TelevisaUnivision sees third-quarter profit decline, partly due to a shortage of advertising

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

The company said net profit fell to $90.5 million from $180.9 million in the year-ago quarter, when TelevisaUnivision enjoyed a gain from the sale of a portfolio of towers that were not part of the company’s core business. Revenue fell 3% to $1.27 billion, compared with just over $1.3 billion in the same period a year earlier.

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

TelevisaUniison said advertising revenue fell 6% to $755 million during the quarter, citing a decline in linear viewership for its media assets. Subscription and licensing revenues rose 3% to $493 million, partly due to consumer interest in ViX in the United States.

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