Chairman, NBCUniversal News Group, NBCUniversal Media, LLC (NBC broadcast network)
Cesar Conde, Chairman, NBCUniversal International Group & Telemundo Enterprises
A Conversation with Cesar Conde, Chairman, NBCUniversal International Group & Telemundo Enterprises -Moderated by: ...
Transcript (50 segments)
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Host0:13
It's my great pleasure to welcome you today to a special Paley dialogue, a conversation with Cesar Conde. By any account, Cesar Conde is one of the most influential people in Spanish-language television. With the U.S. Hispanic population more than 56 million and growing, he's become a driving force in the media world. After graduating from Harvard and Wharton, he worked at a startup and a bank, but was drawn to TV. Like all of us, he joined Univision in 2003, became president, then headed to NBC in 2013. He is now Chairman of NBCUniversal's International Group and Telemundo Enterprises. Since his arrival at Telemundo, Cesar has helped redefine Spanish-language television. Today we'll hear how and why there's been a shift in the Hispanic market, and we'll learn this morning just how things are changing. We'll also hear Cesar's thoughts about overall programming, digital media, and how the FIFA World Cup fits into his strategy at large. We're also thrilled to have moderating today Cynthia Litton, who's been living here this week, Managing Editor TV at Variety. She has covered the television beat for the past 20 years, first at United Press International, then at Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter, where she was named editor before rejoining Variety in 2007. Before I turn over to this session, I want to say how thrilled we are to have with us not only Cesar, who is also a Paley Board member, but also our board member Stan Schuman. I also want to recognize McKinsey, our long-term and valued official knowledge partner; we thank you for supporting this very special event. We're also delighted to have so many Media Council members in attendance, and I want to give a special welcome to all of our new members today. We're thrilled to have you. Thank you all so much for joining us. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you briefly about some of the exciting programs coming up this year. On July 11th, we'll have a Best of ComCon event with Paley trustee John Miller and L.A. Board of Governor Michael Kassan, along with Wendy Clark, CEO of DDB North America, among others. On July 18th, and I'm announcing this for the first time today, we'll have a very rare and special program for our Community Council members with the four sports commissioners: the NFL's Roger Goodell, MLB's Rob Manfred, NBA's Adam Silver, and NHL's Gary Bettman. So sign up now. On September 7th, board member Mike Hopkins, CEO of Hulu, will join us. On October 3rd, we'll have Viacom's Shari Redstone speaking with John Miller, both trustees of the Paley Center. On December 7th, we'll have a program with Michael Kassan which will focus on predicting trends for 2018. In addition to our New York programs, we also host dialogues at the Paley Center in Los Angeles, which all of our members are welcome to attend. So for those of you who are invited guests today and not yet members, I invite you to join our special Media Council community so that you can attend these unique programs and events. So now, to today's program, I'm thrilled to turn over to our distinguished moderator, Cynthia.
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Cynthia Litton3:24
Welcome everybody. Thank you all for coming. Thank you, Cesar. It's a busy time right now in media. There's so much focus every May on the upfronts, particularly the marathon week of the broadcast upfronts. But everybody knows that the real action happens a couple of weeks after the broadcast upfronts, when the buying and selling and jockeying really begins. Before we talk about the great sort of year that Telemundo is coming off of, can you give us a sense from the front lines how the upfront process is going right now?
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Cesar Conde4:01
Sure. Well, first, thank you as well, Cynthia, for taking a bit of time. I know you've been extraordinarily busy here at Paley in general, and thank you everyone for making it this morning so early. It's good to see so many smiling faces. On the upfront, I can't comment too much on it, as you can imagine. But in general, I would just say we're cautiously optimistic. For a variety of reasons: one, we're seeing tremendous growth not only at Telemundo but also in the broader NBCU portfolio, and I think that's great. Second, more and more brands, particularly Fortune 100 brands, have seen not only the growth in the demographic in the Latino community, but more importantly the consumer spending power growth that we're seeing. So they have woken up to that, and we're seeing a tremendous amount of interest. So we're cautiously optimistic.
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Cynthia Litton4:52
Can I press you though? Are you into it with any buyers right now, or is it still a little bit the mating dance right now?
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Cesar Conde4:58
No, I think we're into it. You're into it? Gotcha. It's going to be, it's not going to be that frenzy rush that it has been in past years. It's going to be an interesting upfront, so we'll stay tuned on that.
