Univision (Spanish pronunciation: [uniβiˈsjon]) is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings, largely due to telenovelas, other programming produced by Grupo Televisa, and the network's sports coverage, which consists almost exclusively of football (soccer). Joe Uva is the president and CEO of Univision Communications, the network's owner.[1] In recent years the network has reached parity with the U.S.'s five major English language television networks, and is often a strong fifth, outranking The CW, with some fourth-place weekly placings during the summer months due to the network's consistent schedule of new telenovelas all 52 weeks of the year.
Univision is headquartered in New York City, after years of being in Los Angeles,[2] and has its major studios, production facilities, and operations in Doral, Florida. In 2009, another television studio was announced, Univision Studios, to be built in Doral.[1][3] Univision is available on cable and satellite in most of the country, with local stations in over 50 markets with large Hispanic and Latino populations and a national cable network feed distributed in markets without either the availability or the demand for a locally-based station. Most of these stations air full local news and other local programming in addition to network shows, and in major markets such as Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, Univision owned-and-operated station (O&O) newscasts are equally competitive with their English-language counterparts ratings-wise.
Univision was acquired on March 29, 2007 by a consortium led by Haim Saban's Saban Capital Group (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.[4][5] 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.[6]

According to the announcement, Uva "has informed the Board of Directors that he has chosen not to renew his employment agreement in order to be able to seek other opportunities."

The day Uva's contract ends, April 2, 2011, will be his last day at the company, the announcement said, adding that Univision "will commence a search process for a new CEO immediately. To ensure a smooth transition, Mr. Saban will assume additional responsibilities in his role as Executive Chairman until a new CEO is appointed."

In the announcement, Haim Saban, Executive Chairman of Univision said, “On behalf of the Univision Board of Directors, we would like to commend Joe for his tremendous contributions over the past four years. Univision is a better company today due to Joe’s efforts in building a strong leadership team and positioning Univision for long-term success. Univision’s business is strong, and the entire management team remains focused on delivering value to its customers and stakeholders. We wish Joe the best in his future endeavors.”

Also in the announcement Uva was quoted saying, "“My four years as President and CEO of Univision have been extremely exciting and rewarding. I believe our team can be proud of the accomplishments that we achieved during my tenure. Although I will miss working with the many talented professionals at Univision, the team is strong and I have decided the time is right for me to capitalize on other opportunities. I know that Univision will continue its great success as the premier Spanish-language media company in the U.S.”Univision Communications announced today that its president and CEO Joe Uva has resigned. According to the company, Uva had informed the board of directors that he would not renew his current contract, which expires on April 2, in pursuit of other opportunities. Uva, who has been at Univision for the past four years, will stay on until the end of his contract. "Univision is a better company today due to Joe’s efforts in building a strong leadership team and positioning Univision for long-term success," Univision's executive chairman Haim Saban said. The search for a new CEO will begin immediately. In the interim, Saban will assume additional responsibilities.

Uva was named president and CEO of Univision at the completion of the company's acquisition by an investor group led by Saban in 2007. Before that, Uva served as president and CEO of OMD Worldwide for five years and spent 17 years at Turner Broadcasting. Univision has been on a roll lately, regularly beating the broadcast networks in adults 18-34 and often challenging them in 18-49. Uva's resignation comes at an unfortunate time as Univision is set to present its lineup for next season to advertisers in two months but it is another indication that the privately held company's backers are considering taking it public.
Broadcasting Media Partners (the investor group including Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Saban Capital Group), not long after the completion of their buy of Univision Communications, named Joe Uva CEO of the leading Spanish-language media company in the U.S, on April 1, 2007.

Uva, previously President and CEO of OMD Worldwide, led the growth of OMD into the #2-ranked global media strategy and buying agency with over 100 offices in over 80 countries. While at OMD he structured the industry’s first billion-dollar cross-media buying contract and attracted a stable of new clients while solidifying a global network and working to establish best practices around the world.

After being on the job nearly four months, we asked last year about his role and impact at Univision and about the Hispanic media marketplace in general.


What are the top three trends you can say are important right now in the Hispanic media marketplace vs. general market? What should advertisers be aware of?"

