Univision Posts Revenue Bump as Ad Spending Increases

Media networks unit non-advertising revenue, including carriage fees and content licensing, rose slightly from $286.5 million to $286.8 million. Subscriber fee revenue fell 1 percent, "primarily due to subscriber losses largely offset by rate increases." Content licensing and other revenue increased though.

"Univision finished the year delivering impressive operating and financial results and positioning it to begin fully realizing the power of our continuing role as the leading Spanish-language media company in the U.S.," said Univision CEO Davis. "This is an exciting time for the company as our audience continues to be at the cultural, economic and political core of America. The strength of our brand and the resonance of our content was reflected by the fact that our portfolio delivered the fastest ratings growth of any media company during primetime in 2020 among total viewers 2+, adults 18-49 and adults 18-34."

He added: "In fact, we delivered meaningful year-over-year audience growth in primetime among the key adults 18-49 demographic while the major English-language broadcast networks and our closest Spanish-language competitor all reported audience declines."

And Davis said: "We are carrying this momentum into 2021 and we will begin unlocking the enormous potential of Univision. We expect to drive meaningful near-term growth by optimizing our core businesses and at the same time we will be evolving for the future by investing in our people, content, products and platforms to capture the huge and growing market opportunity to serve Spanish speakers across the U.S."

Univision recently acquired VIX, the indie ad-supported streaming service offering video-on-demand content to Hispanic audiences in the U.S. and across Latin America.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.