Televisa is a
MexicanThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
multimedia conglomerate, the largest
mediaMass media denotes a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. However, some forms of mass media such...
company in the
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
-speaking world. It is a major international entertainment business, with much of its programming airing in the United States on
UnivisionUnivision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest Latin American audience, largely due to repurposed telenovelas and other Mexican programs produced by Grupo Televisa...
, with which it has an exclusive contract. Its main competition is
TV AztecaTV Azteca is the second largest Mexican television network after Televisa. It was established in 1983 as the state-owned Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión , a holding of the national TV networks channel 13 and 7 and was privatized under its current name in 1993...
, which has been growing in popularity in the recent years.
Grupo Televisa was founded in 1955 as
Telesistema MexicanoTelesistema Mexicano is the broadcast distribution arm of Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest broadcaster. It started out as a group of independent, locally owned television stations - much like Britain's ITV at its early days....
, linking Mexico's first three television stations:
XHTV-TVXHTV , founded in 1950 by Don Romulo O'Farril, is a flagship TV station of Televisa. Known in Spanish as Canal de la Ciudad , this station primarily targets the Mexico City metro area and thus a lot of the programming reflects life in Mexico City...
(founded in 1950),
XEW-TVXEW-TV is a television station in Mexico. XEW-TV is one of the cornerstone stations of Televisa, with affiliate stations all over Mexico...
(1951) and
XHGC-TVXHGC-TV , commonly known as Canal 5, is a TV station owned by Televisa, broadcasting from Mexico City, with affiliates and repeaters throughout Mexico.-History:...
(1952). It was (and in modern-day Televisa still is) owned by the
Azcárraga familyThe Azcárraga family is a wealthy Mexican media dynasty. The center of their business empire, Televisa, is the main television network in Mexico and the largest producer and broadcaster of Spanish language media around the world.Notable family members include:...
, who had signed on Mexico's first radio station,
XEW-AMXEW-AM is a radio station in Mexico City, Mexico. It is branded as W-Radio and its slogan is La voz de la América Latina desde México or "The voice of Latin America from Mexico."It began regular transmissions at 20:00 CST on 18 September 1930...
, in 1930. Its headquarters, known as Televicentro, were originally located on Avenida
ChapultepecChapultepec is a large hill on the outskirts of central Mexico City...
in downtown
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
. The building opened on February 10, 1952.
In 1968 Televisa's main competitor,
Televisión Independiente de México (TIM), started operating with
XHTIM-TVXEQ is a Televisa flagship TV station, based in Mexico City. It is branded since 2001 as "Galavisión"...
, Canal 8. At the time, both Telesistema and TIM competed with XHAW-TV, local Canal 12, which also started transmissions in 1968. Over the next 4 years both networks competed in content and image until September 17, 1972 when they merged, bringing the name Televisa with them. In the merger deal, the owners of Telesistema had 75 percent of the stocks, while the owners of Televisión Independiente had the rest, which were sold to Telesistema later because of financial problems.
Highlights
On September 7, 1970, "24 Horas" debuted and became one of Mexico's most watched news programs. The host, legendary journalist
Jacobo ZabludovskyJacobo Zabludovsky is a Mexican journalist. He was the first anchorman in Mexican television and his TV news program, 24 Horas was for decades the most important in the country.-Biography:...
, anchored the program for almost 3 decades.
On August 17, 1972,
Emilio Azcárraga VidaurretaEmilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta or Emilio Azcárraga Sr. was a Mexican businessman son of Basque immigrants Mariano Azcárraga and Emilia Vidaurreta....
died and
Emilio Azcárraga MilmoEmilio Azcárraga Milmo or Emilio Azcárraga Jr. was a Mexican businessman and the son of Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, Sr. He was educated at Culver Military Academy, he graduated in 1948. He was married three times, most recently to Paula Cussi...
succeeded him as the big cheese.
In 1975 brothers
Emilio Diez BarrosoEmilio Diez Barroso is Co-Chairman and Founder of a private investment holding company, and founder and CEO of one of its subsidiaries: NALA Films.-Biography:...
and Fernando Diez Barroso began working in the presidency offices of Televisa.
