When Warner Bros. Discovery-owned TNT Sports last November announced it had reached a seven-year media rights deal with NASCAR beginning in 2025, the company was preparing to telecast the final rounds of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament while producing its weekly Wednesday-night NHL doubleheaders  — not long after the division produced 14 Major League Baseball postseason games.

Many TV sports executives would find managing the above scenario daunting at
best. For Luis Silberwasser, chairman and CEO of TNT Sports, it’s par for the course. 

Silberwasser, the former Univision Television Networks Group and Telemundo president who took over TNT Sports — the overall Warner Bros. Discovery Sports business, including the U.S. piece known as Turner Sports under prior ownership — in 2022, oversees one of the deepest and most diverse portfolios of live premium sports content rights in television. The TNT Sports lineup includes games from three of the four major U.S. sports leagues, as well as the U.S. women’s and men’s national soccer teams and the NCAA men’s March Madness college basketball tournament, in a partnership with CBS Sports. 

Add five summer NASCAR races to the mix next year, and Silberwasser, who grew up in Colombia as an avid soccer player, has quickly established himself as one of the busiest executives in sports TV. 

“Luis has seamlessly stepped into his new role at WBD Sports and brought to bear his many years of experience in media and business,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “Additionally, he has embraced our longstanding partnership with enthusiasm and a forward-thinking vision for the future.” 

Under Silberwasser’s watch, the TNT Sports portfolio — which distributes most of its live sports content on WBD-owned linear cable networks TNT, TBS and truTV — increased viewership across its premium sports properties in 2023, amid what the programmer called an otherwise challenging television marketplace:

• TNT posted its most-watched NBA regular-season and postseason coverage in five years;

• Live NHL on TNT telecasts on Sundays delivered a 52% increase in average audience in 2022-23, compared to the prior season, and TNT Sports delivered the most-watched Stanley Cup playoffs coverage ever on cable; 

• TBS’s coverage of baseball’s National League Division Series and National League Championship Series averaged 4.6 million viewers, up 8% over its 2022 coverage of the American League playoffs.

• Men’s March Madness games on TBS, TNT and truTV were up by double digits in 2023 compared to the year prior, and TNT Sports and CBS sold out advertising opportunities for the tournament for the 12th straight year, according to WBD Sports.

“Since joining WBD, Luis has moved quickly and decisively to transform and grow our world-class sports business for the future,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said. “Simply put: He is a true All-Star.” 

Silberwasser also ushered TNT Sports into the streaming arena in October with the launch of the Bleacher Report Sports Add-On tier on Max. The free service, which will convert to a subscription-based offering later this year, offers simulcasts of TNT, truTV and TBS live sports events, and will offer exclusive content from NASCAR next summer. 

“Luis and his world-class team at TNT Sports have a proven track record of creating engaging content for each of their sports properties,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said. “Joining TNT’s portfolio of premium sports content is a huge win for NASCAR fans, and under Luis’s leadership, we know NASCAR broadcasts across TNT on linear television and the B/R Sports Add-On on Max will offer fans innovative and interactive viewing experiences.” 

Even with all of its acquired sports portfolio, Silberwasser remains bullish on TNT Sports’s homegrown sports properties, including The Match exhibition golf events. Since The Match launched in 2018, it has drawn high-profile participants from the world of sports celebrity, including Tiger Woods, Charles Barkley, Aaron Rodgers, Travis Kelce, Rory McIlroy, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. The ninth iteration of the series, which teed off February 26, will feature the first female participants in LPGA players Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang. 

“Luis Silberwasser is a smart and passionate executive and a terrific person who genuinely cares about the people with whom he works,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “He has assumed the leadership of WBD Sports and reorganized the company with remarkable speed. During that short time, we have developed a great relationship and he has been an excellent partner.”

In 2024, Silberwasser will lead TNT Sports through the NCAA Men’s Final Four and Championship Game, to air on TBS, and the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer team friendlies leading into the Paris Summer Olympics. (The 2026 FIFA World Cup TV rights in the U.S. are held by Fox and Telemundo.) Also on the horizon are negotiations to retain its NBA TV rights, which expire after the 2024-25 season. 

Zaslav believes Silberwasser is more than up to the task. “Luis is a fantastic leader and a uniquely thoughtful executive whose drive, passion and ability to build and lead strong  teams with heart I have long admired,” he said. 