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Cynthia Litton5:12
But for sure, by any measure, I've been covering Telemundo and Univision a long time, and by any measure this was a, this stretch, this past 18 to 24 months has been an incredible time for Telemundo, a time of real growth but also a really impressive innovation and changes in decades-old practices. I'd love to have you talk about how you identified the need to take some risks and to sort of adjust the format of the traditional telenovela that had been such a staple for Telemundo and Univision for so long. It feels like this was the year when you really benefited from some interesting risks and innovations that you introduced into the programming starting in the last couple of years.
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Cesar Conde6:08
Sure. Well, maybe as a little bit of a backdrop: first, we have a demographic in the Latino community that is growing, but more importantly it's evolving. That's pretty clear. So we have a demographic that's evolving and changing here in the United States. In addition, we have an acceleration of change in media consumption habits, not only in the overarching population but particularly in the Latino community. So within that backdrop, we felt it was an opportunity ripe for a little bit of disruption. Second, I would tell you we have an incredible team; a lot of people have contributed to this thinking and work. What really struck us was that because of those two fundamental changes, Telemundo needed to evolve with the marketplace. That was the crux of what we were trying to do. Our fundamental premise was this phrase: we wanted to redefine Hispanic media. We wanted to redefine what our consumer expected from Spanish-language media and also change the perception in the marketplace so we could grow the business. In terms of the demographic, the majority of viewers now are U.S.-born Hispanics, second generation. We like to define the population now as what we call 200 percenters: Latinos who are 100% American but also 100% Latino. One misperception is that people consume Spanish-language media because they can't consume anything else. That's not true. An increasing amount of the viewing public has the ability to see English and Spanish across platforms. If you recognize that, you start producing content and innovating in a way that hopefully speaks to and attracts that more sophisticated palate we're seeing in the U.S. marketplace.
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Cynthia Litton8:56
Mm-hmm. And one of the big changes was shifting some programs to mirror more the English-language drama series, where you have a season and the show is renewed for a couple of seasons, which is really a paradigm shift for Spanish-language TV.
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Cesar Conde9:15
Yeah. So for a little background, the traditional programming genre that has worked in Spanish-language media is the telenovela genre, which has worked for decades and continues to work in certain parts of the world. But we looked at the changing demographic and consumption patterns and made fundamental changes to the telenovela genre, creating what we call Super Series. Traditional telenovelas have classic storylines: love stories, rich vs. poor, countryside vs. city. We went with more contemporary, edgy storylines that represent the U.S. Latino experience, experimenting with issues of immigration, border, growing up in Los Angeles, New York, or Miami. We hit a nerve. We also increased production quality and shortened the series from 120-140 episodes to 40-60 episodes. That's an innovation for Spanish-language media. We also started creating franchises that can continue over many seasons. For example, in a few weeks we are premiering the fifth season of 'El Señor de los Cielos' (The Lord of the Skies), one of our most successful Super Series. It appeals to both the core traditional Spanish-language audience and young new Latinos. Fast forward to today, we have about half a dozen series in multiple seasons, which has become the backbone of our prime time.
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Cynthia Litton13:01
Yeah, and putting up really big numbers, beating Univision in many cases. The gap for so many decades between Telemundo and Univision was so huge, and that has really, really narrowed.
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Cesar Conde13:13
Yeah, so to put it in context: in 2008, the difference in prime time audience between Univision and Telemundo was about 1.5 million adults 18-49. Univision had about a two or three times share. Over the last two or three years, we've seen a tectonic change in Spanish-language media. Latino viewers are increasingly choosing Telemundo as their preferred place for entertainment, news, and sports. That gap has been closing. We culminated last year for the first time finishing 2016 as the number one Spanish-language network in prime time Monday to Friday. That was a big development for us. But more important for the long term, because this is a marathon, not a sprint, we have begun to change the perception in the marketplace, not only with viewers but with advertisers and partners. Now Telemundo is the trendsetter. You're seeing programming genres and trends throughout Hispanic media beginning to mimic Telemundo and go to the Super Series model. That's a great place for our company to be — with consumers who now know that for high quality, culturally relevant programming they come to Telemundo, and with partners who want to be with the brand that's innovating and bringing authentic things to the marketplace. That's our North Star: to stay authentic to our community here in the United States.
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Cynthia Litton14:51
Has it been an education process with advertisers and distributors, when you're talking about carriage deals and things like that? Is it something that, as Telemundo has grown, the understanding has grown? Or does it really take a lot of work on your team's part to make people aware of the value of your audience?
