After nine months of negotiations, Televisa and Univision announced that they had finalized the merger of both companies to join forces and create an entertainment media giant with the mission of competing against the big streaming platforms.
The new company, TelevisaUnivision, enters the battle with heavy artillery, since it has the largest content library in Spanish in the world, as well as a production capacity proven over several decades and a captive Spanish-speaking market of over 600 million people around the world.
Photo: Televisa
Both Televisa and Univision have offered the best content in Spanish to the Mexican and Hispanic audience in the United States, positioning themselves, for several years now, as leaders in these markets. For example, in 2021 alone, Univision reached 62% of the primetime audience of Spanish-language television in the US, on the other hand, in Mexico the 20 programs with the highest audience on open TV in Mexico are from Televisa. That is, the formula is already more than proven.
In addition to the thousands of hours that Televisa already has, and which will now be part of the new company, in the last year they have closed agreements with some of the most important creators in the region such as Mario Vargas Llosa, María Dueñas, Selena Gómez and Eugenio Derbez, to mention just a few.
According to the Reuters agency, in recent months some productions have already been announced that will be available in 2022, such as the long-awaited bioseries by Vicente Fernández or the adaptation of the successful soap opera The rich also cry. But not only will the content be unprecedented in this new company, but its streaming platform will also have different subscription options. The first, which will be free and with ads, will be available in the first half of this year. The second, a premium version that will have a lower subscription to the platforms that are currently available on the market, will be launched in the second half of 2022.
Photo: Televisa
The vast majority of programs and telenovelas that will be part of the catalog of the TelevisaUnivision platform will be produced here in Mexico and, in terms of movies, the famous film production company Videocine will also be part of this new company, which means that Mexico It would be about to become a powerhouse for the production of entertainment content in Spanish at a global level.
In the promos that are circulating in the emails of Televisa and Univision employees, Thalía is the host who explains the merger and potential between both companies.