Silberwasser, who is the B+C Multichannel News Sports Executive of the Year for 2024, discussed the TNT Sports strategy of offering premium sports programming to both hard-core and casual fans across multiple platforms. (Silberwasser was interviewed before WBD Sports, ESPN and Fox announced their joint sports app. For more on that development, see Lead-in, page 4.) He also looked at the future of the TV sports business in a lengthy interview, presented with edits for clarity and space.  

B+C: TNT Sports is coming off a year where all of its major sports franchises — Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL and men’s NCAA March Madness — posted year-to-year ratings gains. How were you able to accomplish that in an otherwise turbulent television landscape? 

Luis Silberwasser: In many ways, it’s our No. 1 priority. The strength of this group and division is that we are not playing the volume business. We don’t have a 24-hour sports channel. We don’t have to have 1,000 hours of sports. We really focus on a few very big things, including the sports you mentioned in baseball, basketball and hockey, as well as U.S. soccer. In many ways, it allows us the bandwidth to really focus on making those productions the best they can be. 

So when we talk about what the goals are for the division, No. 1 is that we want to serve the fan. By fan, I mean not only the real fan that knows everything about sports but also the casual fan. We believe that we can do a better job than anybody else with the casual fan to bring more diverse and younger people into the fold. So our production, marketing and digital teams are all focused on making our events bigger. That’s how, in a challenging linear environment, we were able to increase ratings. We were also able to increase our partnership with the leagues to make these events better and more exciting. While there’s no magic bullet, it’s really a philosophy of taking care of these events and doing the best job of storytelling.

B+C: You came from an entertainment background, so did you have any perceived expectations about how a sports-based organization should run, and did your first year at TNT Sports meet or exceed those expectations? 

LS: It has more than met my expectations. Even though my background wasn’t 100% exclusive to sports, as someone who had experienced managing networks, sports was a big part of my portfolio in other companies, so I knew the value of sports. In an environment like today which is more challenging, the value of live programming and live sports is immense. So coming in, my philosophy was to let them go and create and I’ll support them. 

At the end of the day, probably what I added to the table is the idea of empowering the team to move faster. A lot of the changes that we did as a division were to become more agile and lean and trust the people we have to make the right decisions and support innovation. We’ve done a lot of things over the last year that were different for the company, whether it was to make Bleacher Report and the linear TV group work more together, or to try some different marketing approaches to our content. I think part of our MO for the last year was to really embrace what we do and just have fun. 

B+C: In 2023, you added a seven-year NASCAR racing package to the TNT Sports portfolio, and before that the company picked up U.S. National Soccer Team rights. While not as broad as the NBA or Major League Baseball, how do those properties play within the TNT Sports brand? 

LS: Our strategy is to offer premium-tier sports. With U.S. soccer, even though the volume of matches compared to maybe some of the other leagues is not there, from a premium standpoint, having the U.S. men’s and women’s national team’s games is tier one, and it captures the imagination of the people in the United States as they get behind those teams. 

I think it’s the same thing with NASCAR. 

The audiences behind NASCAR are very passionate and very large. We used to have NASCAR and now it is a huge sport. We don’t have the volume of races that some of the other distributors have, but we wanted to become part of the NASCAR ecosystem and add our value from the production side, how we market the sport and the way we talk to our viewers. 

Also, NASCAR was a little different because it provided us with sports during a time of year in the summer that was light for us besides baseball. With the NASCAR deal, we were able also to get programming for TNT, which is where the five big races are going to be, but also for truTV, where we’re going to have a high volume of practices and qualifying races. We’re going to have something exclusive for Max, which we’ll let the market know later. 

B+C: Another big move for TNT Sports in 2023 was the launch of the Bleacher Report Sports add-on service on Max. How does the introduction of live sports programming to the streaming platform balance with linear distribution? 

LS: Being able to create a viable and significant digital strategy for us was a major objective. We need to have a really strong digital strategy for us to be able to reach consumers, but also for the partnership with the leagues. So the internal debate was, ‘OK, how do you do it?’ Max is a fantastic, entertainment-focused platform that has incredible penetration, about 50 million subscribers or more in the United States. So do we add sports in the same way that other people are doing it, where you basically splinter your rights and have some content on streaming and then some other content on linear, which in many ways is frustrating for the viewer because they don’t know which platform my favorite team is on? 

We decided to be more consumer-friendly and focused on providing it on both platforms. We adopted what we call a simulcast strategy — we didn’t want people to make a choice based on whether you had the game or not. It was more of a choice of a platform. If you were comfortable in a more portable environment with Max and being able to watch it on your phone, or on your iPad or on connected devices, that’s the right platform for you. But you get the same level of sports as somebody who is watching TNT or TBS or truTV as well. 