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Cesar Conde15:18
It's a good question. I think anyone who's worked in Hispanic or Spanish-language media can identify with this. The media business is tough to begin with — you have to prove your value among a proliferation of options. In Hispanic media, you have an additional hurdle: many brands and distributors are not consumers of the product because they may not speak the language, so you have to educate about the marketplace. The more direct answer is we spend a portion of our time educating about the market dynamics and benefits and why it can help these respective brands and distributors grow their core business. Then once you get past that, we go to the different options in the Hispanic media marketplace and why Telemundo can add more value. So it's a two-prong process. The good news is the first part is becoming easier as more people understand the consumer spending power of this demographic. We never say 'this is good because it's the right thing to do'; we say 'this is good for your business.' Distributors are a great example: all the growth they are seeing in the mobile sector is from the Hispanic demographic, a very wired young generation. So they start seeing that. The second part of the process has gotten easier for us because of Telemundo's momentum and trends. What really resonates with our partners is that we have been going up for the last three or so years; we are the only large Spanish-language network growing while competitors drop. But if you dig deeper, the quality and type of consumer watching Telemundo is much more attractive: we skew much younger in the 18-34 demo, we are the second or third largest network in the country for that demo, and we have a very diverse Hispanic audience, not monolithic. That's an attractive demo for them.
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Cynthia Litton18:04
Mm-hmm, gotcha. And of course a lot of this growth and investment has come from Telemundo being part of the NBCUniversal family since Comcast. From almost the day they announced the acquisition, Steve Burke has been very vocal about seeing Telemundo as a very big growth opportunity. I would imagine that being part of that portfolio is also very helpful.
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Cesar Conde18:32
Yeah. Without the support of Steve and Brian it would be difficult to compete. I give them a lot of credit. Early on they established a philosophy I love: we approach our business as owners, not renters. We make decisions that may not maximize short-term profits, but if it's the right call over 3 to 10 years, we do it. They put their money where their mouth is. For example, Telemundo for the first time acquired the rights to the FIFA World Cup. We have three cycles, exclusive in Spanish until 2026, starting with Russia in 2018. It was a big coup because Univision had had this property for almost 40 years. That was the first message that Comcast NBCU believed in the potential of Telemundo and this marketplace. Another example is our new global headquarters we are building in Miami. We announced it a year and a half ago, will open in January 2018. It will be a state-of-the-art facility, the most forward-leaning facility at Comcast NBCU. We are producing an overwhelming amount of our content here in the U.S., with U.S. Hispanics making content for U.S. Hispanics. Currently we have five or six facilities spread over South Florida; this will bring all businesses together. Brian and Steve put a lot of faith in that.
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Cynthia Litton22:14
Let's talk a little bit more about the World Cup. In terms of bringing, obviously that's like the Hispanic world's NFL, not that Hispanics don't also watch the NFL, but in terms of adding not just the World Cup but all the lead-up games to it, do you see that as bringing new viewers to Telemundo or does it cement your status as the primary network for your existing viewers?
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Cesar Conde22:47
I start by giving context: soccer is a religion to Hispanics, and the World Cup is our cathedral. So the event is extraordinarily important for us. I think the World Cup is coming at the perfect moment. If we were not performing well and hoping it would catapult us, that wouldn't happen. But we've been doing extraordinarily well, and it maybe wouldn't have the same impact. It's coming at the right moment because we're trending in the right direction with growth and innovation. We need a platform to promote and bring additional sampling from people who wouldn't necessarily be watching Telemundo. The perception you alluded to is fair: Telemundo did not have the perception of being the innovator, trendsetter, higher quality producer. There are still many people unclear about what's going on at Telemundo. This allows us to continue refining our business. Hopefully, a year from now, in summer 2018, it will act as that promotion vehicle. One counterintuitive strategy: for the Russia World Cup, most games will occur early morning (8, 10, 12 noon) due to time zones. Some might see that as half-glass-empty, but I think it's a blessing because our strength is in prime time, where we've innovated. We still have work to do in other time periods. This World Cup will allow us to...
