Opinion about all operations moving to Mexico. They removed the CEO, VIX VO and Local Media VP to bring their people. IT, accounting and buying departments all located at DF. All conference rooms names at Doral changed from Latin America cities to just Mexican cities. All VIX operations moving to Mexico soon. Last two weeks over 100 employees let go. Can they legally move all radio and TV operations there? FCC aware?
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Televisa Univision
- Thread starter Frank Perez
- Start date
Seems to me there was a rule about that kind of thing that came up during the boarder blaster days. It was known as The Brinkley Act. It also came up with regards to originating Radio Sputnik programming outside the country. Of course the timing is interesting, given changing administrations in this country.
deadline.com
TelevisaUnivision Laying Off Hundreds Of Workers In Restructuring; CEO Daniel Alegre Revamps Senior Leadership Team
TelevisaUnivision, challenged like all traditional media companies by cord-cutting and an unsettled ad market, is laying off several hundred workers.
deadline.com
They can put production, management and operations anywhere they want. As long as “Master Control” is in Miami ore somewhere in the US, it is totally legal. And origination of broadcasts from outside the US is fine… just look at the World Cup or the Olympics.
The only rules that exist are about originating programming in the United States sending it to a foreign transmitter for re-broadcast back into the United States. Those rules were set up to keep people like Dr Brinkley from doing programs in the USA and sending them across the border to one of the “border blasters“ which was sending it signal to the US.
The radio Sputnik issue was totally about content, foreign agents, spies, and that whole thing. It ended all on its own and not through regulation. The Brinkley issue involved or originating programming in the US, sending it to Mexico, and re-broadcasting it back to the United States. That is not what Univision is doing.Seems to me there was a rule about that kind of thing that came up during the boarder blaster days. It was known as The Brinkley Act. It also came up with regards to originating Radio Sputnik programming outside the country. Of course the timing is interesting, given changing administrations in this country.
TelevisaUnivision Laying Off Hundreds Of Workers In Restructuring; CEO Daniel Alegre Revamps Senior Leadership Team
TelevisaUnivision, challenged like all traditional media companies by cord-cutting and an unsettled ad market, is laying off several hundred workers.
I'm looking through Section 310 of the Communications Act, where T-U applied for 100% foreign ownership. The words I see repeated in that section deal with serving the public interest. So foreign investment was welcomed because it was in the public interest. But moving operations and replacing US staff with Mexican staff seems to open the door for review by the commission. Not that it's not allowed, but that it provides an opportunity for review, to ensure any changes being made also serve the public interest. Any licenses, any waivers, and any permissions are always subject to review.
This, in a way, goes back decades.
My partner anchored Morning News on KMEX in LA for SIN before it changed to Univision. Other than morning a the 6 PM an 11 PM news, everything on the channel was either satellite delivered or brought from Mexico on tape. That was the mid 70’s and onwards.
The local staff in the later 70’s was made up of the manager, sales, news and engineering. Just like it seems to be now.
They still have plenty of staff in the US, all in the same areas as they had in the 70’s. But nearly all content except for news will be done in Mexico.
It doesn't matter to me. But I wonder what would happen if Cumulus or iHeart moved 2/3rds of its content operations to Mexico.
SoyCorazónLosMedios
Do you realize that about two-thirds of their content already comes from Mexico? And has four about four decades or so?
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I didn't, and I wonder what the general public would think about that. Whenever there is a discussion here about foreign ownership of broadcasting, it's usually negative. Consider the negativity in Congress and the FCC right now about Audacy's ownership situation. Imagine if they knew that the foreign owner is also outsourcing 2/3rds of its content. It's not about whether or not it's illegal. It's about the appearance of outsourcing jobs to another country.
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You mean like nearly everything in the computer industry? Assembled computer, computers, boards, chips, storage devices, keyboards, mice, and everything you can think of is nearly all made in Asia.
In the last few years, I have had to buy two electrical paper cutters for my own website. There is not a single model or brand in the small paper cutter category that is not made in China.
I could go on, but my point is that having most of the content for Spanish language media in the United States coming from somewhere in Latin America is to be expected.
Mexico has a huge number of writers, producers actors, and the like as well as enormous installations of studios and production facilities. And Mexico is a nation full of highly educated people who are proficient in correct Spanish and know how to make their product compatible with a large part of all Latin America.
The United States has a huge Hispanic population, but a large percentage are not of the educational level or background to fit into such a model. And the professionals in Mexico certainly do not want to move to the United States as it would lower their standard of living and put them in a foreign culture.
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Exactly! You're exactly right. That's why the incoming administration wants to put tariffs on everything from other countries. Imagine if they decided to put a tariff on radio programming created in Mexico. I think that was the point of the OP in this thread. How do people feel about Americans getting replaced by Mexicans in doing radio programming?
Once again, perhaps the new administration needs to look into this, and find ways to keep American media jobs here. Given that Brendan Carr wants to focus on what's in the public interest, perhaps someone should appraise him of how his own FCC's approval of this corporate merger has led to Americans losing their jobs. If the standard of living is better in Mexico, perhaps they don't need as much US taxpayer funding.
The few remaining Univision radio stations are locally done or use domestically programming that is networked. They are not moving the radio division to Mexico, although for about 15 years a lot of commercial copywriting and production has been done in Mexico and Colombia.
A huge percentage of the Univision product that was done in the US was produced in Miami using Mexican talent that either moved there or spent "the season" there to produce shows.
And the problem with Miami is that the Spanish spoken by the vast majority is the "wrong" Spanish in accent, vocabulary and word meanings.
The standard of living for the working class is well below that of the US. But for TV writers, producers, talent, etc., the salaries are competitive and you can live much better on the same income in Mexico.
Televisa is going through a difficult time, between the scandal of the corruption cases with FIFA, the separation of its CEO Emilio Azcárraga Jean from the board of directors until the judicial process is released. Not to mention the economic reduction in advertising guidelines.
in addition to the number of problems in its cable systems (izzi and sky)
I do not doubt that the labor reduction at Univision is a warning of a possible sale in the United States.
in addition to the number of problems in its cable systems (izzi and sky)
I do not doubt that the labor reduction at Univision is a warning of a possible sale in the United States.
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