Comcast Media Center To Roll Out Univision On Demand

Univision Communications Inc. has retained Comcast Media Center to manage distribution of its on-demand offerings.
Univision On Demand offers digital viewers access to programming from the U.S. Spanish-language media leader's broadcast networks Univision and TeleFutura, as well as cable service Galavision. Deal terms were not disclosed.

Among the available fare: Premio Lo Nuestro a la Música Latina, the longest-running and most-watched awards show on Spanish-language TV honoring the best in Latin music; Premios Juventud, Spanish-language TV's only awards show honoring idols of Hispanic youth in the areas of film, music, sports, fashion and pop culture; and many of Univision's lifestyle, news, sports and reality programs.

In addition, Univision On Demand will make FIFA 2010 World Cup action accessible, a key deal point in the programmer reaching multiyear carriage agreements with a host of distributors this year.
CMC began distributing the on-demand content to systems served by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon's FiOS TV in August.

CMC, which reaches more than 35 million, VOD-enabled TV households, will assist Univision in rolling out Univision On Demand industry-wide in the coming months, according to officials at both companies.
"We are looking forward to supporting Univision in its efforts to offer a wide sampling of its content genres to the country's Spanish-speaking households," said Gary Traver, senior vice president, COO for the Comcast Media Center, in a statement. "In addition, the availability of Univision On Demand via the CMC supports the objective of service providers serving over 90 percent of the country's VOD-enabled households to make popular multicultural programming available to their customers."