So we launched the Bleacher Report Sports add-on in October of last year, which is basically a section inside Max that has all the sports that we have. 

B+C: You mentioned that TNT Sports might develop an exclusive package of NASCAR content for Max. Could we eventually see more exclusive content for the streaming service outside of what’s airing on the linear channels? 

LS: It’s TBD. I think we’re all learning in this new environment and we want to follow the audience. It’s very important for us that we don’t stay behind. We’re really happy with our strategy right now because we don’t want to compromise a level of reach on one platform just to grow another platform, so that’s the right strategy for the rights that we have. In the future, we may have different rights or something that is more niche-oriented, which may become more exclusive to one platform because we know there may be a passionate audience that will follow that where reach may not be as important. 

So again, it’s TBD … I think it’s too early to say. 

B+C: Let’s expand this topic to the broader television universe. Clearly sports continues to be a main viewership driver for linear television, but now we’re seeing a large migration of live sports to streaming services. Do you see this trend continuing and if so how much does it hurt the linear television business? 

LS: I think streaming will continue to be a very big part of the landscape, and I think more and more people will feel even more comfortable watching it on the digital platform. There’s no doubt that streaming television and sports included will become a big part of it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have a reduction. I think you’ll have an environment where cable and the traditional bundle continue to be available, and at the same time, sports through other bundles or on different platforms will continue to be available. That’s why it’s so important that we keep committed to a healthy, traditional linear environment, but at the same time have our sports very present and available in a streaming environment where people can access the same amount of sports.

B+C: The TNT Sports NBA deal expires after the 2024-25 season. There’s been a lot of noise about other distributors bidding for the league’s television rights. How important is the NBA to TNT Sports and how aggressive will the company be in trying to secure those rights?

LS: The NBA is a premier, tier-one set of rights. It is an integral part of TNT. We have a more than 30-year history with the NBA. We love the NBA and we love what we do with them. We partner with them in producing the NBA TV channel and we partner with them on NBA.com and NBA League Pass. The NBA is a fantastic partner for us, so we’re very committed to being aggressive and retaining those rights. 

We recognize that there are other people who are interested in those rights — who wouldn’t be? — but we feel good about our proposition, what our assets are and what we can do with the NBA. All the decisions that we made last year to strengthen our production capabilities, to strengthen our talent capabilities, to hire new talent, to retain talent, were made with the objective to make ourselves invaluable for a league, and in this case, the NBA is the one that’s up for renewal. 

But I’ll say that for every league that we are partnered with, we want to be a preferred broadcaster. We may not have other things that other partners may have, but we have other things that others don’t have. And I think we’ve been very deliberate about what we do with Bleacher Report, what we do with [social media network] House of Highlights, what we do with our decisions in terms of personnel and talent and our investment in production, as well as our move to Max. When you look at all those things, it is in many ways strengthening ourselves to continue to be a preferred partner to the NBA. 

B+C: One of the things that has come out of your long relationship with the NBA is Inside the NBA, which has really transcended basketball and become more of a cultural phenomenon. How does content like Inside the NBA help TNT Sports position itself with its league partners? 

LS: It’s interesting. When I go back to when I was about to enter Warner Bros. Discovery and take this job, I’d watched basketball before, but I wasn’t an expert. I’m not saying that I’m an expert now, but I know more now than let’s say a year ago. [Laughs.] You don’t realize the impact that a show like Inside the NBA can have in the marketplace. People would tell me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t mess that up.’ [Laughs.] Then once I was inside and started working with the team and started getting the feel for how special that franchise is and how magical the production and the talent behind the franchise is with EJ [Ernie Johnson], Shaq [Shaquille O’Neal], Kenny [Smith] and Chuck [Charles Barkley]. We’ve had a lot of internal conversations about what the show is and it’s not just one thing — it’s a multitude of factors that create that show. 

You can see us now taking that show’s DNA and trying to apply it to other things we do, like the new [NHL on TNT pregame] show once we got the NHL franchise. I think that show today is a fantastic show and it’s on its way to becoming as important for the NHL as Inside the NBA is for the NBA. I also think that the DNA of talking to the casual fan as well as the super-informed sports fan is in every show we try to do. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don’t, but I think more times than not, we are distinctive in the marketplace because people say, ‘Hey, the way you do it, it’s different.’ 

B+C: TNT Sports also created The Match charity golf tournament exclusively for TNT. Will you continue to look to create exclusive sports events in the future? 

