Latino and Sabado Gigante out of the WLTV-23 studios in Miami. Univision under then president Joaquin Blaya began producing its own programming. The first morning television program by the network was Mundo Latino anchored by cubans Lucy Pereda and Frank Moro. Moro left to continue his career at Televisa as a novela actor. Sábado Gigante was hosted by Miami's Rolando Barral, a Cuban exile who made a name for himself in Havana and a little known Chilean gameshow host named Mario Kreutsberger, also known as "Don Francisco". Under the slogan of "El mejor pretexto para quedarse en casa" ("The best reason to stay at home"), Sábado Gigante limped along until a year later, Barral was sent to host another show. The irreverent Don Francisco became Univision's biggest star and Sábado Gigante the powerhouse it is today.

In 1986, the Federal Communications Commission forced Televisa to sell SIN because of federal laws against foreign ownership of American TV stations. SIN was sold to Hallmark Cards and renamed Univision. Under Hallmark's ownership, about half of its programming was rebroadcasts of telenovelas and other programming from Televisa, and half was original programming produced in Miami. When Hallmark sold Univision in 1992, its present owners cut a third of the Miami staff and reverted to a schedule based mostly on Televisa programs. Henry Cisneros, a former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development official under President Bill Clinton, became president of Univision.

In 1988, the network began to produce television shows with a national audience in mind. The first production was titled "TV Mujer" (TV Woman). 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 Lauri Flores who hailed from Houston, Texas. Flores was not as successful in making the transition and filling Pereda's place and saw her role diminished as the third season came upon the program. A model from "Sabado Gigante" became the third host in its last year: Jackie Nespral, who made the transition from entertainment to news as quickly as the program was cancelled.

"TV Mujer" begat a series of other programs: "Hola, America", "Al Mediodia" before they were all cancelled 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-51 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".

The company's stock has been traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1996; it became part of the S&P 500 in February 2001.

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-TV in Ponce. At the time, WLII had a longtime LMA with another Puerto Rican station, WSTE, which Univision honored. Both WLII and WSUR-TV were sold to Univision in 2005.

In late 2004, a feud began between Univision's chairman, 78-year old Italian entertainment guru A. Jerrold Perenchio, and the 32-year old head of Televisa, Emilio Azcárraga Jean. The dispute is about Univision's continual editing of Televisa's programming, and failure to pay for transmission of Televisa produced sports and specials. The feud has 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 also has filed a lawsuit against Univision for breach of contract.

In recent years, Univision has 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. Little effect has taken place as it was proved that they were fine with the replacements of these personalities.

Also, Univision has overtaken the English-language networks UPN and the WB (soon to merge into the CW) 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 is putting itself up for sale. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, has stated that his company is considering buying Univision, but has since backed off that position *. 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. *

Then on June 27 2006, Univision announced that it accepted a $12.7 billion dollar bid from a private investors group lead by childrens 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). The purchase needs to be given the green light by government regulators and could be consummated by the second quarter of 2007.

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. *

Shows

Univision's shows include:

Telenovelas/Other Shows

Univision has contracts with two of its owners, Venezuela's Venevisión and Mexico's Televisa, to showcase some of their novelas and other shows.

  • Rebelde
  • Heridas De Amor
  • La Madrastra
  • Rubí
  • Olvidarte Jamás
  • El Derecho de Nacer
  • Abrazame muy Fuerte
  • Tres Mujeres
  • Barrera de Amor
  • El Amor No Tiene Precio
  • La Fea Mas Bella

Annual Award Ceremonies

Univision also shows live soccer matches such as the Football World Cup.

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, UPN affiliate KUVI-TV, Bakersfield, California. That station has been chosen to affiliate with My Network TV when it launches September 2006.
  • 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, a Spanish language Web portal

See also

External links and sources

Univisión television network

Univision | Univision

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Univision".

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