Televisa started to transmit several programs produced by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico) (
UNAMUNAM or UNaM may refer to:*National Autonomous University of Mexico , the large public autonomous university based in Mexico City...
) in 1977. On March 3, 1983, Canal 8 changed their schedule to become a cultural channel, offering informative programs, debates and cultural shows, a precursor to today's
GalavisiónGalavisión is a Miami, Florida based Spanish language cable network owned by Univision Communications, Inc. The station is unrelated to the Mexican channel of the same name, other than sharing the Televisa-produced programming.-History:...
. In May 18, 1985 the frequency was changed to
XEQ-TVXEQ is a Televisa flagship TV station, based in Mexico City. It is branded since 2001 as "Galavisión"...
, Canal 9.
On September 19, 1985, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the
Richter scaleThe Richter magnitude scale, also known as the local magnitude scale, assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude of the largest displacement...
caused widespread damage in
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
and left the south tower of Televisa's main building destroyed. Nonetheless, Televisa's transmissions were not seriously affected.
In 1991, Televisa, with help from
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese
television networkA television network is a distribution network for television content whereby a central operation provides programming for many television stations. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small number of broadcast networks. Many early...
NHK, began its first broadcast in HDTV, using the Japanese MUSE system.
Between 1993 and 1994 Televisa was about to buy italian local tv station GBR, based in Rome, planning to import in Italy his mixed sport-
telenovelas formula, but the transaction was finally aborted.
In April 1997, Milmo died and
Emilio Azcárraga JeanEmilio Fernando Azcárraga Jean is a Mexican businessman and the son of Emilio Azcárraga Milmo and his third wife, Nadine Jean a French citizen. Even when he's the third Emilio in the family, he cannot be called Emilio Azcárraga III due to the lack of a royalty naming...
succeeded him as the head honcho of the company.
In December 1997, Televisa joined with other Mexican media companies to create a marathon known as
TeletónThe name Teletón, Spanish for "telethon", may refer to:* Teletón * Teletón ...
, whose mission is to provide knowledge about physical disabilities, giving a strong message about respect, equality and support to people in these conditions. This movement from media, enterprises and Mexicans is reflected in the buildings created with the money from this Marathon, named Centros de Rehabilitación Infantil (CRIT). It is said that sponsors use it as a way to deduce taxes as the Teletón takes place at the end of the fiscal year and therefore allows companies to deduce their donations before declaring their incomes.
Logo
The famed Televisa logo comes from the original 1973 design by architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, tweaked in 2001 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Televisa: the logo represents a human eye looking at the world through a television screen. It keeps the original logo's yellow and orange colors that contrast with a dark blue background while the center of the logo is a sphere that represents the known contemporary world with its focus on communications, specifically television. The use of an eye as a television logo is not unique, as other broadcasters such as
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
, Fuji TV,
ATVAssociated TeleVision, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licenses to broadcast on the ITV network from September 24, 1955 until December 31, 1981.-Formation:...
and
Rede GloboRede Globo is a Brazilian television network, owned by media conglomerate Organizações Globo. The network is currently the largest in the Latin America and the fourth largest in the world, just behind the U.S...
have also used the concept for their own logos.
Televisa today
Grupo Televisa is the second largest media conglomerate in Latin America behind
Organizações GloboOrganizações Globo is the largest media conglomerate of Latin America, founded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 1925 by Irineu Marinho. It also owns companies on the food industry and the real estate and financial markets....
, with interests in television production and broadcasting, programming for pay television, international distribution of television programming, direct-to-home satellite services, publishing and publishing distribution,
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting in which a television antenna is required...
,
radioRadio is the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
production and broadcasting, professional sports and show business promotions, paging services,
feature filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film made for initial distribution in theaters and being the "main attraction" of the screening...
production and distribution, dubbing, and the operation of a horizontal
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
portal. Televisa's soap operas generally run only one season and are broadcast internationally.The conglomerate is owner of all of the following companies:
- Comercio Más (Internet EsMas.com
esmas.com is the portal of Televisa, the largest Mexican television network and the world's largest producer of Spanish language media....
)
- SKY Latin America
SKY Latin America refers to two closely related pay-TV providers, one based in Mexico, the other in Brazil.The Mexican company was founded in mid-1996, a joint venture between British Sky Broadcasting , News Corporation, Liberty Media and Grupo Televisa...
