Spanish-language media giant TelevisaUnivision reported a 2 percent U.S. revenue gain to $835.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and a 5 percent U.S. subscription and licensing revenue improvement to $346.5 million.
The company, led by CEO Daniel Alegre, said that its streaming business with its flagship service ViX posted another profit in the fourth quarter of 2024 after achieving profitability in the third quarter following two years in the marketplace.
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"DTC (Direct to consumer) has evolved into a really healthy and growing profitable business and is really paving the way for us to improve the efficiencies between linear and streaming in 2024," Alegre told analysts during a morning conference call.
ViX generated $1 billion in revenue and positive adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) in its second full year of operation, TelevisaUnivision reported.
José Luis Fabila, chief content officer, is leading all content globally for the company as part of an Alegre-overseen reorganization and a reduction of its workforce. TelevisaUnivision disclosed restructuring, severance and related charges of $53.4 million for the fourth quarter, compared with $24.2 million in the year-ago period. For the full year 2024, these charges amounted to $72.9 million, compared with $53.4 million in 2023.
Revenue in the fourth quarter declined 1 percent, but grew 4 percent when excluding foreign-exchange impacts, to $1.3 billion, with the U.S. growth outweighed by a 5 percent drop in Mexico, which amounted to an 8 percent gain when excluding currency impacts. Operating expenses were "essentially flat" at $892 million. The firm's quarterly loss narrowed to $809.7 million from $912.1 million in the year-ago period.
TelevisaUnivision's quarterly adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA), another key profitability metric, declined 3 percent to $451.9 million in the fourth quarter, or grew 3 percent when excluding currency impacts.
The company also disclosed a quarterly charge for the impairment of program rights of $142.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2023 and $157.1 million for the full year. It also posted an impairment loss of $900.2 million for the full year 2024, compared with $1.01 billion in 2023. Both impairment charges are non-cash charges recorded as a result of regular testing of the company's assets and do not impact its OIBDA, leverage or cash position.
Advertising revenue fell 1 percent in the final quarter of 2024 to $851 million as the U.S. gain to $475.6 million was outweighed by a 4 percent drop in Mexico. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, Mexico advertising revenue grew 10 percent.
Full-year 2024, U.S. advertising revenue growth "accelerated to 2 percent, driven by a record-breaking year in sports and political advertising demand garnering $70 million," the firm said.
Alegre, the former president and COO of Activision Blizzard and CEO of Yuga Labs who took over as TelevisaUnivision CEO in Sept 2024, during the analyst call talked about political advertising and pointed to Texas Senator Ted Cruz and U.S. President Donald Trump using TelevisaUnivision to target Hispanic voters during the recent 2024 U.S. national election.
Building on that momentum, Alegre said TelevisaUnivision would be "much more embedded" with political campaigns in the future to help shape a cross-platform strategy to reach Spanish-speaking voters. "If there is one thing that is clear from results of this election is candidates can no longer take our audience and our reach for granted," he told analysts.
Alegre also talked about TelevisaUnivision programming being dropped from the Fubo TV platform in late 2024 as new contract term negotiations stalled.
"While Fubo is not material in terms of revenue for us, they decided to drop our programming at a very unfortunate time for the Hispanic community that we serve here in the United States. Honestly, we were extraordinarily disappointed by their decision," Alegre argued. "We were negotiating in good faith leading up to just before the Christmas break, and they made the decision to turn off our programming off, and this was just before their merger was announced."
Alegre also welcomed Netflix committing to invest $1 billion in Mexico for the production of series and films over four years to 2028. "I'm not surprised that Netflix and others are recognizing something that we've been doing for the last 80 years," he told analysts about investing in production in Mexico. "Look, this is a competitive landscape. We have a rich history and a tremendous catalog to approach the Hispanic market. And many of these players have actually approached us and asked for us to license our content to them, because they recognize that we have the know how and expertise to be able to cater to this growing market, obviously both in Mexico in and of itself, but to Spanish media across the world. So I'm not surprised, and it only reinforces the strategy that we've had for the last 80 years of investing in this market."
The TelevisaUnivision boss also addressed a question about U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs threat towards Mexico and any impact that may fall on his company. Alegre said any tariffs would not hit his company directly because film and TV production was not a "physical good."
But he added TelevisaUnivision faced indirect impacts if Mexico's economy was undercut by any imposition of tariffs, as the media conglomerate had wide exposure to the Mexican peso to set its production costs south of the U.S. border, and TelevisaUnivision also depends heavily on Mexican advertising revenue.
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