Univision has been in the news lately due to its nasty court battle with Mexican giant Televisa. Many say that Univision stands to lose its status as America’s number one Spanish language network if it loses this legal case. No need for me to elaborate on what is at stake here, since many stories have been written on this when the court hearings began last Tuesday in Los Angeles.

No matter how this whole thing ends we still have to give credit to Univision for launching the Univision newscast “Noticiero Univision” in the 1980’s, when many skeptics said it would not last. Critics said that Hispanics would assimilate and eventually switch to watching English language newscasts – and they were right. But what they didn’t anticipate was that Hispanics would soon be the primary immigrant group coming into the US – and they now number in the millions. And many of the assimilated Hispanics like to watch the news in Spanish once in a while – and I include myself in this group. This has strengthened the Univision newscast which has higher ratings than the newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC in some of the biggest Hispanic markets like Los Angeles, New York and Miami.

Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas have been the Main Anchors of Noticiero Univision for over 20 years now. They are two of the most familiar faces in Spanish television and within Hispanic circles. This evening newscast continues to be the most watched Spanish newscast amongst Hispanics – beating rival Telemundo. It is well known that Ramos and Salinas have million-dollar contracts and they have nothing to envy their English language counterparts – Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and Charlie Gibson – since they are in the same league.

Univision also helped launch the careers of many respected Hispanic journalists such as Pedro Sevcec who now anchors the Telemundo newscast, Ricardo Brown who now anchors GEN TV news, Jackie Nespral who became the first Hispanic Anchor of the “Today” show, and Maggie Rodriguez who is the co-Anchor of the CBS Morning Show.

We also have to mention that Teresa Rodriguez will stay in the history books as America’s first Hispanic female Anchor of any network when she co-anchored the “Noticiero SIN”. Rodriguez was then known as Teresa Abate and she added a much-needed boost to this newscast because of her beauty and professionalism. Rodriguez is now the host of “Aqui y Ahora”, a weekly news magazine on Univision. I am certain she also has a million-dollar contract with Univision because of her special status which she most definitely deserves. Rodriguez also spent a few years anchoring in a local Miami newscast and was a fill-in Anchor for the national NBC news too.

It will be very interesting to see how this court case ends and how it will have affect the US produced “Noticiero Univision”. Unfortunately, without the powerful Mexican novelas as part of Univision’s lineup, the national newscast will certainly be affected as well. Let’s hope that the two sides can come up with an agreement because not only are careers at stake here, but also the potential to lose an excellent newscast such as “Noticiero Univision”. And the biggest losers will be the loyal and faithful viewers who look forward every evening to seeing stories about the US (their new country) and also on those from their native countries. We will have to wait and see how this novela ends.

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