YouTube + Univision = TuTube

YouTube said Monday that it reached an agreement with Univision, the most-watched Spanish language television network in the United States, to make a wide range of its programs available on the video sharing site.

YouTube described the deal, the latest in a series of agreements with owners of professionally-produced programming, as one of its most comprehensive agreements for TV content. The agreement is nonexclusive and includes short clips as well as full-length TV shows from Univision’s three networks, Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision.

YouTube has been on a quest to acquire rights to more professionally-produced content, which is more attractive to advertisers than clips uploaded by users.

The agreement, however, does not include content from Televisa, a Mexican media company that owns rights to some of the most popular telenovelas and serialized dramas that are broadcast on Univision. (Univision and Televisa recently settled a lawsuit in which the Mexican company accused Univision of breaching the companies’ revenue-sharing contract.)

Chris Maxcy, the head of content partnerships at YouTube, said the deal would appeal to one of YouTube’s fastest growing audiences, Latinos in the United States. YouTube already has content from some TV networks and producers in Latin America and Spain.

Kevin Conroy, president of Univision Interactive Media, said the network would upload to YouTube a combination of catalog content and new programming, including popular shows like Nuestra Belleza Latina, El Show de Cristina, Don Francsico Presenta and Escandalo TV.

YouTube and Univision refused to disclose financial details of the agreement. But YouTube said the two companies would share revenue generated through advertising.

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