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It’s been four years since Donna Speciale stepped into the role as president of U.S. advertising and marketing at TelevisaUnivision, and despite a lot of changes, she’s optimistic heading into this year’s upfront.
During her time with the company, Speciale’s team has added more than 300 new clients—more than 125 of them in 2024 alone—bringing in over half a billion dollars in new business.
One of the biggest changes from last year is that TelevisaUnivision brought on a new CEO, Daniel Alegre, who officially joined last October, as well as a new chief content officer, Jose Luis Fabila, who previously oversaw the Mexico side of the company.
With the addition of the new leadership, Speciale says TelevisaUnivision is bringing content under one umbrella across their platforms. It’s a content-first approach that also focuses on a cross-generational audience to reach younger viewers.
“We’re going to be coming to market in a much more comprehensive way to tap into the reach and the impact that we have not just on a national scale, but across every market that we serve,” Speciale told ADWEEK.
Heading into this year’s upfront and the company’s May 13 presentation at Hall des Lumières in New York, Speciale said she has plenty of “confidence and pride” about the TelevisaUnivision brand.
The ad leader spoke with ADWEEK about the company’s priorities heading into the new TV season and how it’s approaching the market given ongoing uncertainty brought on by tariffs stemming from the Trump administration.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
ADWEEK: How is TelevisaUnivision’s approach to the TV upfront this year different from last year’s or previous years?
Speciale: We stick to the same thing. For us, it’s always been about really getting our clients to be immersed within the content, and to understand the uniqueness of the Hispanic audience.
Hispanic and the Latino audience and our consumers are very different. We’re very family-oriented. The passion points, the cultural relevance. Soccer is such a huge cultural moment when it’s happening. We’re going to have the summer of soccer this year, which is leading up to the World Cup, which we don’t have, but we have Road to the World Cup all the way through next summer.
What are some of the goals you’re thinking about?
Goals of our upfront have always been to immerse the brands and clients—and for them to understand and live and breathe what the Hispanic audience, and uniqueness and the growth opportunities, can bring to their clients, bring to their business.
We have to beat the drum year after year. We are now close to 20% of the population, and it’s growing. Given what is happening right now in the marketplace with some moments of uncertainty, growth is definitely an area that clients are going to be focusing on. Those investments that drive the biggest impact. So I’m feeling really good about where we sit in the landscape because every dollar that you put into our platforms is a huge growth opportunity, and it will bring ROI to their business.
What are TelevisaUnivision’s priorities this year heading into the upfront?
With this new overview of having a chief content officer across everything, you’re going to be seeing a huge investment, a lot more investment into our primetime area and linear as well as different opportunities and different types of content within ViX. We’re going to be doubling down and trying to go towards that younger viewer and audiences in both the linear space and in ViX as well. Vix does lend itself to our younger audience, but we’re going to be sharing some interesting innovation that you will see lends itself to that younger generation.
Sports will always be a priority for us. We are the home of soccer. That is not changing. It is starting. It’s already begun this year with us with Gold Cup. We did a deal with DAZN where we’re doing Club World Cup, and we’re selling it in conjunction with them. They have the global rights, and we’re helping them with the U.S. aspect of it. That’s leading into the rest of this year and into 2026.
But the big thing that you’re going to hear us talk about is our new music strategy. And to me, what we’re going to be unveiling, you’re going to hear a lot about.
How do you feel about current market conditions and how tariffs could impact spending in the upfront season?
Again, it’s more moments of uncertainty. There’s a little bit of the unknown. Every day is something new. But many of us have gone through this. There’s definitely been uncertainty within our business before. I’m not saying anything like this, but Covid-19 was new to us. We have been through recessions before. To me, the moments of uncertainty always lead to more focus on investments where clients are looking to drive the biggest impact.
No one is going to scale back in the areas that are driving growth with their audience. They’re going to look for flexibility, and they’re probably going to have to figure out what their priorities are, but their priorities will always be, “How do I drive growth in my business to make this year and future years?” The Hispanic audience is a huge growth opportunity, so I’m feeling confident about it.
How is TelevisaUnivision thinking about measurement this year?
I’m so thrilled. Finally, we have been beating the drum for the past two years, and we’re thrilled that Nielsen announced that panel plus big data is going to be the standard currency starting in the fourth quarter of this year. These upfront negotiations are all going to be based on panel plus big data across the board with everyone. Panel will still be there to do comparisons because we’re going to need it there for a little bit, but over time, panel is going to go away, and it will only be panel plus big data, which is something that we’ve been talking about.
What are the benefits of having panel plus big data as the main currency?
Hispanics and multicultural has been an underrepresented audience for way too long and this new currency shines a light on how bad it was. Hispanics and other multicultural audiences as well will now have their fair do. I’m thrilled that will now all going to be on the same equal playing field because it has not been like that for way too many years.
What is setting TelevisaUnivision apart this year?
We have a very different value proposition than all the other media companies. We live and breathe Hispanics. Everything that we do is part of our DNA, 24/7, so we have the passion points, and it’s really rewarding when we do get new clients. We have hundreds of clients that still do not lean into Hispanic marketing, and that has always been a big priority with us. There’s still a huge runway of opportunity for capturing those advertisers who are not spending in Spanish language, and we’re completely laser-focused on it.
But when they do come on, and I told you, we’ve brought on 300 new clients, we see the ROI, and we see the growth of business, and it’s rewarding. We know that it’s because they’ve leaned into Hispanic marketing that they’ve gotten. They’ve seen their growth. And not all media companies have that pen to paper.
See ADWEEK’s upfront coverage here, including previews from YouTube, NBCUniversal, and Fox.
