|
 |
July 6, 2007
Tome Dishes Televisa Talk
In a new book, former Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador tells of a previously secret meeting with Televisa CEO Emilio Azcarraga Jean and network executive vice presidents Bernardo Gómez, Alfonso de Angoitia and José Baston.
At that gathering held two days ahead of the election, according to López Obrador, Azcarraga said, “I have information that you intend to expropriate Televisa.” The candidate expressed surprise and Azcarraga then reportedly handed him the text of a supposed expropriation decree that was to take effect the day after the presidential inauguration. Lopez Obrador says he made clear the document was forged.
López Obrador has been consistently critical of Televisa but in La mafia nos robó la presidencia (The Mafia Robbed Us of the Presidency) he wrote, “I have never believed that the way to democratize the media and guarantee the right to information [in Mexico] is to expropriate Televisa.” Instead, he calls for greater competition.
The account takes up less than two full pages in the 300-page book, but has garnered extensive media coverage. Azcarraga has not yet responded. López Obrador attributed the source of the document to intelligence officials, the Fox administration or possibly the campaign team of President Calderón.
The book attributes ill intent to a lengthy list of businessmen, government officials and politicians. The tone is, at times, vituperative. However, the brief account of the meeting stands out for its straightforward narrative.
[back to top]
Univision-Televisa Trial Date Delayed Again
The start of the Univision-Televisa trial has been pushed back yet again and is now scheduled to commence Jan. 15, 2008, according to documents filed last week in a U.S. federal court. The case had been scheduled to start on Oct. 31 of this year. Televisa originally filed its lawsuit on May 9, 2005, claiming copyright infringement and a number of violations of the program-licensing agreement between the two networks. The PLA specifies the conditions under which the Mexican broadcaster provides its telenovelas and other programs to Univision. Much of Univision’s ratings success, particularly in primetime, is due to the U.S. popularity of Televisa’s programming.
Last week’s court filings shed new light on the discovery efforts by both parties. Major advertisers on Univision including Coca-Cola, Lexicon, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart Stores have been subpoenaed by Televisa. So have advertising agencies The Bravo Group, Bromley and Lopez Negrete, as well as the television-station groups Entravision, Equity and Fisher Broadcasting. The latter groups both own Univision affiliates.
Not all took kindly to the subpoenas. P&G’s outside law firm described the requests for information as “unreasonable, oppressive and impose an undue burden and expense upon P&G.” Ernst & Young, which audits Univision’s accounts, described the subpoena as “vague, ambiguous and overbroad.” Still, the subpoenas produced a total of 111,140 pages of documents. The court did find that Ernst & Young could withhold 76 documents totaling 192 pages “that constitute the work product of Univision’s attorneys.”
[back to top]
BMP Loan to Uva
Univision CEO Joe Uva received a loan for $1,985,774 on June 19 to purchase 210,031 shares of parent company Broadcasting Media Partners. The loan had been telegraphed in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing earlier this year. However, additional details included in a filing last week shed new light on the financial expectations of Univision’s new owners.
The second tranche of shares purchased with the loan “will vest to the extent that on the applicable vesting date, the investors have received an 8% return on their investment.” The third and final tranche “will vest to the extent the investors have received a return equal to two times their investment and, if they have not vested after five years, investors additionally must receive at least a 15% internal rate of return.” Those are aggressive goals by almost any measure.
More benign is the 4.59% interest rate, which is “the lowest applicable federal rate of interest permitted under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended.”
The loan is scheduled to be repaid in yearly installments from Uva’s annual bonus.
[back to top]
GMC Drives Straight-to-Broadband
Last week, Yahoo!Telemundo began running a series of straight-to-broadband home-improvement clips under the banner of “Gana Mi Casa” and featuring the GMC Sierra truck.
“We really pushed the envelope on this one and they were a big proponent of that to really take advantage of the strengths and portfolio of Yahoo! and Telemundo,” said Yahoo director of U.S. Hispanic sales Adam Chandler. “It is brand new content made for the Web around a particular brand DNA and product.
“While you are getting original broadband video made for the Web, you are also getting product integration. They are promoting their GMC Sierra pickup that is involved in all of the episodes.” Telemundo is airing 60-second “vignettes” in primetime in order to cross-promote the broadband video. “Additionally, [Telemundo is] doing sort of editorial integration on broadcast. An example of that is Cada Día, their morning show. So, they are going to feature the hosts of Gana Mi Casa on Cada Día, who will then share video clips of the [broadband] series on broadcast. That is all telling users to go online to get more experience.”
This is the second Spanish-language made-for-broadband home improvement series following a similar effort launched last year by HGTVPro.com and hosted by former football player and current building contractor Fuad Reveiz.
