Craig Allen. Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States. Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2020. x + 338 pp. $85.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-68340-164-3.
Reviewed by Jon Bekken (Albright College)
Published on Jhistory (May, 2023)
Commissioned by Zef Segal (Department of History, Philosophy, and Jewish Studies, the Open University of Israel)
The launch of the United States’ first Spanish-language TV station, KCOR, in San Antonio, Texas, in 1955 laid the foundation for what ultimately became the country's dominant Spanish-language television network, Univision, in 1987. This useful account of US Spanish-language television opens with an account of the 2013 protests against the demolition of the building that housed that station and closes with the launch of Fusion—Univision’s failed attempt to reach a new generation of Latinos —the same year. KCOR was a pioneer in the nascent UHF spectrum, initially relying on low-cost local and syndicated programming. In 1958, it agreed to carry programming from Mexico’s Telesistema network; a few years later the Spanish International Broadcasting Corp. was created to launch a second UHF station in Los Angeles, and the Spanish International Network (SIN) organized to syndicate Telesistema programming across the United States.
This network was precarious from the start. Mexican broadcasting mogul Emilio Azcárrage Vidaurreta surreptitiously financed that Los Angeles station (US law prohibited foreign ownership, and so he “lent” the funds to an employee who was a US citizen) and covered the network’s losses for many years. In addition to skirting US law, Azcárrage also faced a delicate challenge at home. Azcárrage’s first Mexican television station began broadcasting in 1951, though he had operated Mexican radio networks for two decades and also owned Mexico’s dominant film studio. Azcárrage relied on US advertising to finance his radio and television operations but pioneered in local production of programming he hoped to syndicate throughout Latin America. He needed a US network to secure his Mexican interests (the Mexican government was wary of his emerging monopoly and of pervasive US influence over Mexican television; launching a US network appealed to nationalist sentiments) but had to conceal its substantial losses from corporate directors who did not share Azcárrage’s vision.
Media historian Craig Allen tells this complex history, driven by strong-willed individuals who pursued their ambitions without regard to regulations and laws, corporate accountability or short-term profits (they seem to have been confident that profits would eventually come, but these were elusive for decades). SIN/Univision was characterized by decades of personality clashes, legal battles, and changing ownership structures. In the 1960s a competing network (which ultimately became Telemundo) emerged, built around Columbia Pictures’ syndication of Spanish-dubbed programming and New York City and Puerto Rican television stations. The third major player in the book is Telesistema Méxicano (later reorganized as Televisa) and its Univision Latin American network; Televisa and the US Univision corporations merged in 2021. As a result, Allen’s lively narrative requires careful attention to keep track of the different players (who sometimes shift between networks) and their tangled relationships. Indeed, even the publishers of this book seem to have become confused, with the back cover copy conflating the launch of San Antonio station KCOR with the launch of SIN (and the purchase of KCOR from its founder) six years later. Appendices offering timelines of Univision (incorporating developments from Telesistema, and so covering 1895, when Azcárrage was born, to 2012) and Telemundo (1960s-2012) are useful in this regard.
Despite substantial Spanish-speaking populations scattered across the United States, advertisers were reluctant to spend money on Spanish-language broadcasting, and Nielsen did not begin reporting ratings data until the 1990s. The development of national networks was also complicated by the diverse nature of the Latino population, ultimately requiring the promotion of a Latinidad identity to transcend Mexican (Univision’s original audience), Puerto Rican (Telemundo’s origins), and other cultural traditions. Telesistema’s early commitment to Latin American syndication (needed to offset the higher costs of producing its own programming while competing with networks airing dubbed US television shows) gave SIN/Univision an advantage in broadening its audience, as did its vast library of telenovelas, sports programming, and other content. Telemundo initially competed with local production (and later through coproductions with Central American television producers and TV Azteca), but although some programs drew large audiences Univision’s prime-time telenovela schedule was cheaper (in part because its access to programs continued to be heavily subsidized by its Mexican partner) and drew consistently larger audiences. However, SIN replaced its rebroadcast of a Mexican newscast with its own Spanish-language newscast in 1981—a commitment to original news programming that has continued to the present day.
