Ad executive named CEO of Univision

A top advertising executive was named Tuesday as chief executive of Univision Communications Inc., signaling a priority by the company’s prospective owners to squeeze more money from Madison Avenue for the huge Latino audience the TV broadcaster delivers.

The group of private investors preparing to pay $12.3 billion for the Los Angeles-based company hired Joe Uva, 51, as the successor to Bel-Air billionaire A. Jerrold Perenchio, who has run Univision for nearly 15 years.

Perenchio orchestrated last year’s deal to sell the nation’s leading Spanish-language television and radio company to the investor group, which is made up of four large private equity firms and Haim Saban, another Los Angeles billionaire.

The deal is expected to close by the end of March, as soon as it receives regulatory approval. Uva will join Univision on April 1.

Like Perenchio, Uva is an Italian American and does not speak Spanish. He is currently chief executive of OMD Worldwide, one of the world’s largest advertising buying firms.

“Given his background he should be able to pull in more advertising dollars,” said Merrill Lynch media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen. “That’s always been Univision’s weak spot. They have great ratings, great scale and great reach, so they should have a bigger pool of advertisers.”

Major broadcast networks typically count more than 400 companies on their roster of advertising clients. But only about a third of those firms buy time on Spanish-language networks, including Univision.

Uva has spent nearly his entire career in the advertising business. Before joining OMD, he spent 17 years at Turner Broadcasting and was in charge of sales and marketing for such Turner properties as the TBS Superstation, TNT, Cartoon Network, Turner South and Turner Sports.

Uva will be based in New York, the hub for advertisers.

“Maybe he knows how to talk their language,” said Felix Gutierrez, a USC journalism professor who teaches a class on Latino media in the U.S. The professor added that because the acquisition would rely heavily on debt, the partners would be under pressure to quickly grow Univision’s revenue and profit.

“They are going to be looking for ways to increase their revenue or looking for ways to sell off some of the assets of the company,” Gutierrez said.

In addition to Saban Entertainment Group, the investor consortium is made up of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners. In June, the investors agreed to buy Univision for $36.25 a share, plus the assumption of $1.4 billion in debt.

The group also said Tuesday that it was calling itself Broadcasting Media Partners Inc. The group declined to comment beyond issuing a news release.

Although there had been speculation that Saban would become chairman of Univision, two people close to the group who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the media mogul would be involved in the company’s operations but would not have an official title. A third person familiar with the discussions said the partners wanted a Latino chairman, someone who speaks Spanish and has ties to the Latino community.

Federal regulatory approval for Univision’s sale could come any day now that it has agreed to pay a record $24-million fine to settle complaints against 24 of its TV stations. Under a consent decree supported by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin, Univision said it would pay the fine for airing children’s soap operas, or telenovelas, as part of its requirement to air three hours of educational programming a week.

Under the agreement, which appeared to be the only major hurdle to transferring the station licenses to new owners, Univision conceded no wrongdoing, but promised to establish an advisory board and a compliance officer to ensure it doesn’t violate educational programming requirements, people familiar with the agreement said.

The agreement still must be approved by a majority of the five-member FCC, which is expected given Martin’s support.

The Univision fine is more than double the largest ever handed out by the FCC. One expert said the company would have to be careful to avoid becoming a repeat offender.

“The consequence is worse the second time than it is the first time,” said Blair Levin, an analyst at brokerage Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Levin is a former FCC chief of staff. “I think you’d operate it as if there is greater risk.”

meg.james@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jim Puzzanghera contributed to this report.