TelevisaUnivision Caps Year Of Rebuilding With Mixed Q4 Report, Warns Of Ad Sales “Pressure” In 2026

As TelevisaUnivision continues a significant rebuilding effort, the Hispanic media giant reported mixed results in the fourth quarter Tuesday. It also warned of “pressure” on advertising revenue in parts of 2026.

Total revenue in the quarter drifted down 2% from the same period a year earlier, coming in at 1.232 billion. Adjusted OIBDA, the privately held company’s preferred metric for profit, dropped 12% to $396.4 million.

Ad revenue was flat in the October-to-December span, reaching $856 million. In the U.S., the line item fell 11% to $423 million, though the downturn was 3% when political spending is excluded to account for the 2024 presidential windfall. In Mexico, ad revenue climbed 15% to $433 million.

Debt has been a concern for investors and other stakeholders since Daniel Alegre was installed as CEO in the fall of 2024. His arrival came after the $4.8 billion merger in 2022 of the entertainment arm of Mexico’s Grupo Televisa and U.S.-based Univision. As a solo property, Univision had been acquired for $12.3 billion in a 2007 privatization by a investor consortium.

The company said it refinanced $2.3 billion of debt in 2025, ending the year with net debt of 5.6 times adjusted OIBDA. That leverage ratio was down from 5.9 at the end of 2024. During a conference call with Wall Street analysts, CFO Juan Pablo Newman said he expected a similar rate of decline of the ratio in 2026.

Looking ahead at 2026, Alegre signaled challenges on the advertising front stemming from not having certain tentpole properties that will “take the oxygen out” of the marketplace for rival sellers. “We are facing from pressure primarily related to the sports competition,” he said. In the current quarter, he continued, “we’re up against the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics and in Q2 and Q3 we’re up against the World Cup in the U.S.”

TelevisaUnivision does have rights in Mexico to the World Cup, which this summer will be contested in North America by an expanded field of teams. Fox and Telemundo have English-language and Spanish-language rights in the U.S., respectively.

Because sports is “a key component of our portfolio,” Alegre added, categories like tech, telco, quick-service restaurants and alcohol are vulnerable, though the company’s sales troops have made “significant progress” in other areas like movie studios, consumer packaged goods, beauty and pharmaceuticals.

Last June, veteran ad sales chief Donna Speciale exited TelevisaUnivision, with TikTok and Roku alum Tim Natividad replacing her.

Throughout the earnings call, Alegre articulated ways the company had been remade in 2025. One key area, he said, is streaming flagship Vix. After achieving profitability soon after its first year in operation, the platform has become “a scalable and economically sustainable platform.”

One reason for its potential to keep showing profits, Alegre said, is a strategic shift of the company’s approach to programming.

“The biggest change that we’ve had from the beginning of 2024 to where we are now is that the Vix content strategy is no longer a separate content stream,” the CEO said. “The way Vix originally started, we had specific Vix investments and there was really very little connective tissue between broadcast and Vix. We’ve moved away from long-form movies that competed, honestly, directly with Netflix and went straight to where we are really strong, which is dramas, reality shows, obviously sports” and a growing roster of true crime fare.

Often, Alegre said, major sporting events or series will appear on both platforms, but a more comprehensive array of programming is made available on Vix.