Necessarily be the strongest yet it's going to put the largest sporting event in the world flat, straight up on our networks and it will act as a promoter of what's going on in prime time. So for the 30 days of the World Cup we're not preempting anything in prime time. In contrast to where in the Olympics we may use the Olympics at NBC to promote a great series that's coming after the Olympics, we are actually going to be programming some of our strongest stuff during the World Cup. Tune in tonight, that's right, tune in tonight. So it's a little bit different but we're very excited about it and I think that's why that type of event with that type of time zone for us right now works very well. And as you say, you have cool stuff to promote right now. If you were just counting on the World Cup to bring you eyeballs, that would be less of an opportunity because if you imagine you get all that great sampling and they see is the same as always, it really doesn't maximize the opportunity. And so again we still have work to do but we're working very hard to be able to show some real innovative things during that time.
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Host26:07
Next year, will you do anything streaming wise with the World Cup? Will you make it available digitally?
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Cesar Conde26:10
Yeah, so we learned a tremendous amount. I mean we all learn a tremendous amount in all of these live events. We have the benefit of having learned a tremendous amount from the Rio Olympics via NBC and we saw how the audience is accelerating in the change of their consumption habits. And as we all know it was very well covered in the media, there was a lot more consumption of the Olympics and live sports on other different platforms. And so yes, the short answer is we will be making our content, our games available across networks, across platforms. We want to make sure that people have the ability to consume it when they want, how they want. In addition, we're also going to be bringing new technology, we're going to be bringing a lot of VR technology and other to make sure that we're touching on all of the innovation that's occurring and we're bringing in any type of consumer. The other thing I think we're going to try to innovate for the World Cup that hasn't been done before is I think one of the strengths that we've seen in our NBC Sports coverage of the Olympics throughout the years and we can all relate is the human interest stories that NBC brings to life and it makes certain sports and certain athletes that may not be household names makes them relevant to all of us and that's what connects us to that event. I think we're going to take our, we're going to do our version of that for the World Cup and hopefully that brings a tremendous amount of appeal to a larger audience. So we're excited about bringing that innovation.
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Host27:42
I'm sure you've got people already working on those packages, looking at the potential teams and combinations.
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Cesar Conde27:43
I dare not say, but we have many people who have spent many hours in Russia and around the world already, so we'll be well prepared for it.
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Host27:55
And just to be clear, will the streaming be an authenticated stream?
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Cesar Conde27:56
We will be offering open access for a while and then at some point yes, we'll have some authentication, but we're going to try to bring as many people as we can early on. It makes sense to as an NBC executive to say you have the Rings and then you have to let everybody know you have the Rings. That's exactly right.
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Host28:18
With the World Cup, do you see an opportunity because you do have the Rings every two years? Do you see an opportunity to marry the sports presence that you have with the Olympics every two years with the World Cup now since you're going to have it for a good long time?
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Cesar Conde28:32
Yeah, no, we've... I'd say two things to that. One is we're very, as NBC Universal, we're very excited about 2018. I think this is the first time that this has happened in a large media company. So in 2018 we have three major sporting events that are going to be under the same roof. We are going to have the Super Bowl, we're going to have PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and we're going to have the FIFA World Cup. And so for us as a company, I think we're extraordinarily excited that we're going to be able to bring all of those events to our viewers. Second thing I'd say is as far as with our Telemundo hat on, in addition to the FIFA World Cup, one of the things that we've been able to do is partner with NBC Sports, we're able to tap into some rights of exclusive events that we necessarily didn't have before. And so the Olympics is a wonderful example. So we are now Telemundo is also the exclusive broadcaster of the Olympics in Spanish language. We've also been able to tap into the NFL and other rights that NBC Sports has been able to acquire. So it's a very complimentary and synergistic relationship with them.
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Host29:39
Do you see a boost for the Olympics? Do people come to you for Spanish language?
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Cesar Conde29:41
We program it. The short answer is yes, we program it a little bit differently as you can imagine. We take into account not only country of origin, we take into account certain sports and we really look at it holistically. You'll notice that NBC doesn't put the same sports on NBC prime time as we do on USA or some of our other cable networks, and same thing happens on Telemundo. So it's very carefully programmed based on what we think the audience will uniquely connect with.
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Host30:14
Are you able to, because NBC has done so much with the Olympics live stream, do you also program a Spanish language live stream for people if they want to customize a package of sports? Do you offer that ability?
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Cesar Conde30:15
We do it on the broadcast channel. I don't think we've done that to date in the digital platform. Well, I'll give you Mark Lazarus and give him another cycle, probably get that going.