- DirecTV Mexico (Defunct DTH TV company)
- Cablevisión (Mexico City only)
- Televisa Networks
Televisa Networks is own by the Mexican media company Televisa. It is under control of all of Televisa's cable and satellite channels....
- Estadio Azteca
Estadio Azteca is a stadium in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the official home stadium of the Mexico national football team and the Mexican team Club América....
(Football Stadium)
- Club América
Club América is a Mexican football club based in Mexico City, competing in the Primera División. América is owned by Emilio Azcárraga, who owns Televisa, making it the richest club in Mexico, and the richest outside Europe...
(Football Team)
- Club Necaxa (Football Team)
- San Luis FC (Football Team)
- Editorial Televisa (Books, Magazines and Newspapers)
- Intermex (Editorial house)
- Televisa Radio
Televisa Radio is a division of Televisa focused on AM radio and FM radio broadcasting.-List of stations owned by Televisa Radio:*XEW-AM - news, talk *XEW-FM - FM relay of AM station...
(Formerly Radiopolis)
- Videocine (Movie production and distribution)
- Televisa Home Entertainment (DVD Distribution)
- EMI Televisa Músic
EMI Televisa Music is a record label established in 2005 as a partnership between EMI and Televisa. It focuses on Latin American music.- Artists Signed to this label :*A.B...
(Record Label)
- EMI Latin
EMI Televisa Music, also known as EMI Latin and EMI International, is a subsidiary of EMI which focuses on Latin American music.In 1989, Jose Behar, the former head of the Sony Latin Music division, signed Selena with EMI Latin, a record company founded by Behar. Selena became EMI Latin's first...
(Record Label)
- Televisa Licencias (Merchandising)
- Televisa Digital (Internet)
- TuTV (HDTV Network in USA)
- La Sexta
La Sexta is the sixth nationwide broadcast television station in Spain. It is privately owned and began broadcasting in 2006.-History:...
(TV Channel in Spain)
- Más Fondos (Investment Group)
- Volaris
Volaris is the commercial brand of the Mexican group Concesionaria Vuela Compañía de Aviación S.A. de C.V., a low-cost airline based in the city of Toluca, Mexico State. It is the third largest and the fastest growing Mexican airline, after Aeromexico and Mexicana...
(Airline)
- Centro de Educación Artística
The Centro de Educación Artística of Televisa is the most prestigious entertainment educational institution in Latin America. It was founded on September 26, 1979 and it is located in the facilities of Televisa San Ángel in Mexico City....
(Arts School)
Grupo Televisa is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange,
Bolsa Mexicana de ValoresThe Mexican Stock Exchange is Mexico's only stock exchange. It is headquartered on the prestigious Paseo de la Reforma in central Mexico City. It is the second largest stock exchange in the Latin America after Brazil's BM&F Bovespa. The total value of the Mexican Stock Exchange is estimated to be...
and the
New York Stock ExchangeThe New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by United States dollar value of its listed companies' securities...
.
Terrestrial networks
Through four
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
-licensed TV stations, Televisa provides programming on a national scale throughout Mexico via local affiliates. Some Mexican local television stations air programming from all four terrestrial networks (usually prerecorded programming) on the same channel. The four Televisa networks are:
- Canal de las Estrellas
XEW-TV is a television station in Mexico. XEW-TV is one of the cornerstone stations of Televisa, with affiliate stations all over Mexico...
- Flagship Televisa Station; Mix of General and First-Run programming alongside news
- Canal 5
XHGC-TV , commonly known as Canal 5, is a TV station owned by Televisa, broadcasting from Mexico City, with affiliates and repeaters throughout Mexico.-History:...
- Foreign TV Shows, Movies and Youth-Oriented Programming
- Galavisión
XEQ is a Televisa flagship TV station, based in Mexico City. It is branded since 2001 as "Galavisión"...
- Foreign Soap Operas, Sports and Comedy Shows Programming
- 4tv - Mexico City-oriented programming
Through
Telesistema MexicanoTelesistema Mexicano is the broadcast distribution arm of Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest broadcaster. It started out as a group of independent, locally owned television stations - much like Britain's ITV at its early days....