The current trends in the Hispanic media market center around the fact that young adult Hispanics continue to demonstrate preference for Spanish -language broadcast media vs. English -language as evidenced by the continued growth of viewing to Univision and TeleFutura by 18-34 year olds. These consumers are not necessarily monolingual Spanish speakers, yet their media consumption indicates a growing preference for Spanish language content, not just in television, but in radio and online as well. A follow on trend is that these consumers feel that advertisers who speak to them in their native tongue respect them and empower them, which leads to these highly desirable consumers being more positively disposed to marketers who take the time to address them in environments they trust and enjoy. In turn, this leads to more sales for advertisers. In fact, in a media habits study conducted by Simmons earlier this year, viewers to Univision were 3-4 times more likely to make a purchase based on the advertising they viewed than those consumers who watch ABC, CBS, CW, FOX or NBC.


How will you educate general market agencies about the uniqueness of the Hispanic market? Hispanics aren't just Hispanics—they come from different cultural backgrounds and consume products and media quite differently?

The most significant difference is between Hispanics and Anglos in the way they engage in media. Hispanic media consumption is reflective of their cultural values based in the importance of family, a strong spiritual belief system, hard work and trust. They are extremely passionate about life and everything they do is a manifestation of that passion, including media consumption. This makes Hispanics more connected to the media they watch and listen to than their non-Hispanic counterparts. This is a message that we will continue to deliver to advertisers and their agencies especially as it relates to Univision, which has the strongest emotional connection with its audience of all television networks.


Tell us about the opportunity at Univision presented and why you took it.

I was contacted about the Univision opportunity in August of last year and throughout the Fall and early winter I spent time with the new ownership group getting to know them, understanding their goals and objectives, learning about the challenges and opportunities that faced the company and developing an understanding of the organization so that I could determine what impact could be made and in what time frame. I accepted the position because the new owners are the best and brightest of the private equity world and are aligned on where they want to take the company, and because in the process of doing my homework I discovered this intensely passionate one-to-one connection that Univision’s audiences have with our networks.


What are the most important things you’ve learned while running OMD and being on the media agency side of the desk?

The most important things I learned at OMD that are helping me here have to do with changing a company’s culture and better understanding consumers so that you can help advertisers sell more goods and services.
Changing an organization’s culture requires understanding how the culture you are going change came to be, listening to and respecting the thoughts and opinions of all employee groups, setting a clear vision, developing a strategy and action plan to achieve the vision, articulating it to the leaders of the organization and empowering them to implement it. Finally, you need to get out of the way and let people do their jobs but be there to support them as needed and continuously measure their performance against the goals set and celebrate their achievements.

Helping marketers sell more and build stronger connections to their consumers is fundamental. Investing the appropriate resources in capabilities that will provide actionable insight to allow you to develop better opportunities for advertisers is necessary in today’s environment and that is what we will do at Univision.


What are the top things you’d like to change or effect change upon in the media and advertising industries?

I believe that closer collaboration and sharing of information among advertisers, agencies and the media would truly unlock greater potential for marketers. If advertisers and agencies are willing to share the same proprietary information that they share with each other with the media, the media can and will be able to better address short and long term needs by developing more robust and measurable programs in partnership with advertisers. I’d like to see more openness.

The other thing I would like to change is the allocation of media spends to align better with the population. In this case I am talking about having marketers spend the appropriate dollars against the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population – Hispanics.


What are your plans for Univision.com? What have you learned about the site’s behavioral targeting capability?

We will continue to invest in enhanced functionality and new original content for Univision.com. We just launched our social networking platform, our first mini-novela on the site in partnership with Unilever and in early September we will be launching our user generated video content functionality. I am a big believer in behavioral targeting and we are still learning about its potential for us.


Tell us about how the Hispanic television upfront has evolved over the years. How important is it now and how much does Univision participate?

The Spanish -language upfront has been around for several years and was really created and driven by Univision. It is a vitally important part of our business because as in the English -language market, it is the time of the year when will take in the most revenue. However, now that Univision, TeleFutura and Galavisión are and will be rated alongside the English -language broadcast and cable networks on an NTI basis and because Univision regularly out delivers at least 2 of those broadcast networks in any given week against key demos, I believe there should be only one upfront and that we should be considered and purchased at the same time as ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and The CW. Hopefully this will happen during next year’s market. This year the Spanish-language upfront is progressing and all indications are that both volume and price will be up.
 
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