[back to top]
Douglas Quinn started selling cars at his father’s dealership before he was old enough to drive. The president of Soccer United Marketing became familiar with professional soccer while running the National Football League’s international business from a base in Barcelona. He joined Soccer United in May, 2004. Though Major League Soccer is the “cornerstone” of the business, in Quinn’s words, SUM also works with the U.S. soccer federation, Mexico’s national team, the recently concluded CONCACAF Gold Cup and the upcoming SuperLiga, which pits MLS teams against teams from Mexico’s first division. Quinn spoke this week to Hispanic Television Update about soccer ratings, the Gold Cup and Cuauhtémoc Blanco. An edited
transcript follows:
Q: The past few months have been soccer ratings nirvana. Why so much success in so concentrated a period of time?
A: I don’t think it is actually that concentrated. As many people tuned in to last year’s World Cup final as tuned in to Major League Baseball’s World Series. It wasn’t just the Mexico matches; it wasn’t just the USA matches. To a certain extent, it really didn’t matter who it was. Soccer fever caught America and America followed. And they watched both English-language and Spanish-language almost in equal parts for the very first time in the history of the sport in America.
Q: For the Gold Cup, you split English and Spanish-language rights — what is the motivation behind that decision?
A: Again, there are two different audiences. You have an English-speaking audience and a Spanish-language audience. For the Hispanic clubs, you have many [viewers] that traditionally are tuning in to consume their soccer on Spanish-language television, which is predominantly Univision and the Univision group of stations. And you have English-speaking soccer fans who consumer their soccer on Fox Soccer Channel or ESPN or ABC. With a country like ours. which is as diverse and unique from virtually any country in the world, you have to cater not just to Spanish and English. In many cases, you have to cater to a lot of other languages.
Q: Which do you think is more important to MLS in terms of ratings and revenue?
A: Absolutely equal. Long term, you have to have the Anglo audience watching your sport. At the same time, the size, scope and growth of the Hispanic audience is so important because football to them is part of their lifeblood, it is part of their religion, for them [and] for us. It is an amazing foundation to have for a business. We would never turn away from something that strong. At the same time, you have to have both.
Q: Has soccer effectively displaced hockey as the number four sport in America?
A: I neither want to confirm nor deny, but I think that all you can do is look at the Gold Cup ratings recently for the final. The final for us was 41% higher than the Stanley Cup Finals and that gives you a feel for the size and scope. The size of soccer, not just MLS, all soccer [combined] in the U.S., dwarfs the NHL. I think it rivals the other big three.
Q: Who do you think will be more important to the MLS — Beckham at the Los Angeles Galaxy or Cuauhtémoc Blanco at the Chicago Fire?
A: Equal in different ways.
Q: Such the diplomat. Different in what ways?
A: There is no Beckham other than Beckham. David is an icon. What he is going to provide to us on the field and off the field, I think, are unique and different to him. I think he transcends both English-language and Spanish-language. Remember, the guy came from Madrid and he does speak Spanish. And he has been a popular icon to any soccer fan both Hispanic and [non-Hispanic]. He is unique in that respect.
What about Blanco? The best player in Mexico, arguably. Coming up to play with us, illustrating he still has legs. Playing down in Copa América for the Mexican national team and played in the Gold Cup. When the guy came in for his first press conference we announced it 24 hours before. I think it was five, 6,000 people showed up for his press conference. In that particular audience, he is incredibly powerful and will be incredibly exciting for the league.
[back to top]
GolTV Deal Red-Carded
(Excerpted from a June 22 article on Multichannel.com)
The proposed deal that would have seen Dave Checketts’ SCP Worldwide take a majority stake in soccer-centric Gol TV was offsides.
Gol TV chief operating officer Rodrigo Lombello and SCP executive Chris Bevilacqua said that while the framework for an agreement had been sculpted, the companies’ respective boards declined to finalize the deal over “a variety of issues.” The executives would not address whether the details involved financials or executive-leadership issues.
SCP was expected to take an 80% ownership stake in Gol TV for some $200 million.
HITN Off DirecTV’s Hit List
(Excerpted from a June 25 article on Multichannel.com)
Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, a Spanish-language public-interest channel, will keep its berth on DirecTV for now, after facing the threat of being dropped at the end of this week.
“We have been able to secure continued carriage on DirecTV,” HITN president Jose Luis Rodriguez said. “This basically assures us that HITN has achieved a major milestone. We have passed 20 million households. Based on information that we just got from DirecTV, we estimate that we reach about 22 million.”
For more ... [back to top]
-
Forbes.com carries an Associated Press write-up on the poor working conditions claims made by Guatemalan garment workers who manufacture goods for the Daisy Fuentes clothing line sold at Kohl’s department stores. Some product lines have been pulled as a result, and Kohl’s has also hired an outside firm to investigate the charges. Kohl’s also sells a line of linens, sheets and towels endorsed by Univision talk show host Cristina Saralegui. No complaints have been made by workers making products for the Casa Cristina Collection.
For more ...
[back to top]
TO SUBSCRIBE:
www.multichannel.com/newsletters or e-mail MULcustserv@cdsfulfillment.com
WRITER:
EDITOR:
Eric Smith
646-746-6962
HispanicTV@reedbusiness.com
AD SALES:
RB Interactive
1-888-7RBI WEB
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.
|
|