, Televisa beams Canal de las Estrellas, Canal 5, and Galavisión all over Mexico (much like the
superstationSuperstation in United States television can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as "A television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite...
s in the United States than the US-like television network model of network-affiliate). In addition, Telesistema Mexicano also owns Televisa-branded regional television stations, airing a mixture of Televisa programming and regional programming. Televisa also owns a stream known as
4tvXHTV , founded in 1950 by Don Romulo O'Farril, is a flagship TV station of Televisa. Known in Spanish as Canal de la Ciudad , this station primarily targets the Mexico City metro area and thus a lot of the programming reflects life in Mexico City...
or "
Canal de la Ciudad" ("City Channel" in English), which is a television station aimed at Mexico City. 4tv is not affiliated with any Telesistema Mexicano regional TV station, however some of 4tv's programming can be found on the regional television stations.
Cable
Televisa also operates a subsidiary called
Televisa Networks. This subsidiary is responsible for the distribution of Televisa programmes by satellite. It is Televisa Networks that distributes the Canal de las Estrellas signal via satellite to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Other channels under the Televisa Networks umbrella include:
- American Network
American Network is cable/satellite television network owned by Televisa The channel is broadcast throughout Mexico and in Guatemala featuring English language programs originating from the United States. Most of the shows are CBS Television Studios-owned or distributed programming. American...
- features USThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
programming.
- Bandamax
Bandamax is a 24-hour cable television music channel owned by Televisa under Televisa Networks. It is available in Mexico, United States, and Latin America. This channel focuses on Mexican and Southern US group music: Banda, Duranguense, Norteña, and Mariachi....
- a Banda, Norteño and Regional Mexican music station.
- Canal de las Estrellas (Channel Of The Stars)
- Canal de las Estrellas Niños (Channel Of The Stars Kids) - is a brother channel of El Canal de las Estrellas intended for children.
- Cinema Golden Choice 1 and 2 - movie service, showcasing Hollywood blockbusters and other films.
- Clásico TV - Classic sitcoms with a laughter.
- De Película
De Película is a 24-hour cable television movie channel owned by Televisa under Televisa Networks. It is available in Mexico, United States, and Latin America. It is broadcast in Australia and New Zealand via UBI World TV. De Pelicula is distributed by TuTv in the U.S. and is available on Dish...
- Mexican film channel.
- De Película Clásico
De Película Clásico is a Spanish-language cable channel dedicated to broadcasting movies of the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's from Mexico's Golden Age, Época de Oro. It is owned by Televisa under Televisa Networks....
- Mexican classic film channel.
- Ritmoson Latino - a Spanish language music videos station (It excludes to other Latin languages).
- TL Novelas
TL Novelas is a Spanish-language cable/satellite channel. It broadcasts only Mexican telenovelas produced by Televisa, which owns the channel. Six different telenovelas are broadcast each day, repeated four times each, from Monday to Friday...
- a network devoted to telenovelaA telenovela is a limited-run television serial melodrama popular in the Americas, comprising a great part of its production budget. The word combines tele, short for television, and novela, a word that Latin literary studies associate with medium-span romances. Telenovelas are essentially soap...
s (soap operas).
- TeleHit
TeleHit is a Mexican cable/satellite television network. Its main programing is music and music videos. It is a network of Televisa and is also available in various countries in Latin America, United States and Spain. Is part of Televisa Networks, an affiliate of Televisa.Telehit became the second...
- an MTVMTV is a cable television network based in New York City and launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs...
-esque station for youth.
- Televisa Deportes Network - a channel of sports
- Unicable
Single Cable Distribution is a satellite TV technology that enables the delivery of broadcast programming to multiple users over a single coaxial cable, and eliminates the numerous cables required to support consumer electronics devices such as twin-tuner Digital Video Recorders and high end...
- features programming by UnivisionUnivision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest Latin American audience, largely due to repurposed telenovelas and other Mexican programs produced by Grupo Televisa...
.
Televisa also operates
Televisa RadioXEW-AM is a radio station in Mexico City, Mexico. It is branded as W-Radio and its slogan is La voz de la América Latina desde México or "The voice of Latin America from Mexico."It began regular transmissions at 20:00 CST on 18 September 1930...
