TelevisaUnivision sees third-quarter profit decline partly due to advertising deficit

Spanish-language giant TelevisaUnivision said its third-quarter profit fell as the company continued efforts to streamline operations and a slowdown in linear advertising outweighed new gains in efforts to drive advertisers to streaming.

The company said its net income fell to $90.5 million from $180.9 million in the previous quarter, when TelevisaUnivision benefited from a gain from the sale of a portfolio of towers that were not core to its business. Revenue fell 3% to $1.27 billion from just over $1.3 billion a year earlier.

“Our third quarter results demonstrate the results of our disciplined execution of our reimagined content strategy and continued momentum” of the company’s ViX streaming service, Daniel Alegre, the company’s CEO, said in a prepared statement.

TelevisaUnivison said its advertising revenue fell 6% to $755 million in the quarter, citing a decline in linear viewership of its media assets. Subscription and licensing revenue increased 3% to $493 million, driven in part by consumer interest in ViX in the United States.

TelevisaUnivision is working to strengthen its balance sheet after Alegre took the reins of TelevisaUnivision from Wade Davis, the former Viacom CFO who orchestrated Univision’s takeover in 2020 before merging it with Mexico’s Grupo Televisa in 2022, ceding his role as CEO. Alegre was president and chief operating officer of Activision Blizzard, acquired for $69 billion by Microsoft. Davis remains vice president of TelevisaUnivision. Since Alegre’s arrival last year, TelevisaUnivision has been working to streamline operations that were previously siled by geographic region. The company has media assets in the United States and Mexico.