Joe Uva

January 2008

Joe Uva spent the majority of his career in the advertising business, either on the agency side or on the channel side. This gave him the requisite experience to head up Univision Communications, the leading Spanish-language media company in the U.S., which caters to the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population and the one with surging purchasing power—it’s growing at three times the overall national rate. As the CEO of Univision, Uva is positioning the company to fully harness the power of the Hispanic market, and he is doing so across all of Univision’s holdings, including the broadcast outlets Univision Network and TeleFutura Network and the cable channel Galavisión; radio; and the premier Spanish-language Internet destination in the U.S., Univision.com. Uva talks to World Screen about his plans for Univision.

WS: When you took over as CEO of Univision, what first impressed you about the group?

UVA: First and foremost, I realized that Univision is what it means to be Hispanic in the U.S. The truly unique, intensely passionate connection that U.S. Hispanics have with Univision is like nothing I have ever seen. It transcends the typical relationship that audiences have with media and goes well beyond the entertainment and information value that our audiences derive. Univision is regarded as the protector of Hispanic culture and a source of empowerment. This is a direct result of the incredible public and community service that we provide on the topics that are most important to Hispanics, including education, health, financial literacy, the path to citizenship, the right to vote and, most recently, the impending transition to digital television in early 2009.

WS: What have been the priorities in your first months on the job?

UVA: The priorities have all been based on better leveraging our powerful brands and the unparalleled connection that we enjoy with our audiences for the benefit of the community, marketers, distributors and those elected to serve. We focused on new programming initiatives, such as our Sunday morning public-affairs program Al Punto and our historic Democratic and Republican Presidential Candidate Forums. We did this to help Hispanics engage in the weekly Sunday morning public-affairs dialogue and to help them better understand the candidates’ positions on issues that are most important to the community. This platform also gave the candidates the opportunity to speak directly to the fastest-growing segment of the population, who will help determine who sits in the White House in January 2009.

We also adopted new go-to market strategies to help advertisers better tap into the increasing economic power of Hispanics and we restructured all of our advertising sales functions under a single president to make it easier for marketers to work with us. We have been developing marketing and community-based programs, which we will bring to cable, satellite and telecom distributors to help them add new subscribers for their services. In addition, we focused on identifying non-core assets of the company for divestiture.

WS: What are the unique strengths that Univision can offer advertisers?

UVA: Univision is one of the most integrated companies in media. With our three television networks—Univision, TeleFutura and Galavisión—as well as our leading radio, online and mobile platforms, we can connect marketers with Hispanic consumers wherever they are. With all of our sales efforts now centralized, we are positioned better than ever to partner with advertisers. We are committed to being solutions-oriented and giving our partners greater flexibility to put the right pieces of our portfolio together to meet their specific marketing goals. Most importantly, we can provide deep insight into the U.S. Hispanic population to help marketers create more relevant offerings and campaigns to grow their business faster.

WS: How can you improve the flow of ad dollars from English-language programming to Spanish-language programming?

UVA: By demonstrating our value and how we can use the powerful connection we enjoy with the community to help marketers sell more. The fact is, Hispanics are not only the fastest-growing population segment in numbers, they also represent the fastest-growing in terms of purchasing power. That means that every dollar spent against them is a dollar spent on growth, not on defending sales against those non-Hispanic segments of the population whose numbers are declining as a percentage of the whole and whose buying power represents less than it did in the past.

Further, we know from research that was conducted by Simmons in early 2007 that viewers of Spanish-language television are three times more likely to make a purchase decision based on advertising in Spanish than non-Hispanic viewers of English-language television are. Hispanics feel that those advertisers who speak to them in Spanish respect them and understand them. It is vitally important for any marketer looking for sustainable growth to understand this and to act on it.

WS: How are you serving the second generation of Hispanics who are growing up bilingual?

