Telemundo Details Upfront Event Plans, Sets Ozuna to Perform

Telemundo has chosen a performer for its upfront week celebration, and don’t be surprised if the news spreads fast and furiously. Adweek has learned exclusively that Ozuna, one of the best-selling Latin American music artists of all time and a star of F9 (the ninth Fast and Furious film), will perform live at NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Celebration on Monday, May 16. The event takes place at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre, following its parent company's upfront presentation earlier that day at Radio City Music Hall. With the news, Ozuna adds his name to a storied lineup of Telemundo Celebration performers, which have included Enrique Iglesias, J Balvin and Pitbull. But that’s just the start of things to celebrate for the country's largest producer of scripted Spanish-language content. Beau Ferrari, chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, previewed Telemundo’s upfront presentation with Adweek, and noted that tapping into the U.S. Hispanic audience serves as a way to “future-proof” their businesses. “That notion of future-proofing applies to every advertiser, marketer and executive looking to access this fast-growing demographic,” Ferrari said. The numbers don’t lie: according to Pew Research Center, Hispanics accounted for 1 in 5 people in the U.S. in 2020, and the total population of U.S. Hispanics was more than 62 million. Those figures continue to rise, as the U.S. Census Bureau projects the U.S. Hispanic population to reach nearly 100 million by 2050 and more than 111 million by 2060 (almost 30% of the total U.S. population). “What we're right in the center of is a transformation of every aspect of our country, our society, our economy. And we uniquely fit in with our culture at Telemundo and how we are creating and producing content for all platforms to super-serve this community,” Ferrari said. When it comes to super-serving the Hispanic community, Laura Molen, president of advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, said Telemundo does it unlike anyone else. Molen noted that NBCUniversal and Telemundo reach nine out of 10 U.S. Hispanics every single month at scale across all platforms.—and the company’s Spanish-language channel is pivotal for that reach. “If you exclude Spanish-language TV from your media plan, it's like dropping New York from your national media buy and leaving over $200 billion in spending on the table,” Molen said. The advertising and partnerships president added that Telemundo creates an opportunity to have messaging that resonates with the Hispanic audience. "We're seeing that DEI effort, whether it's buying minority-owned or targeted, is critically important in most marketers' media plans, and Telemundo really gives marketers an opportunity to amplify what they're doing in this space in a very meaningful way," Molen explained. Reaching the '200%-ers' When it comes to reaching the Hispanic audience, Telemundo is doing it in tried and true fashion. The network is the exclusive U.S. Spanish-language home of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, having secured rights through 2026. In addition to sports, Telemundo has an array of highly-rated scripted and unscripted programming, including serialized franchises La Reina del Sur Season 3, El Señor de los Cielos Season 8 and reality shows such as La Casa de los Famosos and Exatlón. “Big franchises, blockbusters shows, the largest sporting event and big tentpoles," Ferrari said, describing the programming. "We've got our biggest talent, and we've got a bigger presence than we've ever had on Peacock with Tplus.” Launching this fall, Tplus is a bilingual content brand designed to serve U.S. Hispanics on Peacock. The service will debut as a part of Peacock for premium subscribers, allowing the company to reach what it calls the "200%-ers," aka audiences who are 100% American and 100% Latinx. "We're working in close partnership with Peacock to have an original content slate that is a wide range of programming for the 200%-er audience and the full spectrum of U.S. Hispanics. It will be original scripted dramas, docuseries, news, sports, unscripted shows and other content which we're going to announce as well," said Ferrari. With so much happening at his company, "we look at Telemundo as a mirror of NBCUniversal," Ferrari said, "without the theme parks."