At a moment where the TV business is undergoing a dramatic transformation, and with the advertising business similarly in flux amid tariffs and technological changes, NBCUniversal’s Spanish-language media division Telemundo Enterprises is betting that live events and programming — a lot of them — will help it stand out in a marketplace that is as crowded as ever.
Executives at the company say that over 70 percent of Telemundo’s lineup will be live over the next season, including NFL and NBA games, live news and entertainment specials, and next year’s FIFA World Cup, where Telemundo has the Spanish-language rights.
Much of it will stream on Peacock of course, but for Telemundo it is also a game plan to shore up linear, giving its lineup as much can’t miss programming as possible.
“The content is the key. You need a strategy, a vision, a mission, resources, investment,” says Luis Fernández, chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, in an interview. “We need to defend our linear TV. How? focusing on live TV. This is our mission, our vision. If you are live, you are on Telemundo. Because for us, live TV is important for linear TV. It’s a very important arm for us, with one condition, make the best content, the best content in news, in sports, in entertainment and in scripted.”
Telemundo is also betting that it is a programming strategy that will engage younger audiences, or multigenerational families.
“Live really isn’t just a form of entertainment for our audience, it’s a way for our audience to, in many ways, navigate through daily life. They feel connected. The way that we look at it is live is a culture connector. The real motivation for watching live is, quite frankly, spending time together and connecting,” says Mónica Gil, executive vp and chief administrative and marketing officer at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. “We also know that live programming is a favorite for younger audiences, and it’s an audience, a demo, that everybody’s trying to reach, and it bridges distances, even when we are geographically separated.”
There’s no better example than the World Cup, which will be held in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico next year.
According to Joaquin Duro, executive vp of sports at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, the network intends to bring the full Olympics treatment to the world cup, highlighting not only the athletes, but the locations.
“It’s an opportunity to to get closer to to our fans, to get closer to our communities, to tell the stories from location, and to tell the stories in our country,” Duro says. “We’ve covered many events, many World Cups and Olympics, and it’s very nice when you have an Olympic Games in Paris or a World Cup in Russia or Doha, but you’re telling stories from afar … [this is] the first time in many, many years that we have now the opportunity of covering an event, but telling the stories of our people, of our communities in our country. So that brings an additional emotional aspect, cultural aspect, and at the end of the day, a bigger connection. Then then ties into the sporting event.”
And Telemundo sees the World Cup as an opportunity to reach a significantly wider audience. While Fox holds he English-language rights, the company noted that in the last World Cup in 2022, Telemundo had success in reaching a much broader slive of the demographics.
“Over 30 percent of the consumption were non-Hispanics that came to Peacock to watch that, and then 30 percent of that audience was Spanish, but English dominant,” Duro says.
It’s all part of plan, articulated by Fernández, about leading Telemundo into an era where its sports, news and entertainment programming is fresh and relevant to consumers, wherever they opt to watch it.
“We need to prepare Telemundo for the for the future,” Fernández says. And going live is its big bet to keep that relevance high.
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