Univision Digital Launches In-House Innovation Unit

MIAMI: Univision Digital has launched Univision Beta, a new initiative meant to accelerate digital innovation across the organization and expand audience reach through emerging digital and social platforms, with a special focus on news and information.

Univision Beta will serve as an in-house innovation lab at Newsport, Univision Communications’s state-of-the-art news facility in Miami. The initiative’s team of media innovators is experimenting with cutting-edge products, tools, formats and technologies to improve Univision’s ability to inform and engage with audiences in the U.S. and abroad. Initial projects that are already in the works are meant to expand Univision News’s coverage of the 2016 presidential elections to such new platforms as Snapchat, Purple and Slack.

Univision Beta will also work with internal teams and outside research organizations to explore digital opportunities and implement new technologies, as well as develop data-driven analytics tools to support news and business-related decisions, among other things. The initiative is being led by Carlos Martínez de la Serna, Univision’s director of digital innovation. Univision News’s VP of strategic communications, Jose Zamora, is also part of the team.

“We are absolutely thrilled with the launch of this innovation initiative that will not only help keep Univision at the forefront of the digital explosion but will also improve our internal processes and promote the search for new, more efficient platforms, models and formats for delivering content to an increasingly wider digital audience,” said Isaac Lee, the chief news and digital officer at Univision Communications. “Innovation through experimentation is Univision Beta’s principal mission; one that will positively impact the way that our multicultural audiences receive and engage with information in today’s fast-evolving media landscape.”

Univision Beta was created as part of a three-year partnership between Univision Digital and MIT Media Lab. It is building a network of partnerships with additional academic organizations.