Top-rated shows like the 25th anniversary of Premios Lo Nuestro helped propel Univision to a 4th place finish in February sweeos.
Univision has officially become a major player in American television with its fourth-place finish in the February ratings period. It finished the period ahead of NBC, which so far has suffered from dismal ratings this broadcast year (Sept. 2012 to May 2013).
According to Deadline.com, which covers the entertainment industry, “From the beginning of the February sweep on January 31 through February 19, NBC has averaged a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49. That’s below the 1.5 that Univision has been averaging so far over the 20 night of the sweep period.”
That success isn’t based on special events from Univision. It has consistently outpaced NBC every night. Deadline.com said, “In fact, Univision has bested NBC every single night of the sweep so far among adults 18-49 and is poised to overtake NBC for its first fourth-place sweep finish in the demo.”
What makes this a historic benchmark for Univision isn’t its supremacy over a traditional broadcast network. It bested CBS twice before in July 2010 and July 2012. Rather, it’s that the win comes during a ratings sweep month when all broadcast networks put forth their best programming. Univision, in effect, beat the best that NBC had to offer.
This high placement is also important because sweeps periods like this are used to set advertising rates. It also makes the Spanish language network that much more appealing to advertisers across a broad spectrum who can no longer treat Univision as a niche network.
