Univision CEO Meets The Analysts

Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications on Tuesday reported improved first-quarter financials amid revenue growth in its TV, radio and digital units.

On a conference call, CEO Randy Falco also discussed broadcasters' continuing litigation with digital TV streaming service Aereo and the company's possible options, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Asked by an analyst about Univision chairman Haim Saban's recent comments on the issue and how it could be forced to go pay-only, Falco said: "In fairness to Haim, he never said that we would move our signal to cable. What he said was that in our judgment, like all broadcasters, we think Aereo is a clear case of piracy that will ultimately be settled in the courts. But until it is settled in the courts, we have to review all of our options."

Falco was asked by David Hebert of Wells Fargo about Univision’s current relationship with Arbitron.

In the early days of the PPM rollout, notes NOW’s Tom Taylor, Univision actually pulled its encoding at some major-market stations, as a protest against how the sample reflected Spanish radio listeners.

Randy Falco

“We’re going through a period of time where the sample was getting a little bit out of whack with the universe estimates, and the proportion of Spanish-dominant people in the sample is less than what it should be.” Arbitron can “weight that up,” but that Falco says it’s “better to have the sample correct.”

He says “we’re working with Arbitron to maintain their samples.”

Second-quarter TV ad revenue is trending up in the mid- to high-single digit percentage range, the company said. Radio ads are seeing a low single digit upwards trend. Overall ad revenue is pacing up in the high single digits.

Falco also touted continued digital growth. In the first quarter, Univision recorded 150 million video impressions online and on mobile platforms, an increase of  150 percent over the year-ago period.

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