Print Page 12/7/2009

NEW YORK: Spanish-language broadcaster Univision is delving into production with the establishment of Univision Studios. It will be based in Miami, Fla., and headed up by Luis Fernandez, former president of RTVE Corp., the largest broadcasting company in Spain. He’ll report to Univision Networks President Cesar Conde.

The studios will contribute further to around 4,000 hours of original programming Univision says it does annually. The new division will generate reality shows, dramas, entertainment programs and telenovelas, many of which Univision now gets from Grupo Televisa. Univision has had a long-standing agreement for exclusive rights to run Televisa’s programming in the United States, though the two have clashed over Internet streaming rights--not included in the deal that runs through 2017. Univision recently entered a pact with Google to supply its programming to YouTube, with the exception of the telenovelas.

Univision Studios programming will supply programming across the company’s three networks--Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision--as well as Univision.com.

Before Fernandez led RTVE, he was managing director of Promofilm U.S., a production company with offices and studios in Miami and Los Angeles. He also was executive producer for “Al Filo de la Ley,” the first fiction series to air on Univision in primetime in 2005, as well as several feature films.  He also was executive producer of several feature films, among them. He also served as general manager of Plural Entertainment, the television and film production arm of Grupo Prisa, based in the United States and has held managing positions in Spain’s principal communications groups including Prisa, Telecinco, COPE, and Imagina.

(Image by Eugene Smith)
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