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Host30:40
Let's talk about news. I know that both local and national has also been a big area of investment for you.
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Cesar Conde30:47
Yeah, you know what's interesting is I think we are living in a time that Latinos more so than usual are very hungry and are seeking out news and information about what's going on in the world, particularly about the issues that impact them and matter to them. So from an overall sentiment, I think we're in a good place because Latinos are very much looking for this type of news and information. Second, you know, we made with our hat of investing in our business and really thinking of our business over the long term. We as a company and Telemundo made a decision a few years ago which I think was the right decision to invest in our local station news business. Now there was, it was a little counterintuitive at the time because it's easy to think about it now retroactively, but at the time we started making that investment most of the media industry was retracting from the local news business for fair reasons. We took a little bit of a longer term approach and we decided to invest. And fast forward to today, that investment in new sets, new stations, new markets, upgrading our talent in front and behind the camera is paying incredible dividends for us. And for those of us in the broadcast television business, we always like to say the backbone of a successful broadcast television business is the strength and the health of your local TV stations. So the NBCU and the Telemundo story in local stations is really incredible. Not only have we catapulted to number one in many of the major markets in Spanish language, which was a little bit of a foreshadow for us of what ended up happening with Telemundo over the national business, we're also seeing Telemundo be number one in some major local markets regardless of language. So that's been fantastic for us. On the national network news side, we have also been making a lot of investments. Last year's election cycle created a tremendous amount of opportunity to do a lot of innovative work. But aside from the editorial coverage and the responsibility that we feel to our community to make sure that we cover news in a very transparent and balanced way so that they have access to information so that they can make decisions for themselves and for their lives, I think we're also very proud of one milestone we hit two years ago. So this is a great example of how the Latino community is crossing over. Jose Diaz-Balart, who you may know, is our anchor, our network news anchor on Telemundo Monday to Friday. About a year and a half ago, he was also named to be Lester Holt's backup on NBC Nightly News, the weekend edition. So he's also on MSNBC quite a bit. So exactly. Putting aside that poor Jose, I don't think sleeps. Monday to Friday in Miami and then Saturday and Sunday here in New York and then he goes back and starts it again. I think the message is a great message for us is that now we have someone who is a leader in the Latino community also being able to do it in the English space. And we're very proud of that. And I think that's also contributed to some of the momentum we see in the news division.
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Host34:08
Especially for your local stations, you have to have that whole package of news. And that's right. We're going to get to Q&A here in just a second, so think of some good questions. But before I just want to ask you quickly, I know NBC Universal, your cable channel that's been a bit of an uphill climb. Can you talk about where things stand with that and what your strategy is right now?
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Cesar Conde34:36
Sure. You know, our Telemundo Enterprises portfolio has a lot of businesses: the Telemundo broadcast network, our local stations, our emerging business, our Telemundo Studios business which produces 80% of our content, our Telemundo International business which sells our content overseas, but also the Telemundo network exists in about 40 countries overseas and we program it throughout the world. Our cable network is Universal, and Universal has gone through a few iterations. So about two years ago we did have some challenges with it. Two years ago we made the decision to rebrand it, reposition it, and change the programming strategy. And fast forward to today, we're very proud last year it finished as the fastest growing Hispanic entertainment cable network. And what we've tried to do is really bring entertainment stories that frankly doesn't make sense for a large broadcast audience, we bring it in the cable more niche base, and it's worked great for us. We've been able to bring more innovative and edgier stories, we've been able to experiment much more with reality, we've created our version of the Kardashians in the Riveras, and that's worked very well. And we've also brought some English language franchises that performed particularly well with the Latino community, like The Walking Dead, that had never been seen or never been done in Spanish. And so with a combination of those things, we've seen a great thing, and Universal will play an important role for us during the World Cup coverage as well.
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Host36:10
Gotcha. All right, let's see. Anybody got a question?
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Yan Zika36:17
Yan Zika, NBC Universal. I have a question about the demographics. You mentioned obviously the young demo is very important for Telemundo. How do you see the interaction between digital and linear as we go forward? Because obviously young people are increasingly on social media and on digital networks, even on some of the new social media such as Snapchat, etc.
