Univision

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Univision

Type	Broadcast television network
Country	United States
Availability	National; also distributed in Canada and certain other North American countries
Owner	Univision Communications
Launch date	1961
Past names	Spanish International Network (1961-87)
Website	www.univision.com

Univision (pronounced Univisión in Spanish; NYSE: UVN) 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, Fox's sister network MyNetworkTV, 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 midwest and 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 Chicago,California, Texas, as well as the fast-growing Mexican population in the Midwest, 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.

Contents 1 History 2 Primetime Schedule 3 Shows 3.1 Telenovelas/Other Shows 3.2 Annual Award Ceremonies 3.3 Univision’s most-viewed shows 4 Other properties 5 See also 6 External links and sources

[edit] 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.

SIN or Univision's largest rated affiliate, KMEX-TV channel 34 of Los Angeles went on air in 1962 and some experts in the television industry considers KMEX-TV a launching point in the history of American Latino media. In 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, Illinois.

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 Lucy Pereda and Frank Moro, who were both Cuban. 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 Kreutzberger, 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 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.

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 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 [1]. 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. [2]

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 Texas Pacific Group 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). 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. 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. [3]

[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		Various Programing‡
Monday	Heridas de Amor		La fea más bella		Mundo de Fieras		Cristina
Tuesday							Ver Para Creer
Wednesday							Don Francisco Presenta
Thursday							Aqui Y Ahora
Friday							Casos de Familia: Edicion Especial (E)†
Saturday	Casos de Familia: Edicion Especial		Sabado Gigante

‡- Various Programing, which includeds award shows (new/emcore), Festivals, and Movies. †- Mainly will show (E) Encore of Casos de Familia: Edicion Especial or will show news special or Comedy Special.

[edit] Shows

Main Article: List of programs broadcast by Univisión

Univision's shows include:

• Noticiero Univision (Univisión News)
• Cristina (talk show hosted by Cristina Saralegui)
• Don Francisco's Sábado Gigante (Gigantic Saturday)
• Despierta América (Wake Up America) (morning show)
• Tu Desayuno Alegre (Your Happy Breakfast) (early morning music video show)
• Don Francisco Presenta (Don Francisco Presents)
• El Gordo y La Flaca (The Fat Man and the Skinny Girl) (variety/gossip show)
• Casos de Familia (Family Cases) (family talk show)
• Caliente (Hot) (music show) (Cancelled)
• Control (teen show) (Cancelled)
• La Parodia (The Parody) (sketch comedy)
• La Hora Pico (The Beak Hour) (sketch comedy)
• Muevete (variety show)
• Primer Impacto (First Impact) (newsmagazine)
• Aquí y Ahora (Here and Now) (Thursday night investigative news magazine)
• Ver para Creer (Seeing is Believing) (Ripley's Believe It or Not-style show)
• Republica Deportiva (Athletic Republic) (sports show hosted by Fernando Fiore)
• Various prime-time telenovelas and specialty shows (which are edited to fit U.S. as well as Univision broadcast standards) (see list below)

[edit] 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. They are listed by the year of which they first went to the air in their respectively.

Current Primetime Telenovelas:

• La Fea Mas Bella (The Most Beautiful Ugly Girl) (Ending Early 2007)
• Heridas De Amor (Wounds of Love) (Ending December 2006 or January 2007)
• Mundo de Fieras (World of the Wild) (Started October 2006, Ending Early to Mid 2007)
• Navidad Sin Fin (Christmas With No End, Mini-Series) (Started December 2006, likely to end January 2007)

Current Daytime Telenovelas:

• El Amor No Tiene Precio (Priceless Love) (To End Mid to Late 2007)
• Suenó con tú Amor (A Dream Is My Love) (Started November 2006)
• Las Dos Caras de Ana (The Two Faces Of Ana) (Starting December 18, 2006)

Coming Soon:

• La Verdad Oculta (The Hidden Truth) (Starting Early to Mid 2007) (To replace Mundo de Fieras)
• Duelo De Pasiones (Passionate Duels) (Starting January or February 2007) (To replace Heridas de Amor)
• Amar Sin Límites (Loving With No Limit) (Starting Mid 2007) (To replace El Amor No Tiene Precio)
• Acorralada (Corraled) (Starting Spring 2007)
• Código Postal (Postal Code) (Starting December 2006 or January 2007)(To replace La fea mas Bella)

[edit] Annual Award Ceremonies

• Premios Furia Musical (Musical Fury Awards) (Country music awards-style)
• Premio Lo Nuestro (Our Awards) (Grammys-style)
• Latin Grammy
• Premios Juventud (Youth Awards) (Teen Choice Awards-style)
• Premios TV y Novelas (TV and Novelas Awards) (emmy's-style)

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

[edit] Univision’s most-viewed shows

Rank	Event	Households	Year
1	Selena ¡VIVE!	35.90	2005
2	La madrastra	30.20	2005
3	Rubi	30.05	2004
4	Amor Real	30.00.	2004
5	Rosalinda	28.49	2000

[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.
• 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

[edit] See also

• Selena ¡VIVE!
• List of Univision affiliates
• List of United States television networks
• Televisa

[edit] External links and sources

• Official Site (in Spanish)
• Corporate 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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