Yesterday a deal was announced between Univision and YouTube whereby the U.S. Hispanic network would bring a “hefty stable of short- and long-form programming to YouTube.” While this is “the first time any Univision programming is available on the Web outside of its own properties” a great deal of the network’s programming, particularly material from Televisa, has been illegally posted on YouTube. Back in February TubeMogul estimated that this content drawing was over double any other U.S. network.

Number of views of clips from the 10 most-pirated shows on each major network
Univision: 583,750,247*
Fox: 289,074,325
ABC: 260,299,418
CBS: 127,334,729
NBC: 120,890,835
Source: TubeMogul
*Includes Televisa content pirated from El Canal de las Estrellas

As I mentioned in a posting in February, Univision’s view count is mostly attributable to Televisa content, specifically material copied from El Canal de las Estrellas where their telenovelas air months ahead of Univision. Similar to how different regional premieres have encouraged piracy in the movie industry, pirated telenovela clips have flooded YouTube to the delight of thousands of fans.

The piracy seems to have gone on unabated in part because Televisa and Univsion are still wrangling over the digital broadcast rights of these telenovelas. This protracted battle is the focus of an excellent article today in Ad Age.

…perhaps because of the animus involved, Televisa simply ignored the fact that fans were uploading its telenovelas to YouTube… Televisa has become more aggressive about policing YouTube over the past year… The number of pirated clips of Televisa-produced Univision shows are down 53% since February, according to TubeMogul.

Even if the number of clips has been cut in half, plenty of Televisa’s content can still be seen on YouTube, something that would never be permitted by a Hollywood studio for an equivalent U.S. television series. A quick search of just recent Televisa telenovelas will yield dozens of clips that have each garnered over 100,000 views. Just the telenovela Sortilegio, which premiered in October on Univision, has garnered over 70 million views on YouTube. What’s worse, I also found a shady website called SortilegioTV.com where full episodes can be streamed for free, although a disclaimer below stipulates:

The streaming videos that has been found here are hosted by third party. Any copyrighted videos is a property of the original copyright holder. Therefore any violations, the owner of the blog is not liable.

While this is chaotic, at least it indicates that there is a tremendous amount of demand for Hispanic content online. Obviously, Univision’s decision to launch this new YouTube channel is an effort to consolidate its presence in this space, with or without Televisa telenovelas. In the meantime, perhaps Televisa can afford to let its content be pirated in YouTube since it probably won’t affect its business interests in Mexico where the company recently launched its own video portal, Tvolucion, similar in style and content to Hulu. Tvolucion seems to fullfill the wish of every telenovela fan, but only if they’re in Mexico. ‘Foreign’ viewers are notified that the material is not available in their market, although Tvolucion is “working on offering their catalog to a greater number of regions.” They are then invited to let Televisa know where they’re based.

It’s possible that Televisa is angling to have some sort of presence online in the U.S. market, thus bypassing their broadcast partner Univision and becoming a direct competitor within the online space. However it’s more probable that the two companies will compromise on an arrangement whereby Univision will gain the online rights for the telenovelas, with certain restrictions or windows in place, just as Hulu and Netflix have arranged with other content producers.

In any case this does makes me realize that eventually the U.S. Hispanic online market will be much more complex than what is currently seen in traditional media.

I recently read an Ad Age article regarding the popularity of Univision’s content on YouTube. It focuses on how popular certain network content is on YouTube. A major point is how Univision’s telenovelas (Latin soap operas) are the most popular fare by far.

Number of views of clips from the 10 most-pirated shows on each major network

1. Univision: 583,750,247 views
2. Fox: 289,074,325 views
3. ABC: 260,299,418 views
4. CBS: 127,334,729 views
5. NBC: 120,890,835 views

However, as one of the commentators noted, many of the Univision videos didn’t seem to come from that network since they had an embedded logo bug for El Canal de las Estrellas, Televisa-owned Channel 2 from Mexico. It is easy to confuse the two network since they broadcast many of the same telenovelas, produced in Mexico and very popular with Univision’s Hispanic audience as well as in many other foreign markets.