After a lawsuit exposed SIN’s foreign control, the Federal Communications Commission revoked its station licenses, and the network was sold to Hallmark in 1986. Hallmark reorganized the network as Univision and added what became television’s longest-running variety show, “Sabado Gigante” (Giant Saturday, originally created in Chile, and which Univision syndicated to networks in thirty countries). After five years of losses, Hallmark sold the network to veteran television producer Jerry Perenchio (who had previously owned two of the stations that became part of the new Telemundo network in 1987). Despite some successful programs, Telemundo remained a distant second to Univision and was sold to Sony in 1997. Sony’s efforts to revive the network with domestic programming were unsuccessful, and it turned to coproductions and imported programs—leading to Telemundo’s first profits and a 2001 sale to NBC (where it has remained to the present day, now as part of Comcast).
Univision’s ownership structure was also volatile. Perenchio took advantage of soaring ratings and its first-ever profit to take Univision public in 1996, selling nine million shares of stock (Perenchio still controlled the company through his shares). The IPO was initially successful, but the stock price collapsed in 2000 as Univision battled with Televisa over access to its programs. After Televisa sued to terminate their programming agreement, Perenchio sold Univision to an investment group led by Haim Saban, who signed a joint operating agreement with Televisa, sold it 35 percent of the company, and abandoned plans for domestic production (which, for Univision, seems to have always been more a bargaining chip than an actual commitment).
Allen concludes with the crisis facing US broadcast television in the 2000s—a crisis Univision and Telemundo share with their English-language counterparts. Broadcast audiences have been fragmented with the rise of competition from cable, satellite, and streaming services. As a result, television viewership has been inexorably declining even as the Spanish-speaking population continued to grow. And as the Latino population has become younger, a growing share now routinely speak English and are less likely to tune in to Spanish-language television. The networks responded by offering English-language subtitles or voice tracks, and with Univision’s disastrous 2013 launch of Fusion, an English-language channel aimed at third-generation Latinos. Initially a joint venture with ABC (which managed advertising sales and distribution, while Univision handled programming), Disney, ABC's owner, sold its Fusion stake to Univision in 2016. Univision acquired and briefly merged the Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion into Fusion (they were sold off in 2019) in its pursuit of younger audiences. Fusion was dropped by satellite TV services and cable systems in 2020 and shut down in 2021.
Univision has continued to face economic challenges; the venture capital firms that controlled the company since 2007 sold their 64 percent of the company to investment firms Searchlight and ForgeLight in 2020, who merged it with its longtime Mexican partner to form TelevisaUnivision the next year. Telemundo has recently been more financially stable as part of the Comcast empire and able to share facilities with sibling NBC in many markets. As part of a larger media conglomerate with many specialized channels, Telemundo is not as threatened by changing language practices as is Univision. TelevisaUnivision continues to grapple with the same challenges that prompted the short-lived entry into English-language programming and digital platforms that the conclusion offers as its future. While the endnotes suggest that research continued into 2016 (at which point signs of the strategy’s failure existed, but were not yet definitive), the decision to stop the narrative in 2013 (seven years before the book’s publication) results in a conclusion that does not take account of developments after the twenty-fifth anniversary of Telemundo and fiftieth anniversary of Univision in 2012.
Ultimately this is as much a story of corporate intrigue and empire building as it is of Spanish-speaking audiences and their needs. Latinos played key roles in launching both networks, but equally central were venture capitalists, Anglo advertising and television executives, and companies with little connection to the Spanish-speaking communities they saw as potentially lucrative markets. Important local and national news operations were built, sometimes in defiance of those who controlled the purse strings, by Latino staff with broader ambitions for community service, and have become a focus of both networks’ identities. Allen’s book benefits from prodigious research and interviews with many of the key figures as he explores the contradictions and external forces that shaped Spanish-language television. As his conclusion suggests, this story is far from complete. As TelevisaUnivision returns to its roots as a transnational broadcaster and Telemundo builds partnerships with broadcasters across Latin America and furnishes Latino-focused programming for Comcast’s Peacock streaming service, Allen’s book provides an invaluable foundation for further research into the future of Latino broadcasting.
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Citation:
Jon Bekken. Review of Allen, Craig, Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States.
Jhistory, H-Net Reviews.
May, 2023.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=58443
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