TelevisaUnivision President Ignacio Meyer gave a rollicking keynote session this morning at Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid where he discussed a range of topics including the influence of Hispanic communities on U.S. culture, including the upcoming Presidential election.
“The influence of Hispanic populations is massive,” Meyer told the audience in Madrid “Our art and culture are mainstream. They’re no longer niche. We’re a great asset to the audiovisual market. There is always at least one TV show created in a Spanish-speaking country in the top titles every month. The passion of Hispanic-speaking countries is huge.”
Meyer continued to discuss the specific influence of Hispanic populations in the U.S., which he illustrated by highlighting the company’s upcoming town hall sessions with Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
“Both presidential candidates are going to speak on our channel. They will speak with Hispanic audiences who will be asking them questions in Spanish. The candidates chose our open TV network for this,” Meyer said.
Zeroing on Meyer’s comments, Infinity Hill chief Axel Kuschevatzky, who was moderating the session, asked the TelevisaUnivision head why Hispanic representation is so low on-screen when Hispanic audiences are so key to wider viewership figures.
“This is the hardest part,” Meyer said. “It is an unfair proportion and this is work we’re trying to address from the bottom. This is something we have to work on together because Spanish content is having prevalence on English speaking platforms. Figures and data are validating this.”
Elsewhere during the session, Meyer highlighted TelevisaUnivision’s current content strategy. He told the audience in the crowd that live sports was a priority with sports content, whether that is soccer or motor racing, is currently “growing a lot” with Latin American audiences.
Meyer later added that the company — which has traditionally been Mexican and American-based — is now shifting it’s focus to create content that can appeal to and connect with a more diverse range of Latin communities.
“We have a global vision for our company — this is new. We were initially in Mexico and we knew our audience. But then in the U.S. we opened our company and we wanted to represent the Spanish community there and they’re not monolithic,” he said.
“We are now still setting our audience. We accept that content is king and platforms are important because they distribute our content. We need to be smart. How do you enhance things like the election and use sports?”
He added: “We have a beautiful challenge ahead and have plenty of resources, but how do we manage.”
Iberseries & Platino Industria runs until October 4.