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Cesar Conde36:42
Sure. So thank you for the question. So first and foremost, I think in this day and age we think of all platforms all at once. I mean, the way people consume, they're consuming sort of agnostically. So thinking of digital along with linear is and should be and is increasingly becoming the norm. I think the second, in our particular case, the Latino demographic as many of us know over indexes on the usage of social media, on the consumption of all things digital. So I think in our particular case we have to be particularly innovative and forward leaning. And the approach that we've tried to take is I think we've been cognizant of what we are good at and what we're not. And one of the things that we're very good at is we live and breathe the Latino community 24/7, 365 days a year. And it's those unique insights that I think has been a contributor to our success. In the same breath, we're not a technology company. And so what we've tried to do is go out and partner with best-in-breed companies throughout the industry. So from a macro perspective, we at NBC Universal have invested in what we think are leading digital DNA companies like Snapchat, like BuzzFeed, like Vox. And so we at Telemundo have been able to partner with them to bring our expertise in the Hispanic space, which they want to attract and tackle, and partner with them to leverage their strengths on the distribution side and their technology. And so we've seen great partnerships and it's performed extraordinarily well for us. And so I think we'll continue to see innovation on that front.
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Yan Zika38:23
Do you measure, you know, so much of television is not just watching it live but the second screen activity, the recapping. Do you gauge the success of programming by how much chatter is out there, how much discussion it sparks online?
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Cesar Conde38:39
Yeah, no, the answer is we do. There is a measurement company out there that, for reasons I'm about to say, will become obvious, our favorite one out there. It's one called Shareablee. And Shareablee ranks media companies and networks along the strength of their social engagement. And Telemundo has consistently ranked as one of the top three networks in the country regardless of language, behind ESPN and Fox News, as far as the engagement and the connection that the content has with their audience. And that takes into account a number of different inputs. But the short answer is yes, it's something that we take into account. And I think that's been one of the contributors to our success, is that our audience connects in a unique way with our content, and that's allowed them to continue not only to consume it but also to do other things.
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Host39:33
Anybody else question?
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Maria Hinojosa39:38
I'll stand up because I'm a chaparra. Hey Cesar, hey Maria. So interesting. Maria Hinojosa, president of the Futuro Media Group, Latino USA, In the Thick. So it's actually an NBC Universal property that I was recently catching up on in a binge, which is Law & Order: SVU, that actually documented what I think is probably the most realistic capturing of what an ICE intervention detention actually looks like. It was pretty riveting. But we don't usually see that. So my question to you is, because you are so deeply connected to the community, we all know that there are two things that are happening right now in the United States of America. On the one hand, there's extraordinary growth like you're seeing, like we're seeing, and this deep engagement. And on the other hand, there's this whole other level of panic, insanity, worry, people not leaving their homes, which I suppose might not be a bad thing in terms of people watching television. I know I knew that was going to get a laugh, but it's horrible because we know that people are not leaving to go to the corner to the bodega. So my question is, how are you managing that as a company, the fact that both things are happening at the same time?
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Cesar Conde41:04
Yeah, no, thank you Maria for the question. Look, I think it goes without saying, you know, this past election I think was an inflection point for the community. And there are certainly palpable signs in portions of the country within the Latino community of some fear and some anxiety. And we're very cognizant of that. I'd say a few things. One is, it's exactly in those situations where we believe that our role as journalists, our role covering the news is so important. And so we've tried to do two things. On the one hand, we really have tried to create content that educates the community as to what's going on out there. I'll give you one tangible example. When we started getting a lot of this type of sentiment and feedback from the community, we decided late last year, right after the election and the beginning of this year, we decided to put some town halls, live town halls on the air. And the team came up with this concept and they said we want to go in prime time on a Sunday night and go into the community and let people ask questions to experts as to what's going on. And at first, I think we all said gosh, Sunday night is one of the most competitive nights in the marketplace. But you know what, it's the right thing to do. We put on fast forward, we put on our first town hall. It was the most seen show on Sunday night certainly in that weekend, but the entire season. And what it taught us was, and by the way, the format was very straightforward. We just opened the doors, we let people come in, we had a few hundred people in the auditorium. And what we did is we brought experts, we brought lawyers, we brought psychologists, and the like. And our journalist, in this particular case it was Jose, was simply asking people to tell their stories of what they were seeing in their community. And what we think it was extraordinarily therapeutic for people to see that they were not alone. And that was one of the important messages that was communicated. The honest answers we couldn't tell them the answers to what was going on because I think there was still a lot of things going on in flux. And so I give you that as one example. And we've continued to do those town halls. And we believe that that's our role as media to ensure that people are getting access to information so that they can best answer the questions and make decisions in their own respective lives. The second thing we've done is we have doubled down in our local news business. I alluded to that. And in particularly in some markets, we're making sure that we're going into our communities and covering some of these stories that are occurring. And it's important that the word gets out about that. But it's increasing the amount of coverage in local news that we also think is helping.
