Television-Univisión, global streaming

Televisa and Univisión yesterday completed their merger to create the most important Spanish-language content platform in the world.

Together they will compete for the streaming market, which to date has been dominated by Netflix, Prime Video, Amazon, Disney and HBO Max, among others.

With this operation, Televisa returns to its origins, as a content producer, after focusing more on the telecommunications business a decade ago through pay-TV, broadband, fixed and cellular telephony services.

Televisa continues to fight in this business and rediscover itself at the same time.

Faced with the migration of advertising from traditional media to digital platforms, Televisa-Univisión is entering the ring of global streaming.

For Emilio Azcárraga Jean, this represents the opportunity to realize an old family dream, access to the Spanish-speaking market in the US, which for many years was restricted by the laws of that country prohibiting foreigners from operating media outlets.

Its merger with Univisión opens a new chapter in the history of the Mexican television company.

Televisa and Univisión merge content representing more than 300 thousand hours of programming.

They are becoming the largest repository of content and intellectual property on the planet.

The goal of this new company is to conquer the largest possible share of the Spanish-speaking market of almost 600 million inhabitants and which represents a total GDP of about 7 billion dollars.

Televisa will receive $ 4.8 billion as part of this operation and will become the majority shareholder of Televisa-Univisión, with 45% of its shares.

Of that grand total, 62.5% will be in cash (about $ 3 billion), 31.25% from Univisión’s capital ($ 1.50 million) and the remaining 6.25% from other sources ($ 300 million).

For that operation, the Mexican television station will pay taxes in Mexico for about 15 billion pesos, according to what the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reported in his morning conference yesterday.

Televisa retains ownership of Izzi Telecom, Sky, Mexico’s transmission concession titles and transmission infrastructure, and other businesses

The merger operation between Televisa and Univisión is financed by one billion dollars worth of shares (new series “C” shares) of Softbank Latin America Fund, with the participation of Google, The Rain Group and ForgeLicth and a debt commitment of 2 thousand 100 million dollars coordinated by JP Morgan.

On January 24, Televisa and Univisión confirmed that they had received approval from the regulatory authorities in the United States to merge their media, content and production assets.

In Mexico, in September last year, the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) approved the concentration between Univisión and Televisa. It did not foresee competitive consequences of Univisión’s marginal participation in Mexico.

Televisa-Univisión, whose board of directors will be led by Alfonso de Angoitia, will start fighting on the digital field in the first half of this year. We’ll see.

AMLO, reduced

In the last two quarters of 2021, Mexico’s economic recovery erupted.

According to figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), the Mexican economy grew by 5% by the end of 2021.

This means that economic activity has not recovered from the recession it registered in 2020, the year of the pandemic, when it fell by 8.4%.

And the recovery, which initially generated high expectations and led to forecasts of 6% GDP growth, eventually erupted and was only 5%.

The growth rate of 5% for the end of 2021, released by Inegi, was far from the forecast of the Ministry of Finance, led by Rogelio Ramírez de la O, of between 5.8 and 6.8%.

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