UVA: Univision offers content that is innovative and culturally relevant to Hispanic Americans, regardless of their proficiency in English. Nearly three-fourths of our television audience lives in a home where both English and Spanish are spoken, yet the top 25 most-watched shows in those bilingual homes are on Univision. Bilingual Hispanics, in particular, come to Univision for content that doesn’t translate into English. News coverage on Spanish-language television, radio and online covers topics that are specifically of interest to Hispanics; sports coverage offers the best of soccer and boxing; and novelas are a unique formula that has proven to be uniquely successful in Spanish. Interestingly, our strongest demographic performance is among 18 to 34-year-olds. Certainly, a growing number of this segment is bilingual, yet according to the Nielsen ratings, they are choosing to seek out and watch Univision.

WS: What challenges and opportunities does this bilingual target audience offer?

UVA: Our goal is to keep pace with the interests of our audiences. Bilingual Hispanics—including second- and even third-generation adults, teenagers and kids—are choosing Univision over other Spanish and English-language options because our content is designed to be relevant to them. We see this as an ongoing opportunity with the potential for sustained growth.

WS: How do you track the changing needs of your audience?

UVA: We do it with both quantitative and qualitative studies. We’re fortunate to be in a business where both raw numbers and detailed feedback can tell us how well the content on our various platforms is resonating with Hispanics.

WS: Do you plan on increasing the production or commissioning of telenovelas?

UVA: We are continually exploring new opportunities and reevaluating our programming to ensure that we always provide our audience with the best content catered specifically to them. This applies to all genres, not just novelas. During the fourth quarter of ’07, we ran Como ama una mujer (How a Woman Loves), an original mini-series created and [executive produced] by Jennifer Lopez and Nuyorican Productions. Starting in 2008, we are excited to launch an original production of Amas de casa desesperadas (Desperate Housewives), produced specifically with U.S. Hispanics in mind. We did this in conjunction with [Disney-ABC International Television].

WS: Telemundo is the second-largest producer of telenovelas in the world and they sell them internationally. Is this a business worth pursuing?

UVA: Univision’s strategy is to serve the U.S. Hispanic community in Spanish. That is our strength and we believe it is paying off, and we enjoy a relationship with the largest producer of telenovelas in the world, which gives us access to the very best of the genre.

WS: What is your strategy for new media: websites, broadband and mobile?

UVA: Univision.com is already the number one Spanish portal in the U.S., and we are rapidly expanding from there. This year we launched our video channel, our social-networking platform Mi Página and our mobile web portal. Our strategy overall is to connect with our audiences wherever they are, and our new-media strategy focuses on meeting the evolving interests of their increasingly digital and mobile lifestyle.

WS: How is Univision’s relationship with Televisa and Venevision?

UVA: Our partners at Televisa and Venevision have been and continue to be an integral part of the extraordinary success of the Univision networks, and we hope to maintain and strengthen these mutually profitable relationships for many years to come.

WS: Univision is now owned by a group of private-equity firms, who typically look for cost-cutting and growth. Are there areas of Univision in need of trimming costs?

UVA: Univision’s new owners, Broadcasting Media Partners, are focused on the growth of our business. They are a group of accomplished leaders who bring a tremendous amount of media and business experience to the table. They recognize the growth potential of the U.S. Hispanic population, of Spanish media in general, and the Univision brand in particular.

WS: What growth areas have you identified?

UVA: Each of our assets present fantastic growth and cross-promotion opportunities to unlock Univision’s full potential. Achieving continued growth includes aggressively pursuing ad dollars allocated to English-language networks, selling more political advertisements, investments in digital and, for the first time, working with cable and satellite operators to share in the financial benefits they will derive if they continue to carry Univision, TeleFutura and Galavisión programming.

WS: How do you see the Univision group vis-a-vis other Spanish-language networks?

UVA: We take all our competitors very seriously. But what we take most seriously of all is our own mission: to connect Hispanics to their culture, to resources and to the marketplace. By maintaining that commitment, we will grow and better serve our audiences and continue to provide increased value to advertisers and distributors.

WS: What is your vision for the group two or three years from now?

UVA: Our vision is to become the most valued partner for marketers and distributors by continuing to faithfully serve the needs and interests of the U.S. Hispanic community.