• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Today

With the coming of a significant and perhaps uneven TV upfront market, TelevisaUnivision has new goals to achieve in the Spanish-language media marketplace.

That said, there are still old, ongoing problem areas that need improvement.

Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing at TelevisaUnivision, continues to look to those under-represented major TV ad categories in the Hispanic media space.

Pharmaceutical and financial services are top of mind.

“We are making headway and chipping away at it. As far as I’m concerned, it is nowhere where it needs to be, given that I know how much they spend on English-language TV,” Speciale told TV Watch.

Categories that are more fully represented include telecommunications and consumer packaged goods, which Speciale says are both major advertisers. “They understand their consumers and are a big part of their audience segmentation. They can’t ignore it.”

Beauty marketers have been a growing category at TelevisaUnivision. "They take it very seriously," Speciale says, adding: "They have been taking a much stronger stance [in the marketplace].”

While some second-quarter scatter reports by media buyers describe a weak marketplace, Speciale says business on her end has been “strong for us.”

She says summer programming in particular -- featuring soccer and music events -- can be a time when new clients are looking for “a cultural moment in a more authentic way versus just buying impressions.”

Going forward into the new TV season, the company is focused on much live programming that marketers of all types are more keenly interested in, and younger audiences in particular.

Some of those efforts include offering new unscripted, live, 24/7 “always on” formats -- lifestyle, competition and music -- that will air on the company’s streaming platform, ViX -- and will be available on social media.

The first show, “La Mansion 24/7,” will start in the first quarter of 2026, and another live unscripted show is set to go in the third quarter.

Music-wise, next year in 2026, TelevisaUnivision will offer up a new music festival “YA Fest” which will take place live in three major markets.

Overall, Speciale sees the upfront market -- tariff-affected or otherwise -- as one likely to be a slow-moving affair.

But given that it is only mid-May -- with a lot of different trade/and tariff news that may be still to come -- marketers have room to consider potentially changing business trends.

Speciale says “clients need to be on the air in September. There is no rush to do it. Having time is not such a bad thing for marketers and clients.”