TelevisaUnivision: TV continues to be the media that connects, informs, and empowers

Although Ignacio Meyer, President of US Networks at TelevisaUnivision, accepts that the industry, the media, and society are in a moment of transformation,  he believes that TV continues to be the “meeting point, the media that connects generations, that connects with nostalgia, that informs, empowers and does so in a credible way and with a track record behind it giving it the right to continue innovating.”

He believes that these changes come from technology generating innovation at an accelerated pace. “I think it is good for us because no doubt there is more content consumption now than ever before. While it is true that viewers want to decide what platform to watch, I think the future and the beautiful challenge is to be reunited with the audience to find a meeting point and a reason to exist.”

Meyer believes that the natural evolution of content is streaming. “It is a way of complimenting the content strategy and we have adopted that philosophy since our merger. While it is true that in many cases if not all, platforms have been winning in their slots, there are also important products in streaming. On VIX, the most-watched live channel is Noticias 24/7. That’s a good example of how traditional content lives in a streaming environment. Soccer matches and various competitions are shared through pay TV, open TV and ViX. There is a convergence of worlds and our commitment remains the same: to follow the audience and our Hispanic community,” he pointed out.

Asked about sustainability, Meyer mentioned that he is looking at a partial transition to the cloud and part of that effort is to minimize their carbon footprint.

“We begin with awareness, it is an attitude, it is an approach, it comes from our roots, from doing things efficiently. It is a set of all these practices, it is an approach to business,” he said.

For Meyer augmented reality and artificial intelligence, are positive residues of the pandemic’. “The embrace of technology and technological advances were adopted in an accelerated way, we recently saw this in the news coverage of the coronation of King Charles III of England.”

He added that progress is being made ‘by leaps and bounds.’ “I think we are going to see a lot of augmented reality and innovative technology in the news arena. We continue to use it in entertainment, in live programs it’s used more and where it is not seen as much, but it is a large part of the innovation, it is in the use of information, in the data graph. We have the most important US Hispanic Data Graph in the US that helps us learn and address the audience. Much of our technological innovation happens in computing, in research, and in the purely technological part where we want to migrate some of the services to the cloud. Since the merger of the company, the drive has been towards innovation, from the infrastructure to the information and finally, it’s expressed on the screen.”

Meyer said that regarding AI they are at the stage of learning about the value of technology in the business.

“We have a little more understanding of generative artificial intelligence. We’re not bound to any technology, we do not have a tool as such, but I believe that AI is imminent in the optimization of resources and process control in the industry,” he highlighted.

He believes that the greatest AI challenge is on the issue of intellectual property rights. “There are several issues not related to tech that are being openly discussed. Generative AI, which is the AI to create things, is a bit more practical. There is an open debate on intellectual property issues. I think they are still talking about the application, without talking about the regulation, how it is applied, and how we apply it without invalidating things that we have been doing, rather to validate and amplify some others. There is no clear framework. We are constantly assessing it.”