Internet giant Yahoo, television giant NBC, and Spanish-language television network Telemundo has announced they’re combining their Internet properties aimed at the U.S. Hispanic market under the name Yahoo! Telemundo.
The new serice will integrate Yahoo online services with Telemundo’s Spanish-language content, and replace both Telemundo’s existing sites and Yahoo’s current Spanish-language offerings. Under the agreement, Yahoo and Telemundo will merge some of their staff and split advertising revnue, although neither organization is making a direct investment in the other.
“This partnership is a natural evolution of the larger strategy Telemundo and its Digital Media team have been developing during the last eight months, a strategy that is strongly anchored on providing relevant original programming to the U.S. Hispanic consumers through multiple platforms,” said Telemundo President Don Browne. “We looked for a partner with superior audience reach, a respected brand, excellent technology and a shared vision of where the business is going. Yahoo definitely represents all these.”
“This exciting and historic integration between these two powerful Internet entities will afford advertisers a more powerful platform and a competitive marketing edge to reach a gargantuan audience that has been relatively untapped,” said Keith Turner, NBC’s President of Sales and Marketing. “Equally important and transforming will be that it will ultimately benefit the Hispanic online consumer with an enhanced news and entertainment experience as delivered by Telemundo and Yahoo.”
Yahoo Telemundo plans to build new online experiences centered on Telemundo’s on-air programming by integrating user-generated content, onlien communities, and personalization (probably with whatever other Web Numero Dos buzzwords come to mind); perhaps more significantly, the service plans to offer English-language, bilingual, and Spanish-language editions of its offerings to better appeal to second- and third-generation U.S. Hispanic Internet users.
