Hispanic Media Opps: Univision set to merge with Televisa (Score 59)

Univision Communications announced it is merging with Televisa. The new company will be called Televisa-Univision. Under the terms, Univision is paying Televisa $3b in cash and $1.45b in equity for four free-to-air broadcast channels, 27 pay-TV channels, production assets, video library and the Blim subscription video service. Televisa now owns 45% of Univsion and will continue operating a portion of its business separate from Univision. The deal reportedly makes Televisa-Univision the largest Spanish-language media company in the world. We told you about Univision's new sales and marketing president earlier this year. 

According to Pathmatics, Univision earned 38m impressions YTD through desktop video ads (47%), Instagram ads (24%), Facebook ads (19%), Twitter ads (6%), desktop display ads (3%) and mobile display ads (1%). It placed the majority (81%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as instagram.com, yahoo.com, facebook.com, twitter.com and chicagobears.com. It placed the remainder (19%) indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense onto yahoo.com. It spent around $289.5k on digital display ads YTD, an 8% decrease from $312.9k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped 120% from $1.5m in 2019 to $3.3m in 2020. 

Per iSpot, Univision spent around $679.5k on national TV ads YTD, just 23% of the $3m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend increased by 33% from $7.2m in 2019 to $9.6m in 2020. This year, it placed ads during programming such as "Mythbusters: Los Cazadores de Mitos," "Very, Very Valentine," "Inside the NBA," "Deportes CNN" and "NBA Basketball."

Sellers-- No spend information is available for Televisa because it is based in Mexico. Univision seems to primarily target Hispanic Gen-X and millennials with a female skew. It reaches these demographics through digital display and national TV ads. YTD spend is down in both channels, but it increased spend in 2020. There is still plenty of time in 2021 for it to match 2020 spend. Univision also invests in OOH, print and local broadcast TV ads, per Kantar. Sellers should start reaching out offering ad space. I predict it will ramp spend up to promote its increased offerings. 

Agency & martech readers-- I believe Univision works with Digitas on creative and multicultural, Ready Set Rocket on digital with an in-house media team. The company just hired sales and marketing president Donna Speciale in January, so keep reaching out.