Univision Leans Into Streaming and Linear in First Upfront Since Televisa Merger

Univision is ready to make a splash at its first upfront as part of TelevisaUnivision. The world’s leading Spanish-language media and content company completed its merger with Televisa earlier this year, and lifted the curtains on its new two-tier global streaming service Vix in February. “We really are going to share everything that we have been culminating, from an ad sales perspective… streaming and content, and it's all going to come together, so we are on fire,” TelevisaUnivision ad sales chief Donna Speciale told Adweek ahead of the company's Tuesday morning presentation in New York. A linear and digital strategy For TelevisaUnivision, the strategy is to attack both digital and linear, with Univision alone up double-digits. “The fact that our linear business is growing is unbelievable, but we did it in a year when we launched streaming,” said Speciale. On the AVOD side, Vix has 40,000 hours of premium content. When Vix+ launches in the third quarter, Speciale said that 10,000 more hours will be added to the platform in 50 originals within the first year. “The difference between us is that obviously we have impressions in linear, so obviously our dollars and linear are just as important to us as our streaming dollars going into this upfront,” said Speciale. Before Vix launched, there were around 62 clients on the pre-existing AVOD service PrendeTV, which Speciale said was a complement to the linear business. “Our strategy is very unique,” she said. “There was no destination for premium Spanish-language content, it didn’t exist. The fact that [streaming and linear] happened at the same time, and we grew our business and didn’t cannibalize our business is very different. The other media companies created their streaming service because they had to.” Last month, the company debuted its new branded content studio Así Studios with launch partner Toyota, aiming to connect marketers to the U.S. Hispanic audience. Vix also plays a role with the branded studio, premiering the film Imparable: Ismael Guzmán, across TelevisaUnivision’s properties and platforms, including Vix. A fresh content slate “My big pitch is growth,” Luis Silberwasser, president of TelevisaUnivision Networks Group, told Adweek. “I started the same day as Donna, and one of the things that I think for us was very rewarding when we came in, it's that affinity that the brand Univision has with the audience. One of the decisions that we made early on is to really double-down on the things that we know make linear exciting.” For the combined company, linear is still just as important as digital. It is seeing ratings growth of 7% season-to-date across all its core TV networks, and Silberwasser is doubling down on the opportunity with a new slate of content. Most of Univision’s audience is live, with close to 90% of its viewers live between news, sports and entertainment. Audiences love soccer, and the team at Univision knows that. The company will announce a multi-year media rights renewal partnership with Concacaf, continuing to give the network exclusive Spanish-language broadcast rights for Gold Cup in the U.S., which takes place every two years between the North and Central American leagues and nations. “We're happy to have that major property that drives our of our soccer proposition,” said Silberwasser. Por Siempre: Selena (Selena Forever) is a new, two-hour live musical special honoring the iconic Selena Quintanilla, in collaboration with her family and friends. “We wanted to have something of an annual celebration of a major Latin icon,” said Silberwasser. “We want to create a new franchise that celebrates the life and the music of a Latin icon every year, and our first foray into this is we want celebrate the music of Selena.” Univision announced De Noche Pero Sin Sueño (Sleepless at Night), hosted by Adrián Uribe. The late-night show features talent in music, movies and TV, as well as digital content creators. On the Unimás side, the live Sientese Quien Pueda will be made up of celebrity news, confrontations of opinions and debates between journalists, talent, social media experts and audiences at home. The company also announced a new scripted format—Serielas—airing at 10 p.m. on Unimás with La Madrastra (The Stepmother) and Pimero Tu. Representing the audience Last year, the company announced it would debut the first Hispanic data graph, and it made good on its promise. Speciale announced the graph covers 85% of U.S. Hispanic households, which she believes is an important step in solving inequities caused by Hispanics being vastly underrepresented in current data sets. “Everybody’s talking about census-level data, but the data doesn’t represent the census,” she said. “It's kind of scary that people and marketers are trying to do audience targeting business outcome, KPIs, on data that's not representing of the right audience." TelevisaUnivision Debuts Spanish-Language Branded Content Studio Ahead of Upfront