TeleFutura

TeleFutura

Type	Spanish Broadcast Television Network
Country	United States Headquarters: Miami, Florida
Availability	National
Founded	2002
Area	United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico
Owner	Univision Communications, Inc.Grupo Televisa
Launch date	January 14, 2002
Former names	None
Official website	www.telefutura.com

Sister channel(s)	Univision Galavision
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV	408 Telefutura West (SD/HD)
Dish Network	271, 830 (East) 272, 831 (West)
IPTV
AT&T U-verse	3005

TeleFutura is a U.S. Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by Univision with headquarters in Miami, Florida.

Overview

TeleFutura Is America’s #2 Spanish-Language Network in prime time. The network started on January 14, 2002, a month behind Telemundo's launch of its cable TV network, the bilingual mun2, with programs such as the 3 hour gossip/Entertainment show Escándalo TV (formerly "Escándalo en el Medio Dia", but later changed due to a similarly named program airing in Mexico by Televisa S.A.) which was designed to compete with similar offerings like Cotorreando from NBC Universal's Telemundo. Commercials for TeleFutura often air on the Univision network. Most of the stations that carry TeleFutura once aired the Home Shopping Network. Univision bought the stations from Barry Diller's USA Broadcasting late in 2001.

TeleFutura's programming consists of telenovelas from Coral Productions, Televisa, Venevision, RCTV, RCN and Rede Globo as well as movies often consisting of recent American releases dubbed into Spanish. Movie titles are announced before the start of the broadcast, using the "CinePlex" (daytime movie, usually weekends), "CineEscape" (late night movie), "Cine Especial" (movie specials), or "Cine de las Estrellas" (prime-time movie) branding. The network also airs the reality courtroom show Veredicto Final, Fútbol de la Liga Mexicana broadcasts, and sports news (including Contacto Deportivo).

In late 2005, TeleFutura started airing En Vivo y Directo, a 7 pm newscast, opposite the taped 4 pm news on Galavisión). But the network eventually cancelled "En Vivo y Directo" due to low ratings after only a few weeks and have replaced the newscast with movies.

The network also offers a children programming block called Toonturama to fulfill the E/I requirements. Curiously, this block is shown both on Saturdays and Sundays, and includes mostly American and European series dubbed into Spanish, such as Flight Squad and Problem Child. An exception is Toad Patrol, which it needs to dub into English to fix the speech. In the past, anime such as Lost Universe, Tenchi Universe, and Red Baron were shown in the block as well.

TeleFutura is also a part of the Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, as Univisión owns exclusive US Spanish-language rights. For 2006 it carried eight live games, all in the last days of group play when games are played simultaneously, like ESPN2 did with ESPN for English-language coverage. It also had game replays and recap shows. In addition, and in conjunction, TeleFutura also airs an exclusive Major League Soccer game of the week on Sunday afternoon/evening.

In late June 2006, Univisión was sold to an investment group including entertainment industry veteran Haim Saban for $13 billion. There are reports on media message boards that TeleFutura is being phased out and several key on air talents are being shifted to Univisión and Galavisión channels. However these rumors have not been verified, nor will the shutdown of TeleFutura happen anytime soon: According to Nielsen Media Research, in February 2007 TeleFutura made significant gains in viewership at the expense of Telemundo, actually taking over second place among Spanish-language networks in the Adults 18-34, Men 18-34 and Men 18-49 demographics.

On January 2009 TeleFutura launched the daily Gossip Show "La Tijera" with Charitin Goyco, Liliana Rodriguez, Paul Bouche, Carolina Sandoval and Augusto Valverde. The cast was gradually modified and incorporated Tanya Charry , Raul Garcia, Anabelle Blum, and Rodolfo Jimenez, who all joined "La Venenosa" Sandoval on the show. The show was cancelled in October 2011.

On February 26, 2010 TeleFutura, one of the largest Spanish-language networks in the U.S. and the ideal entertainment alternative for Hispanics across the nation, announced today that once again it secured the #2 Spanish-language network position with last night’s special broadcast of “Buscando La Doble de Selena: La Gran Final” (Search for Selena’s Double) attracting an impressive 1.9 million Total Viewers 2+, 1.0 million Adults 18-49, over half a million Adults 18-34 and 620,000 Persons 12-34, making it the highest-ranked entertainment special in the history of the network On October 10, 2011, TeleFutura will premiere a new daily Gossip Show Tómbola.

TeleFutura HD

In 2010, TeleFutura along with sister network Univisión began airing programming in 1080i high definition with a 16:9 aspect ratio. They were the last major over-the-air networks in the United States to have made the switch. DirecTV added the West Coast feed of the network in HD nationally on April 28, 2010. Dish Network later added the West Coast feed on May 12, 2010. Escándalo TV is broadcasting in HD.

Programming

Main article: List of programs broadcast by Telefutura

See also

• List of Telefutura affiliates

External links

• TeleFutura (Spanish)