Univision Company

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday handed Univision Communications a major victory in its hard-fought battle with its programming partner from Mexico, underscoring Univision's exclusive rights in the U.S. to the wildly popular Spanish-language soap operas that fuel its huge ratings. Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest entertainment company, had sought the judge's permission to transmit to U.S.

A real-life soap opera in Spanish-language television -- a saga of family legacy, corporate ambition and allegations of treachery -- is expected to shift today to a federal courtroom in Los Angeles. The civil trial will pit two titans against each other and bring to the witness stand key executives who are accustomed to controlling the media behind the scenes rather than fighting over it in open court.

Univision Communications Inc., the Spanish-language broadcaster taken private last year, posted a wider second-quarter loss Friday, weighed down by an advertising slump. The net loss expanded to $100.7 million from $19.6 million a year earlier, the New York-based radio and television company said. Sales declined 4.3% to $533.1 million. Excluding major soccer tournaments and political ads, revenue increased 0.4%. Sales fell amid "challenging economic conditions," Chief Executive Joe Uva said.

A television news director who was fired by Univision Communications Inc. last year for allegedly slanting the news fired back Monday, contending in a lawsuit that company executives shaped stories to woo advertisers. Jorge Mettey served for five years as the influential news director of Univision's flagship KMEX-TV Channel 34, which is Los Angeles' top-rated station. He was ousted in April 2007 after the company determined that he breached ethics policies in directing news coverage.

Univision Communications Inc. said Monday that it probably would trim expenses as the Spanish-language media giant grappled with a worsening economy and a mountain of debt. "Univision, like every broadcaster, is going to be taking a very hard look at all of its expenses," Chief Financial Officer Andrew Hobson told analysts during a conference call Monday to discuss the company's third-quarter results. "We are preparing for a pretty tough recessionary environment," he said.

Federal approval Tuesday of the $12.3-billion sale of Univision Communications Inc. to a group of private investors was just the first hurdle for the new owners of the country's largest Spanish-language media company.

WHEN Alex Pels was growing up in Argentina in the 1970s and '80s, he recalls, "there was not really a lot of choices in terms of how you got access to pop culture." "Once in a blue moon somebody would bring, like, a Rolling Stone [magazine] that somebody had brought from the United States, and it might be 8 months old, but for you it was the latest thing," says Pels, general manager of the Universal City-based mun2 television network. "So you had to keep your antenna open."

Considering that Latinos make up the largest ethnic group in the United States and Latino buying power is on an upward march, you'd figure Spanish-language networks would be fighting advertisers off. They aren't. This week in New York, where the bulk of the commercial time for the upcoming television season will be sold at what's called the upfront market, Univision and Telemundo will need to make hard sells.

Univision, the country's highest-rated Spanish-language television network and a leading draw for young adult viewers, has invited White House hopefuls from both major parties to participate in the first presidential candidate debates to be conducted entirely in Spanish. The network has proposed two debates, one for each party, to be held on back-to-back Sundays in September -- giving the candidates unprecedented exposure to a mass audience of increasingly important Latino voters.