On April 13, Univision Communications revealed that, after years of rumors, it had reached an agreement with Mexico media pioneer Televisa that will result in the combination of the two multimedia conglomerates.
To create the binational radio, TV and digital giant, investors were brought to the table. They include the SoftBank Latin America Fund, The Raine Group and Google, with a combined $1 billion infusion from these entities agreed to.
It appears Google’s involvement with what will become Televisa-Univision goes beyond a simple investment.
Google and Univision, ahead of the latter’s merger acquisition with Televisa, said they’ve inked a fresh multi-year “strategic partnership” that, in their words, is designed “to accelerate growth across Univision’s portfolio of media and content properties, providing solutions that will enable it to build the media company of tomorrow.”
Further, the partnership allows Univision “to deepen its relationships with the Hispanic audience and provide them with an enhanced media experience.”
What, exactly, does this mean in standard English? Once one wades through the PR language in the joint release from Google and Univision, it appears Google Cloud will be the go-to SaaS platform for Univision.
“Univision will also collaborate with other Google product areas, such as Android, Android TV OS, YouTube, Google Play, Google Ad Manager, and Google Search to enhance its capabilities and improve the overall viewer experience,” the companies state.
How so? Google will help Univision consolidate its multiple digital distribution platforms, modernize its production systems, create a new customer data warehouse, and migrate key enterprise applications to Google Cloud, it explained.
This, Google says, will allow Univision to apply AI and machine learning across its content libraries — a benefit not only to consumers but to advertisers, too.
“Univision will expand its global YouTube partnership in the coming years and will integrate with entertainment features on Google Search that help people discover TV shows and movies,” it explained. Univision will also use Google Ad Manager for ad decisioning globally and Google’s Dynamic Ad Insertion for its recently launched PrendeTV and future video-on-demand offerings.
Wade Davis, who became CEO of Univision Communications with the Forgelight/Searchlight investment completed in early 2021, commented, “By leveraging Google’s technology platform and expertise, we will transform our infrastructure to bring our customers an enhanced media experience.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent, Alphabet, added, “We’re excited to partner with Univision to use Google Cloud’s technology and platforms like YouTube, Play and Android, to inform, entertain, and engage the next generation of Spanish-speaking viewers around the world.”
