Winner of Univision’s ‘Va Por Ti’ Will Get a Deal with Warner, Label Announces
Warner partners with Univision and will sign the winner of Va Por Ti to a recording deal. The star-studded reality series is gaining traction in Sunday night ratings.
Warner Music will offer a recording deal to the winner of Univision Network reality show Va Por Ti (This One’s for You). The winner of the Sunday night reality show, which kicked off September 7, will be announced December 7 during the show finale. This marks the first time Warner signs on to be the label of a music reality show winner in the U.S.
Although they declined to provide details Univision and Warner are calling the deal a “collaboration” designed to truly launch a new career. In the past, support for music reality winners on the airing Spanish-language networks has been spotty. But back in May, Alberto Ciurana, president of programming and content at Univision Communications, told Billboard that things would be different now.
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“We like to create careers,” said Ciurana. “We are giving our screens an injection of new talent. Our goal is to continue down that path of creating new talent and supporting that talent.”
Although Univision has had music reality shows before, Va Por Tí is unique because it’s a co-production between Televisa in Mexico and Univision, and it’s actually filmed in Mexico City, even though its competitors are from the U.S. Televisa, of course, has a long tradition of launching new talent in all arenas, from music to acting, and Va Por Ti was created with that purpose in mind.
The show’s format is brand new: Competitors sing for a trio of celebrity judges, but are coached by a separate set of celebrity artists. As the competition progresses, competitors and their coaches — Jencarlos Canela, Dulce María and El Dasa — run the risk of being sent home. Last night, after his team lost, El Dasa said goodbye to the show. The show’s judges are Alejandra Guzman and Larry Hernandez, with rotating guests that have included Laura Pausini and Camila.
In a twist for Latin music reality shows, which tend to be very polite, Va Por Tí has definitely allowed its coaches and judges to be vocal and open in their exchanges. A couple of weeks ago, for example, show judge Alejandra Guzman got into a heated exchange with Canela, with a large chunk of it getting on the air.
Va Por Ti is produced Televisa reality show veterans Santiago and Ruben Galindo, together with Marcelo Strupini. Despite it being an untested format, has been a ratings success for Univision.
The show’s premiere reached 5.8 million total viewers and averaged 2.9 million viewers. For the week ending Oct. 5, it ranked as the fourth most-watched Spanish language TV show in the country across all time slots, according to Nielsen, and was viewed by 2.8 million people. Va Por Ti is currently the top-rated Spanish language show on TV that’s not a soap opera.