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Spanish-language broadcasting giant TelevisaUnivision said third-quarter revenue was boosted by telecasts of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico and Latin America and continued improvements at its ViX streaming service.
Indeed,
the World Cup had a significant effect on the company’s third-quarter financials, with revenue from subscriptions and licensing revenue up 30% to $640 million, driven largely by approximately $90 million in revenue attributable to sublicensing the FIFA World Cup rights across Spanish-speaking Latin American countries and the expansion of ViX’s premium tier. Ad revenue fell 5% to $717 million, but $389 million of that came from ads tied to World Cup telecasts in Mexico. In the U.S., advertising revenue decreased 24% to $328 million, in part due to comparisons with year-earlier activity that included the Gold Cup.
Overall, total revenue increased 9%, to $1.4 billion.
TelevisaUnivision posted an operating loss of $119 million in the third quarter, compared with operating income of $265 million in the prior year. The company said it recorded a non-cash impairment loss of $372 million related to the write-down of television broadcast licenses.
The companyhas been working to bolster its balance sheet since Wade Davis, the former Viacom CFO who orchestrated a buyout of Univision in 2020 before merging it with Mexico’s Grupo Televisa in 2022, ceded his CEO role to Daniel Alegre, a former senior executive at Activision Blizzard. SinceAlegre joined in 2024, TelevisaUnivision has worked to streamline operations that had previously been siloed by geographic region. The company owns media assets in both the United States and Mexico.
The Mexican operations have proved more durable in recent quarters. In the U.S., ad revenue fell 22%, and subscription and licensing revenue rose just 5% during the period. Fox and NBCUniversal’s Telemundo had rights to show the World Cup in the U.S.
“Our performance in the third quarter reflected disciplined execution against our multiplatform strategy as we delivered exceptional results from the World Cup in Mexico while gaining momentum in the U.S. with increased engagement across our fall content slate and robust sports portfolio,” said Alegre in a prepared statement.
