TelevisaUnivision said it named Daniel Alegre as CEO, effective immediately, replacing Wade Davis, who becomes vice chairman of the board.
Allegre most recently was CEO of Yuga Labs, a web3 company. Before that he was president and chief operating officer of ActivisionBlizzard. He also spent time at Google.
Davis had been with Viacom before engineering a buyout of Univision and combining its assets with Televisa, the Mexican media giant.
“On behalf of the board, I’m excited to welcome Daniel to TelevisaUnivision as we embark on the next phase of our strategic journey focused on further integration and optimization,” Alfonso de Angoitia, executive chairman of TelevisaUnivision, said.
“It’s been a very dynamic media environment, and we are grateful for what Wade has accomplished in the turnaround of Univision and the subsequent transformative merger between Univision and Televisa’s content business to create TelevisaUnivision — the world’s leading Spanish-language media and content company,” de Angoitia said. “As we look to grow our unparalleled market position and the recent investments in our linear and streaming platforms as well as our news and sports products, Daniel is the right leader at the right time to take the helm.”
Operating in the Spanish-language business, Univision was able to buck some of the pressure on ad revenue. But its debt made it difficult to generate profits.
“The media landscape is undergoing a profound transformation and TelevisaUnivision is strategically poised to seize new opportunities while staying deeply connected to the communities we serve,” Allegre said. “Building on TelevisaUnivision’s solid foundation, global content pipeline, ongoing investments in cutting-edge technologies, and unmatched reach, we are uniquely positioned to continue serving this vital audience. Wade and the entire TelevisaUnivision team have created a strong multi-platform media business with world-class quality and breadth of entertainment, news and sports programming. I look forward to working with our global teams and partners to build on TelevisaUnivision’s great history and take the company to new heights.”
Under Davis, TelevisaUnivision invested in streaming by launching ViX, which was expected to turn profitable this year.
“Thanks to the efforts of our exceptional team, TelevisaUnivision has consistently delivered above-market revenue growth, outperformed the U.S. and Mexican advertising markets and launched and have grown our direct-to-consumer business, ViX, to become the largest dedicated Spanish-language streaming service in the world,” Davis said. “We could not have picked a better successor than Daniel, who brings an incredible track record of operational and strategic execution. He is the ideal executive to take TelevisaUnivision into its next phase of growth. The company’s future is bright, and I look forward to supporting Daniel and the TelevisaUnivision team in my role as vice chairman of the board.”
