Working at a media company, specializing in television, radio, and digital, the departments that make up the company are numerous, such as sales/marketing, creative services, production, human resources, reporting, talent, and more. Therefore, my role lies within the sales/marketing department, specifically in the research department. As a Research Intern, my day-to-day at Univision varies depending on the weekday.  For example, Tuesdays start with the weekly sales/marketing meeting, beginning with the Account Executives recapping their past week’s successes, followed by an update from managers on inventory, pricing, and other updates affecting the market.  Next, the Director of Creative Services discusses changes in programming as well as recent home-produced promotions and advertisements for clients.  The meeting then finishes with an update from research, which consists of ratings updates for both TV and radio, as well as updates on new category research.  Although the Local Research Director presents this information in the weekly meeting, I still work with all the ratings programs and understand and replicate the same type of ratings reports for category presentations and specific client presentations, even more of a customized ratings pull than a simple station pull.

The conversation of ratings takes up much of our time in the Research Department, and for good reason.  As a media company, our profits, which are generated from advertisement sales, whose spot rates are determined by impressions (amount of people watching/listening on radio), therefore depend on the quality of our programming. Therefore, by pulling ratings reports by program, we are able to analyze ratings trends amongst various programs and use that to determine which programming is worth the investment, and which needs to be cancelled.  The priority concern lies on sports, news, and debuting series and novelas, as the first two are linear media’s competitive advantage in a crowded media marketplace.  Given that I work for the Local Research Department in Chicago, we only concern ourselves with how local programming is doing in the Chicago market, where as network research would handle ratings reports for network programming.  That said, Univision is an international media outlet with stations and affiliates in over 50 markets in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

Apart from ratings reports, I have also been added to the social media committee as the company looks to redesign its social media strategy for both its talents’ pages as well as its own.  I have contributed insight into how we can improve our appeal on Instagram via different posting methods, both for publications and stories.  Additionally, I help fulfill weekly internal requests from managers looking for category information or competitive spending reports. Lastly, we also get requests from the Account Executives looking for client specific reports on their industry and even more specific than that.  For example, with automotive advertising representing one third of our advertising revenue, we place a special focus on our research capabilities for the automotive industry, investing in POLK data which allows us to see how any specific dealer compares to those others in the DMA, in its PMA, or really in any type of geographical radius we desire.

To offer a personal reflection on time at Univision, I will start by acknowledging I wouldn’t be where I am today without the faith the company put in me back in 2017.  Since then, I have developed as a professional adult, with advanced skills in market research that have helped me secure a post-graduation job with Ipsos. Without the knowledge, professionalism, and confidence my experience at Univision has instilled in me, I would not be accomplishing such goals immediately following my graduation from DePaul.  For that, as well as being able to work in a vibrant culture with amazing people, I thank Univision for the opportunity to grow and develop myself while still in college.