As I searched YouTube’s site for telenovelas I also noticed that many of these telenovela videos were hosted by a few specialty YouTube ‘channels,’ who seemed to specialize in the telenovela genre.

YouTube Channels with Telenovela content

1. Laurisgar: 1,415 videos
2. Tvnovelasmx: 1,414 videos
3. Mundomexicotv: 1,077 videos
4. Felsesnovela: 418 videos
5. rBd24RbD: 434 videos

The hosts of these channels seemed to be based in Mexico, and some of them even explained how they posted the videos ‘as soon as the programs were transmitted’ by Canal 2 in Mexico. What’s noteworthy was although these channels originate in Mexico their content seems to draw more traffic from outside that country. For example the Laurisgar channel is currently ranked as the #5 YouTube channel worlwide, but it doesn’t even place in the Mexican rankings (YouTube channel rankings after changing the ‘country of content preference’). I believe this discrepancy is due to Televisa’s new online video site, TVolucion. This site, launched in October 2008 is sort of a Mexican version of Hulu, so it’s been a major draw for Mexican telenovela watchers. Also similar to Hulu, this site cannot be utilized by outside of its home country so ‘foreign’ telenovela fans need to get their fix elsewhere, hence YouTube’s attraction.

However, as the Ad Age article also mentions, this situation will probably not last much longer. Univision doesn’t currently offer any telenovela video online since the rights have not been cleared with Televisa but talks have been ongoing for some time. Also, just last month, Univision named Kevin Conroy as the President of Univision Interactive Media; previously Mr. Conroy was AOL’s Executive VP of Global Proudcts and Marketing. Expect further online developments from Univision soon, as well as clean-up of YouTube’s telenovela material.

CrunchBase Information on Televisa

CrunchBase Information on YouTube

Last week Univision settled a lawsuit with Televisa, the leading producer of Mexican telenovelas who provides most of Univision’s primetime programming and basically accounts for 1/3 of Univision’s 2007 revenues. Televisa’s product is so popular in the U.S. since the Hispanic market is mostly Mexican. This is not often the case in Latin America where preferences diverge as you travel further from Mexico. For example, in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Colombian telenovelas are more popular whereas in El Salvador Mexican telenovelas remain dominant; incidentally Mariachi music is also popular in El Salvador. Since Univision’s contract with Televisa expires in 2017, I was curious to see the portion of the U.S. Hispanic market would be Mexican.

In 2000 the U.S. Hispanic population stood at 35 million, equivalent to 12.6% of the total population. By 2050 it’s estimated to reach 132 million or 30.2%.

This Hispanic pie of 35 million consists of various segments, but the Mexican slice is by far the largest- over 20 million or almost 60%. Puerto Ricans are the second biggest segment at 9.6%.

While I couldn’t find any projections based on country of origin, I did locate some data indicating that 60% of future Hispanic population growth would come from individuals being born in the U.S. and while the other 40% would come result from immigration.

Utilizing this information I decided to build my own projections. I assumed that around 50% of the natural increases in population would come from parents of the same origin, and that the other 50% would be of mixed origin resulting in offspring that would fit the ‘Other Hispanic’ category. I also assumed that a 100% distribution of international migration from one of the seven country categories (Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.), not allowing for migration to result in additions to the ‘Other Hispanic’ category. The results show that while Mexican origin would still maintain a majority by a wide margin in 2050.

Of course, this calculation is only hypothetical, and other factors may play into this. Migration from countries other than Mexico might increase more relative to the current proportions. Intermarriage between countries and cultures is also a huge factor. Finally there could also be a more predominant homogenization of Hispanic culture in the United States, resulting in more Hispanics seeing themselves of not one particular origin. At least based on this model it does appear that the Mexican culture will form a strong part of the U.S. Hispanic culture for many years to come and that as a result Televisa’s value in the U.S. market will hold strong well past 2017.