Commentary
Univision Shifting To A Trump Presidential Viewing Game: Will Advertisers Follow?
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 20, 2023
TV networks steering their political aspirations in their news content to a place where they get more viewers -- and hopefully, more high-paying advertisers -- isn't new news. But does this always get to the bottom line?
We now have another backstory about Univision maneuvering to former President Trump's side of things, according to a story in The Washington Post.
Leon Krauze, a Univision 12-year veteran anchor, didn't like the way the network’s news division was moving, and this culminated in a friendly, hour-long recent interview with Trump.
And in the name of good journalism, he honorably decided to leave his job, all the while criticizing the decision to do that interview.
At the same time, Univision nixed a planned political advertising schedule from President Biden that would have run during the interview.
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For its part, Univision said it made an unannounced decision that no political advertising would run during the long interview with Trump, and the same would hold true for any Trump ads in a possible future Biden interview.
Why Trump? “This interview held significant importance for our audience," TelevisaUnivision said in the statement.
The Washington Post said none other than Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was involved in striking this deal.
Things changed starting a year ago in November 2022, when Univision made the unusual move of covering a less-than-newsworthy Trump campaign announcement live.
And why all of this? Well, Latin Americans voted for Joe Biden over Trump in the last Presidential election by two to one. Someone is looking to change that math this time around.
It's not as if Univision does not have good veteran journalists who can ask tough, critical questions. Jorge Ramos is one. So good, in fact -- and so irritating to Trump -- that back in 2015, Trump had his security team escort him out of the interview.
With all the controversy surrounding Fox News Channel this year -- including a massive $787 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems-- one would have thought these behind-the-scenes TV news-channel issues meant steering toward or favoring one side of the political discourse would be ending.
Was Fox News Channel's “most favored” candidate -- Trump in 2016 and 2020, according to analysts -- the model for all of this, even as Fox tried to abandon him several times in recent years?
When it did, viewership suffered. One prime example occurred days after the 2020 election, when rival conservative news channel Newsmax witnessed a viewership spike by leaning into fake election-fraud issues.
So what does this mean going forward? Is Univision looking at recent polls that continue to show Trump leading over Biden?
The network's TV news Latin-American audience is generally like that of other TV news channels -- a major part being an audience 60 years and older.
What kind of attention will advertisers give its news programming now?
Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
Just what America needs, more Donald trump. God help us.
I worked at Univision back when they first went public and were owned by Perenchio, a non-Hispanic, former boxing promotor just before the turn of the century. With a share something like 85% of U.S. Hispanic audience and similar share of U.S. Hispanic advertising income, they could care less about their audience then, and now that their fortunes have changed and TV is a much, much tougher business, they certainly could care less now. Goya and much of the South Florida Hardcore 1st or 2nd Gen Cuban-American (and maybe 1st gen Venezuelan American) audience will certainly take that trip to Traitor Trumpsville with them. They're not so keen on American democracy if it includes having to listen to other viewpoints besides their very own narrow view. Not sure how the rest of their audience will respond, since the vast majority of US Hispanics are Mexican American AND 1st generation immigrant, which means, most aren't citizens and thus can't vote. Looks to me like two desperate parties, Trump and Univision, getting together. A match made in heaven... or more likely hell. Hopefully, those American Latinos that are able to vote are smarter than to be conned by Don the traiter again... 1/6/21... Never forget. Orale!