The world’s largest producer of Spanish-language audio and video content, which ended 2023 by pushing more than $1 billion in debt repayments from 2025 to 2028 at a higher interest rate, is coming off of a tough end to last year.
Just how the first three months were, fiscally speaking, for TelevisaUnivision will become clear on April 25.
That’s when CEO Wade Davis and other C-Suite executives will participate in a conference call for institutional investors that is scheduled for 10am Eastern on the final Thursday of April.
And, it once again sees a privately held company offer to open its books to the financial community right after the 2024 NAB Show and right before the NewFronts and Upfronts.
With ViX capturing the bulk of TelevisaUnivision’s attention of late, EVP/Chief Client Officer Steven Wolfe Pereira told RBR+TVBR at the Hispanic Marketing Council summit in New York on April 11 that the company’s linear brands remain strong attraction points for clients. He notes that a 360-approach is taken when working with advertisers, with activity spread across digital and linear properties including the Uforia audio brand that includes key music-driven FM radio stations in the largest U.S. Hispanic markets.
Also in attendance at the Hispanic Marketing Council summit at Convene – One Liberty Plaza in lower Manhattan was Donna Speciale, the President of Advertising Sales and Marketing at TelevisaUnivision.
For the three months ending December 31, 2023, TelevisaUnivision’s net loss declined to $918.8 million, from $1.568.7 billion a year earlier. The operating loss was also down, declining to $735.7 million from $1,259.3 billion. Then, there’s the revenue — which declined to $1,356.8 billion from $1,435.5 billion year-over-year in Q4 ’23.
There was also still an impairment loss. This time around, it was $1,009.5 billion. In Q4 2022, TelevisaUnivision registered a $1,661.3 billion impairment loss. Furthermore, the non-GAAP measure of adjusted OIBDA was down, moving to $468.1 million from $504.4 million in Q4.
TelevisaUnivision does not offer revenue breakouts for its broadcast radio and TV stations. But, Davis during the Q4 2023 earnings call noted that ViX is expected to become profitable in the second half of 2024. Chief Financial Officer Carlos Ferreiro noted that TelevisaUnivision’s leverage ratio at the close of 2023 was 6.0x, as fourth quarter
EBITDA “declined modestly against a challenging comp.”
He continued, “As I have said in the past, leverage remains elevated as we work our way through DTC losses; however, we are progressing on our path towards profitability, which we continue to expect to reach in the second half of this year, and we expect leverage to reduce accordingly.”
Still, Ferreiro admitted, “As we look ahead to 2024, there are several tailwinds in our favor both internally and externally, including our large and growing audience, our U.S. political opportunity and our DTC business reaching profitability, which will put us on a path of deleveraging the company.”