, under the brand name of "W Radio México"; it is primarily a news and talk station.
Televisa used to operate
Noticias ECONoticias ECO , also known as ECO News, was a Mexican news channel, which broadcast from 1 September 1988 to 1 May 2001. It was the first 24-hour news channel in Spanish and was owned by Televisa....
, a 24-hour news channel, between 1988 and 2001.
Televisa and Univision
Televisa has an ongoing relation with the US
UnivisionUnivision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest Latin American audience, largely due to repurposed telenovelas and other Mexican programs produced by Grupo Televisa...
network, stemming back to the 1960s, when Univision's predecessor, the Spanish International Network (SIN), was owned by
Telesistema MexicanoTelesistema Mexicano is the broadcast distribution arm of Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest broadcaster. It started out as a group of independent, locally owned television stations - much like Britain's ITV at its early days....
, Televisa's predecessor. In 1986, Televisa became embroiled in a scandal with the SIN network news. The management wanted to produce and broadcast a newscast with Jacobo Zabludosky out of Miami. Half of the staff walked out of their jobs alleging Jacobo Zabludosky was a puppet of the Mexican Government who had soft views with Castro's Cuba. The Televisa management was dumbfounded, they decided to move the now renamed Univision Network's HQ to Laguna Niguel, outside of Los Angeles to produce their shows from there including their beleaguered news division. They returned to Miami two years later.
Televisa has been a longtime provider of programming to Univision and its sister networks. However, in recent years, Televisa's relationship with Univision has become strained. It was involved in a dispute with Univisión over the
censoringCensorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.-Rationale:...
and editing of its programming as well as non-payment for transmission of its programming to Univisión's Galavisión and
TelefuturaTeleFutura is a U.S./Mexican Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by Univision with headquarters in Miami, Florida.-Overview:...
networks. In one editing incident, an episode of
Con Todo was not shown on Galavisión due to a host appearing in
blackfaceBlackface, in the narrow sense, is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used to take on the appearance of certain archetypes of American racism, especially those of the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the "dandified coon "...
, and the show did not return to the cable station for two years. A
breach of contractBreach of contract is a legal concept in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance.- Minor breaches :...
lawsuit against Univisión by Televisa has also been filed.
When Univisión came up for sale, a group including Televisa inquired about taking an up to 25% ownership stake (the maximum allowed by US law for a foreign buyer). However, a group of U.S. private equity firms eventually won Univision.
Televisa is also the former owner of Fonovisa music, which it sold in 2001 to Univision.
Televisa and Telemundo deal
On March 18, 2008 Grupo Televisa and
NBC UniversalNBC Universal, Inc. is a media and entertainment company formed in May 2004 by the combination of General Electric's NBC with Vivendi Universal Entertainment, part of the French Media Group. The deal excluded the French Canal+ operations, which were retained by Vivendi. GE owns 80% of NBC Universal...
announced an 10-year multiplatform agreement that would allow 1000 hours of
TelemundoTelemundo is a Spanish-language American television network. Angel Ramos launched the brand with a TV station in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1954 -- and it evolved into the second-largest Spanish-language content producer in the world...
programming from news, entertainment programs/specials,and sports to be broadcast over not only its Galavision channel (XEQ TV), but also its SKY Channel and cablevision cable system starting in April, as well as a planned Telemundo pay tv channel to be launched later in 2008.
Marketingymedios On May 19, 2009 Telemundo and Televisa sent out announcement that the joint owned network will come together in August 2009.
The network launched in August and is available on cable and satellite.
Edith Gonzalez-Guy Ecker
Leticia Calderon-Fernando Colunga
Vanessa Guzman-Rene Stikler-Cynthia Klithbo
Alfonso Herrera-Belinda Peregrin
Maite Perroni-Eugenio Siller
- 8:00-PM-Hasta que el dineros nos Separe
Itati Cantoral-Pedro Fernandez
Araceli Arambula-Eduardo Yanez
- 10:00-PM-Los Exitos Perez
Ludwika Paleta-Jaime Camil
External links
Televisa website Esmas, Televisa's Internet portal