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Univisión delivers final blow to WLII-TV in San Juan


Amra

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Univision fired today 100 employees, mostly from the News Department. As of today, "Las Noticias Univisión" is no more. This comes after the cancellation of "Las Noticias Univision - Fin de Semana". http://www.mediamoves.com/2014/10/univision-puerto-rico-eliminates-newscasts-in-restructuring-lays-off-100.html

 

Paraphrasing what Susan Soltero, meteorologist, said: Teleonce was the #1 News Station in Puerto Rico. In 12 years, Univision came in and started reducing everything until the eventual closing of their News Department.

 

All of this comes as Univision claims of what is a restructuring of the network in order to sell the network in the United States.

 

Former anchor Felipe Gomez wrote that the Puerto Rico market is hugely different from the Continental US and Univision made the mistake of running Channel 11 as a full O&O with little to no local programming. Very differently from Telemundo, which has given a lot of autonomy to WKAQ-TV.

 

This is a major blow, even bigger than the one GE gave to NBC/Telemundo through the NBC 2.0 budget cuts.

 

I am very sad that part of the family I used to watch when growing up was suddenly sacked from TV.

 

This is what is left from their newsroom studio today.

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Hopefully they will be absorbed by WKAQ expanded newscasts. Hell they could corner the market now do a morning newscast and a longer evening show. Non newsroom crew may be able to get jobs in any of two current telenovela and four ready to go into production for WKAQ.

 

But correct me if I am wrong Univision rarely if ever produced any of their own telenovelas instead buying them from other Latin American studios. While Telemundo produces the majority of their content either in Hialeah, FL or through their subsidiary WKAQ in Puerto Rico.

 

Sounds like Univision didn't want to run/manage the rights of one O&O station, WLII's production studio.

This is probably the largest news operation by market size to vanish so quickly in quite some time.

 

Puerto Rico sits between DMA 19 and DMA 20. The last major news operation to truly vanish and not be consolidated into something in the markets "above" Puerto Rico is (I believe) WKBD/WWJ in 2002, and before that, KSTW in 1998. In other words, this is a once in a blue moon event. (Source for household numbers is, ironically enough, a presentation from Univision and some math. It's actually a very good presentation—even I learned from it.) Sure, KDNL's news operation vanished (and that's another comparable situation though WLII had a longer history of news), but St. Louis is actually a smaller market, and WLII had debuted its first newscast in 1986.

 

This is a massive mistake, and I hope the next buyer of Univisión can correct it quickly. Perhaps because of its longtime association with the Azcárraga family (and resulting importation of many a Televisa novela), Univisión has a reputation as very Mexican in character. That won't fly. WKAQ has already picked up employees that were cut at the start of 2014 with the end of weekend news—which prompted Telemundo to accelerate its schedule for adding its own weekend newscasts. I'm sure WAPA also picked up some displaced staffers. WIPR and WORO, with their own news services, may also benefit.

 

This is probably the largest news operation by market size to vanish so quickly in quite some time.

 

Puerto Rico sits between DMA 19 and DMA 20. The last major news operation to truly vanish and not be consolidated into something in the markets "above" Puerto Rico is (I believe) WKBD/WWJ in 2002, and before that, KSTW in 1998. In other words, this is a once in a blue moon event. (Source for household numbers is, ironically enough, a presentation from Univision and some math. It's actually a very good presentation—even I learned from it.) Sure, KDNL's news operation vanished (and that's another comparable situation though WLII had a longer history of news), but St. Louis is actually a smaller market, and WLII had debuted its first newscast in 1986.

 

This is a massive mistake, and I hope the next buyer of Univisión can correct it quickly. Perhaps because of its longtime association with the Azcárraga family (and resulting importation of many a Televisa novela), Univisión has a reputation as very Mexican in character. That won't fly. WKAQ has already picked up employees that were cut at the start of 2014 with the end of weekend news—which prompted Telemundo to accelerate its schedule for adding its own weekend newscasts. I'm sure WAPA also picked up some displaced staffers. WIPR and WORO, with their own news services, may also benefit.

 

Is it posssible that whoever gets to take over Univision-11 next would correct it and revert it right back to 'tele-once' (univision puerto rico's former brand name from 86-02) and involve again in local productions (news, sports, games, novelas, specials...) and where would univision end up next? on ch. 7 (sister station tele-isla) or elsewhere? BTW, i checked tele-isla's daily schedule, why is there a six-hour horse racing showcase (hipodramo camarero) every day? you would think tele-isla would be at least an affiliate of unimas (sister to univision) but is nothing more of hodgepodge schedule of horse racing, informercials, and (i didn't know they could do that) air soccer matches and some programming from the (get ready for this) Univision Deportes Network. Yes, off from cable.

 

Is it posssible that whoever gets to take over Univision-11 next would correct it and revert it right back to 'tele-once' (univision puerto rico's former brand name from 86-02) and involve again in local productions (news, sports, games, novelas, specials...) and where would univision end up next? on ch. 7 (sister station tele-isla) or elsewhere? BTW, i checked tele-isla's daily schedule, why is there a six-hour horse racing showcase (hipodramo camarero) every day? you would think tele-isla would be at least an affiliate of unimas (sister to univision) but is nothing more of hodgepodge schedule of horse racing, informercials, and (i didn't know they could do that) air soccer matches and some programming from the (get ready for this) Univision Deportes Network. Yes, off from cable.

 

Your description of WSTE sounds like there is insanity or something inside the UniPR unit. I think a new owner will immediately realize what a mistake they made.

 

Univisión has been trying to manage Puerto Rico like a mainland market, and that has been a major problem.

 

Also, horse racing is a fairly big sport in PR. In the late 2000s WJPX-24 had a digital subchannel devoted to one of the local racetracks. Boricua jockeys have raced in—and won—the Kentucky Derby on quite a few occasions.

That's what I don't understand. If the Puerto Rico ops were going to be turned into a mostly CW+ type thing, why not just sell off WLII/WSUR and move Univision to WSTE? WSTE even has a 5 transmiter DTS system that covers the whole island, so they wouldn't even need a contracted semi-satellite like WLII does.

 

That's what I don't understand. If the Puerto Rico ops were going to be turned into a mostly CW+ type thing, why not just sell off WLII/WSUR and move Univision to WSTE? WSTE even has a 5 transmiter DTS system that covers the whole island, so they wouldn't even need a contracted semi-satellite like WLII does.

 

WSUR is an owned and operated satellite, unlike WORA.

 

Speaking of WORA, this dramatic cutback and WORA's switch to ABC have to be related. I bet Univisión did not want to continue the agreement as part of its cuts in Puerto Rico, or that WORA got wind of the plan for WLII and did not want to be part of it.

Yeah, I know WSUR's a satellite. That's why I wrote them "WLII/WSUR" since they're essentially one station. :)

 

And most likely WORA knew about Univision -- and thinking that WOLE would stay with Telemundo/WKAQ -- sought out another source of programming.

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