LS: Yes, it’s one of our objectives. We like the fact that The Match is our own event. We own it, we’re able to customize it and we’re able to try different things. It allows us to reach a different audience. We want to develop more of our own [intellectual property] because I think it’s important — not to replace what we have, but to add to the equation and to make sure that we’re tapping into sports we don’t have now or to bet on things for the future. So we really love The Match and we love it for what it does, but also for the fact that it’s our own thing. 

B+C: This year TNT Sports has the March Madness Final Four and championship game. How has your partnership with CBS for the tournament benefited both brands and built a sports franchise that dominates the sports calendar for a month in March and early April? 

LS: I’ve been a fan of March Madness for a while, but when you are inside the world of sports, you see the importance of March Madness on a national scale and how the whole country stops for three weeks to see who makes it to the Final Four. Every game is a do-or-die situation. It is such a special tournament that our team is extremely proud of and looks forward to it every year. 

I don’t want to be repetitive, but we do it the way we do it. We try to add our expertise, we try to make it special, we try to talk to the casual fan — all the things that I’ve said before. The one thing that makes it also very special is our partnership with CBS, which, at the end of the day, putting the business terms aside, we’re both focused on the fan. We’re all focused on that person enjoying the tournament from the MML [March Madness Live] app or through the linear channels, whether it’s CBS, truTV, TBS or TNT. We have that commitment to that fan, and we work seamlessly with CBS to make sure that the tournament is bigger and better every year. 

B+C: The March Madness tournament is also a huge draw for sports betting. What is TNT Sports’s philosophy and strategy towards sports betting content? 

LS: We are involved in many ways because we have a very strong partnership with FanDuel and with DraftKings. But I think the idea of becoming what they call a sports book is not something that we’re that keen on doing, at least not at this point in time. We do think that betting is an integral part of sports and the sports ecosystem. Bleacher Report, for example, has a very big betting vertical where we do a lot of things revolving around sports betting, so we embrace it. 

A lot of the things that we’re focused on is creating unique content in partnership with the betting companies to be able to give something to the consumer that is looking for something really, really targeted to his or her betting experience. If you watch Inside the NBA, Charles actively participates and gives out picks during the show, so we see it as part of the content that we need to provide. We did something interesting for the [NBA] in-season tournament where we had an alternate cast really focused on betting. So, you could watch the game on TNT and you could go to truTV and see the same game, but with commentators who were really looking at the game through the eyes of somebody who’s betting. We want to do more of those kinds of things, because it’s part of what today’s sports-watching experience is all about. 

B+C: Is there a sport that you would love to have in the TNT Sports portfolio? 

LS: It’s hard not to say that you would love to have the NFL and that you would love to have college football. Those are two big, big sports that capture the imagination of the viewer when they’re on. I personally love soccer as well — that’s where I grew up. We love our partnership with the [U.S. Soccer] Federation, but there may be some soccer tournaments out there that we at some point take a look at. 

TNT Sports’s new seven-year multimedia deal with NASCAR, reached in November, capped off a slam-dunk year for the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned division’s chairman and CEO, Luis Silberwasser. 

The NASCAR agreement added the popular stock-car racing circuit to an already impressive portfolio of domestic pro and college sports-media rights under Silberwasser’s tutelage that include the NHL, NBA, the NCAA March Madness men’s college basketball tournament and the United States Soccer Federation airing across several WBD-owned cable channels including TNT, TBS and truTV.

On the distribution front, Silberwasser in 2023 helped spearhead TNT Sports’s expansion into the live sports event streaming platform with the fall launch of the Bleacher Report Sports add-on tier through streaming service Max. 

Silberwasser also leads WBD’s sports priorities overseas, including TNT Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland as well as Eurosport, which controls European rights to the 2024 Olympic Games, English Premier League and UEFA Champions League soccer, combat sports including the UFC, boxing and WWE events and Premiership Rugby.

Under Silberwasser’s watch, TNT Sports continued to influence sports media with original sports event content in 2023 such as its long-running exclusive The Match golf tournament featuring both pro golfers and celebrities, as well as Emmy Award-winning studio stalwart Inside the NBA. 

In recognition of his stellar efforts in the television sports arena, Broadcasting+Cable Multichannel News has named Luis Silberwasser its 2024 Sports Executive of the Year. Read more about him in the upcoming February issue of B+C MCN available in late February.

Warner Bros. Discovery said it named Luis Silberwasser as chairman and CEO of its Sports division.

Silberwasser was most recently president of TelevisaUnivision’s U.S. Networks group and, earlier in his career, spent 16 years at Discovery Communications, where he helped build the company’s international business including live sports content.

