Univisión Shaking Up Management — Change To Come?

Univisión’s board announce this week that CEO Joe Uva would not have his contract renewed. His last day is April 2. The New York Times reported:

Mr. Uva has been the public face of the Univision Communications to both advertisers and the press, and he has been an advocate for the increasing reach and influence of Univision, the company’s flagship television network. Univision has been increasingly flexing its ratings muscle — in February, for example, it surpassed NBC in the younger demographic ratings groups to finish fourth among American broadcast networks…

Several industry executives who follow the network closely suggested that the move might be related to even more ambitious plans by Univision and its Mexico-based programming partner, Televisa, to expand Univision’s position in the United States, especially with the 2010 Census expected to show further growth of the Hispanic population.

I would tend to agree. I think Univisión is going to try to expand its programming beyond just Spanish language, to try to go after the burgeoning U.S.-born Latino population that is often more comfortable in English. Certainly here at News Taco we’ve seen that our readers really appreciate being culturally included without being linguistically excluded, something I feel my friends have often commented about Univisión.

This move by Univisión is part of a larger movement in marketing and media that we at News Taco have picked up on, which is that the way we consume media in this country is about to change. And it’s the trillion-plus Latino market that’s driving it.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD