Live from America

«This engaging work blends wisdom and drama, at times reading like a telenovela and others like a detective chronicle.» —June Carolyn Erlick, Harvard University In the 1970s and 80s, while ABC, NBC, and CBS were battling for every screen in America, a Mexican family, together with a shrewd American operator, was quietly building the foundations of a media empire. Facing television magnates like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, they achieved the unthinkable: to break into the ruthless competitive world of U.S. media. Later, forced out of the market by political and corporate interests, they formed an alliance as improbable as it was strategic, with none other than the former talent agent of Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando. This book unravels the personal intrigues, hidden tensions, power plays, and cultural twists behind the media empire now known as Univision, and reveals how its programming —including telenovelas, soccer, news, and music—defined an identity and won over an audience that grew at the same pace as the network. A fascinating tale of ambition, risk, and the dream of giving a voice to millions of Hispanics in the United States, Live from America tells the story of how Spanish-language television forever changed the country's media landscape.