TelevisaUnivision CEO: No Ad Pullbacks, Q2 Sales Improving.

If advertisers are showing hesitation, they aren’t afraid to buy. TelevisaUnivision, the first public company that owns radio stations to report first quarter earnings, said last week that not only has it not seen clients pull commercial buys off the air, but things are looking better during the second quarter.

“We are encouraged by meaningful acceleration and growth that we're seeing to date in Q2,” CEO Daniel Alegre said on an earnings call with analysts. He said that their initiative focused on bringing advertisers that have never spent money with the company before is continuing as planned, and Alegre expects it to show even better results as the year progresses. TelevisaUnivision continues to believe that in the short-term tariff battle will have no impact on their operations, even though much of their TV production is done in Mexico. Because it is not a physical good, Alegre believes it will be outside the scope of any potential tariffs. He said the greater risk is what it might do to the advertising market on both sides of the border. But right now, it remains business as usual for both TelevisaUnivision and its clients.

“To date, we haven't really seen an impact to sales and pullback,” he said. Instead, Alegre said the 11% drop in advertising sales during the first quarter was related to a tough comparable in its television business after it had the Super Bowl rights in 2024, but not 2025. Excluding the Super Bowl, U.S. ad revenue tumbled 6%. “We’re already seeing a sequential improvement in our Q2 ad sales performance, and we feel confident about the path forward,” Alegre said.

Latinos played a larger role in the 2024 election cycle, TelevisaUnivision is already focused on 2026’s midterms. “We’re already looking ahead to the midterm elections and the opportunity to unlock even greater value in political advertising,” Alegre said.

The company’s focus this year is on assembling the right tools and partnerships so that when the political season picks up in earnest next year, they are well-prepared.

“Our team is already out there in the market,” Alegre said. “We are starting to see competitive political campaigns in states like Virginia and New Jersey, and we are prioritizing engaging earlier to help shape cross-platform strategies.”

TelevisaUnivision, which operates 35 radio stations in the U.S. along with its television holdings, has been focused on cost-cutting in recent months. That has included the reduction of its workforce by nearly 1,000 employees which reset their personnel cost structure.

“While these changes are never easy on many levels, we have seen strong resilience since we reduced nearly 10% of our head count across the organization without any impact to our execution and operation,” Alegre said. He reiterated that the company aims to slice another $400 million in expenses this year.

The picture for radio will become even clearer in the coming days as more radio companies report earnings. Cumulus Media will report Thursday (May 1).