Clemenseando

Televisa and TV Azteca Hit Hard By Court Ruling

Mexico´s Supreme Court took a chainsaw to a law providing sweetheart treatment for Televisa and TV Azteca. Both broadcasters, under legislation passed last year, were granted automatic renewals of twenty-year television licenses and digital television rights at no cost. In effect, they were granted de facto ownership of the public airwaves in saecula saeculorum. Under several preliminary rulings last week and this week those prerogatives have been resoundingly overturned. Still pending is a ruling on the provision concerning foreign ownership of Mexican radio and television outlets.

For purposes of this blog, the decision is of great importance because the Mexican and U.S. Hispanic television markets are inextricably linked. Televisa provides programming on an exclusive basis to Univision, which is and will remain the market leader as long it airs Televisa-produced telenovelas.

Telemundo, which is a distant second to Univision in ratings and revenue, believes it must have a broadcast presence in Mexico in order to effectively compete in the U.S. Hispanic market. The belief is

counter-intuitive but perhaps accurate.

After all, Univision succeeds because Mexican immigrants bring with them to the States a taste for Mexican television programming. Telemundo figures it needs to acquaint future Mexican immigrants with its programming before they cross the border. I am sure Telemundo executives would not put it so coldly but that is, in effect, the gist of their argument as to why they want to operate a network in Mexico.

And the Supreme Court rulings enhance the likelihood of a Telemundo bid for a broadcast license in Mexico. Even without a bid, the rulings will definitely create competition for the existing duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca.

Not surprisingly, Televisa and TV Azteca downplayed the Supreme Court rulings in this evening´s newscast. I am sure the story will be top of the fold in all the major Mexican dailies. Televisa, however, didn´t mention the story until twenty minutes into its newscast. Azteca didn´t report the story until almost forty minutes into its newscast.

Both networks have a history of slanting editorial coverage to suit their own institutional interests.

 

Impact of Mexican Football on Hispanic TV Ratings

Mexican football league (FLM in Spanish) playoffs are changing the usual lineup on Nielsen's list of top 25 primetime Spanish-language television shows. Five separate matches (three on TeleFutura and two on Azteca America) made the list.

The impact is seasonal. And it doesn't hurt that the final four includes three high-profile clubs with a large fan base on both sides of the border. (América, Chivas, Cruz Azul) The remaining semifinal team is Pachuca, my personal favorite.

Televisa and TV Azteca each have broadcast rights to roughly half the FLM teams. Televisa, in turn, extends the rights for U.S. broadcast to Univision (although those rights are currently in dispute). Univision often opts to air the primetime matches on its sister network TeleFutura, which is a neat bit of counter-programming. Those who want to watch their novelas can do so without interruptions. And those who would never miss an América-Chivas match just turn the dial to TeleFutura. TV Azteca takes a simpler approach of broadcasting the match through its network of affiliates in the U.S. - Azteca America.  

In these playoffs, TV Azteca is the only sure winner because it has broadcast rights for Chivas, Cruz Azul and Pachuca. Televisa owns the América football club. The playoff transmission will provide a boost to a network hit hard by Pappas Telecasting's decision to drop its Azteca America affiliation in several important markets. TeleFutura also benefits although less so. The FLM matches complement TeleFutura's airing of Major League Soccer games. Although it will probably be a while before an MLS game cracks Nielsen's list of top 25 Spanish-language primetime television shows.

The Mexican Vote

The Los Angeles Times via WB32 provides a strong, local angle on next year's presidential election in Mexico. It is a thorough report on the newly acquired right of Mexican expatriates to vote by absentee ballot, which is a topic I mentioned a few weeks ago.

Notes From A Day In Mexico City

I spent most of yesterday in Mexico City, which is why I didn't post an entry. I went in to conduct interviews for a story on extreme mommy makeovers. Some women in Mexico are having liposuctions done immediately following a C-section. I spoke to one woman who had a hysterectomy and a liposuction during a five and a half hour visit to the operating theater. She was brutally frank and graphic. Great interview. Later I spoke to a Brazilian plastic surgeon wearing electric blue pants. He spoke in portuñol about performing plastic surgery on postpartum women. Beautiful thing about being a journalist is that you are given carte blanche to talk to just about anyone about almost anything.

I spent a good part of the day on the Metro just getting from one place to another. Mexico City is not a beautiful city. Its attraction lies strictly in its vitality - the palpable sensation that twenty million souls engulf you. If the Zócalo is the heart of the city, then the sprawling subway system is the city's intestines. I rode the blue, pink and brown Metro lines. As usual, there was a steady stream of vendors who come aboard to hawk their wares. The first sold gum. The second, fourth and fifth sold pirated compact discs. The third tried to sell a set of plastic silverware for five pesos, a little less than fifty cents. Later at one of the stations there were people selling chocolate-covered raisins, chocolate bars, more pirated compact discs and finally on my last subway ride a blind man sought payment for loudly reciting poetry.

The train was packed. I was reading, appropriately enough, Maximum City by Sukethu Mehta. It is a paean to Bombay. When I read I have the capacity to tune out most distractions. I heard what I thought was someone touting a product. I read on until suddenly I heard "Hombres necios que acusáis a la mujer sin razón." I looked up, then. It is the opening line of a famous poem by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. I could not see the man even though he was not more than five feet away. I stopped reading and listened. Poem done, the man began to berate everyone around him calling us stingy and every imaginable synonym thereof. He accused us of being deaf. He was blind, or so he said.   

The Mexican Vote

At the end of June the Mexican Congress approved a system whereby its citizens abroad can cast an absentee ballot in next year's presidential election. The topic has gone largely unreported in the US press so here is a link that provides a good overview of what is likely to happen.

I wonder if we will see any Mexican campaign ads in Spanish-language media in the States.

GE AND NBCU South Of The Border

GE and NBC Universal have endured a beating in the Mexican press for the last couple of weeks due to the decision of its financial arm to provide roughly five million dollars in financing to a local television station, Canal 40, that has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for some time. Station employees went on strike after salaries went unpaid. Mexican journalists have been quick to see the unsecured loan as a backdoor entryway into the Mexican market for NBC Universal's Telemundo network. This has raised the hackles of the owners of local media outlets because Mexican law prevents the foreign ownership of television stations. According to various media reports, GE yesterday issued a press release spelling out its stance. The press release is not on the GE Mexico website (although the site contains information about GE Day in Mexico and GE´s reiteration of its commitment to honesty) or the main GE site or the NBC Universal media site or the Telemundo section of the same website.

The various reports (I have not read the release myself and as mentioned I cannot find it, either) cite GE´s interest in putting together a Mexican-led investor group. GE's participation would then be that of a "neutral investor", which is allowed under Mexican law. In one article, a GE spokesperson is said to recognize the interest of NBC Universal and Telemundo in "participating" in Mexican media. The business plan for the station, according to the same source, includes an increase in local program production and finding "additional distribution channels for television programming."

I read this to mean that Telemundo is looking to air its programming on Canal 40.

Back in April, GE issued a release announcing a "vertical partnership between GE Commercial Finance Global Media & Communications and NBC Universal ... Through the alliance, NBC Universal will provide industry expertise to help Global Media & Communications better evaluate media assets, while Global Media & Communications will lend its financing expertise on behalf of key market initiatives by NBC Universal.  The team is now ... working together to help Telemundo, NBC Universal´s Spanish-language network, improve its presence in Mexico."

Looks like they were talking about Canal 40.