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Host43:38
You've also done, I know during the, you have done a lot in the way of nonpartisan voter registration drives. I know there was a lot of community-based outreach to make sure that people were aware of their rights and ability to register to vote. That was a big investment.
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Cesar Conde43:40
It was a big investment. I would tell you it's part of a larger initiative for us. You know, Hispanic media, Spanish language media does have a little bit of a different activity that occurs than in English language media. I am a believer, we are believers that we have a tremendous privilege to serve this community, but with that privilege comes a unique responsibility. And it's a responsibility to ensure that we help our community on the issues that matter most to them. So in our particular case, Telemundo took the initiative last year to launch a multi-year community empowerment platform called 'El Poder en Ti' (The Power in You). And anytime you survey the Latino community, there are really three primary issues that are top of mind for them: it's their education, it's their health care, and it's their financial literacy. So long story short, we decided to create comprehensive campaigns around each of those three verticals to make sure that they had access to information that would help them better their lives. We added a fourth pillar to that initiative around engagement because we want to make sure that Latinos feel that they have access and they know how best to exercise all of their civic rights, whether it is apply for citizenship if they're eligible, whether it is to register to vote, and of course go to the polls. It's in all of our communities' interest, it's in our country's interest that everyone's voice be heard. And so we do it in a very nonpartisan way, but we do think that that's part of the responsibility of Hispanic media to make sure that they know what is available to them.
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Host46:00
Absolutely. And to your earlier point too, in terms of bringing a certain earthiness to the storylines that your shows tackle, I would imagine that the events of the often horrifying events of the past few months will work their way into the stories that you tell.
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Cesar Conde46:02
As we touched on briefly early on, many of our scripted drama shows are talking about many of these authentic situations that the Latino community is experiencing here in the United States. And we think it's the right thing to do, but I think it's certainly something that the audience has reacted to because I think it speaks to the reality that many are living. And I think there's no substitute for authenticity.
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Host46:51
Absolutely. Got time for one last question.
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Octavio Blanco46:53
Hi, this is Octavio Blanco. I cover the Latino economy at CNN Money and I'm also the co-founder of Live in Americana, which is a startup focusing on the Latino community in the United States. So my question is really about language. Because I attended your upfront party, which was a blast, thank you. But everything was in English. So is there a move, considering the changes in the demographics, the 200 centers, is there are you guys considering any move towards English programming on Telemundo? And then also, would you be on the lookout to collaborate with outfits that are doing this kind of reporting in English?
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Cesar Conde47:45
Sure. So thank you. I'd say a few things. One is, you know, we at Telemundo Enterprises, our strategy in our core business is and will continue to be to program in high quality Spanish language content. I think there is a tremendous amount of demand for it in the marketplace. We've seen that over the last 30 plus years here in the United States and that's our competitive advantage. And so we're going to continue to do that, making sure that we customize and innovate that content to speak more uniquely, as we've talked about, to the Latino experience here in the United States. But Spanish language is the way we will continue to go in our core business. In addition to that though, we also are very cognizant when we look at our digital business and we look at the interaction that we see in social media, it is very common for us to see English and Spanish being used in the digital platform when people are watching some of our best shows. We're watching all the social media streams and it's unbelievable. They're following it in English and commenting in English, someone will be commenting in Spanish and going back and forth with someone in English. So we're cognizant of that and we think that's wonderful. And when it relates to content, I think in certain platforms we are always open to do things that can help build the Telemundo brand. One example is we just announced a partnership with Universal and we created a new business called Telemundo Films. And we have started to create very humbly low-budget films in English in this particular case, but we'll also do in Spanish to speak to what we think is a very robust movie audience here in the United States. And our first release came out earlier this year, it was called Lowriders, it was based in LA, and Eva Longoria and Demian Bichir starred in it. And we want to make sure that we're offering all types of content in platform to our consumers. And so in some of the other platforms we'll look at things, but our core, it's been tried and true and that's why we're growing, is we'll continue to stay in Spanish.
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Host49:57
Great, thank you. I feel like we scratched the surface, but with time for us for up. Thank you so much. Thank you.