Silberwasser will report to WBD CEO David Zaslav.

Also: David Zaslav Sets Warner Bros. Discovery Executive Team

Before Discovery acquired WarnerMedia, WarnerMedia’s sports business was run by Jeff Zucker, who also headed CNN. Zucker was forced to resign after failing to disclose a relationship with a longtime co-worker. Lenny Daniels, president of Turner Sports, and Patrick Crumb, president of regional sports networks, will report to Silberwasser. Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of WBD Sports Europe, will continue to report to Gerhard Zeiler, president of WBD International.

“I have known Luis for many years and have tremendous respect for how hard he works, how collaborative he approaches the job and his ability to build very successful global businesses and brands,” Zaslav said. “I am thrilled to be working with him again, and believe Luis’s strong international business relationships, leadership track record and passion for delivering the best content and consumer experience make him the ideal leader to oversee the continued growth and expansion of our world-class sports business.”

Between Turner Sports, Discovery’s Eurosports Networks and its BT Sports joint venture, WBD has rights to the NBA, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and NCAA basketball in the U.S. and rights to the Olympics, PGA Tour, ATP World Tour, cycling and soccer events in Europe. In Latin American countries, sports rights include European soccer governing body UEFA and several local soccer leagues. 

The company’s four sports streaming services include Eurosport Player, which offers localized sports to customers in 52 European markets.

“I am delighted to join Warner Bros. Discovery during an exciting and innovative time especially for its newly integrated global sports business and the great team at the company which boasts some of the most compelling on-air talent, world-class production values and the broadest media rights in the world,” said Silberwasser. ”I truly feel like I am returning home under David’s dynamic and forward-thinking leadership and look forward to working with the global sports organization, our sports-rights partners and the entire WBD company to deliver the most compelling and exciting sports programming to our fans and audiences worldwide.” ■

Wade Davis, Univision's new CEO, named his senior management team, bringing several well-known industry executives to the Spanish-language media company.

Also Read: Wade Davis and Searchlight Close Deal for Majority Univision Stake

Former ViacomCBS exec Pierluigi Gazzolo was named president and chief transformation officer at Univision; Luis Silberwasser, last with Telemundo, was named president of the Univision Television Networks Group; and former Turner ad sales head Donna Speciale was named president of advertising sales and marketing.

Amy Tenbring and Glenn Dryfoos were promoted to co-interim general counsel at Unvision; Jessica Rodriguez will continue as CMO and Friday Abernethy was promoted to executive VP of content distribution and partnerships.

Univision’s former chief legal and corporate affairs officer Jonathan Schwartz, president of distribution Henry Ahn, and president of ad sales and marketing Steve Mandala are leaving the company.

Read Also: Frontera Wines Joins Sponsors for Univision’s Latin Grammys

“Today begins a transformation for Univision. One that will see us accelerate our position as the leading U.S. Hispanic media company as we launch new products and services that will drive value for our U.S. Hispanic audience and for our advertising and distribution partners, who want to reach and engage with this critical audience,” said Davis, the former Viacom CFO, whose led the acquisition of Univision by ForgeLight and Searchlight.

“Achieving our objectives will require new ways of working together, diversity of perspectives and in some cases new talent and skillsets. We began the evolution of our team with the appointment of world class leaders to our board of directors to bring together skillsets and diversity that Univision has never had at the board level. Today we are announcing a new, industry leading executive leadership team that exemplifies the traits of innovation, collaboration, inclusivity and accountability that will be central to our transformation. Each of these leaders understand the need to optimize Univision’s core businesses to meet its audience where they are and evolve its content, platforms and products to reach the market in new ways,” Davis said.

NEW YORK — Spanish-language television is alive and well, Telemundo president Luis Silberwasser declared at the Hspanic Television Summit here Oct. 22.

“You can see the demand for Spanish-language television is pretty significant,” he told interviewer and Noticiero Telemundoco-anchor María Celeste Arrarás during a session at Park Central Hotel in Manhattan.

Silberwasser added, however, that the reduction in immigration from Spanish-speaking countries has had an effect.

“Clearly there is a shift going on,” he said. “But it has opened also the door, for the number of bilinguals are growing. So for us it’s an opportunity."

He attributed Telemundo’s recent ratings success to original content and innovation, which help them reach the evolving Hispanic audience, including millennials.

For example, the network has launched “Telemundo Súper Series,” shows that differ from traditional telenovelas in that they have fewer episodes, higher-end production and pumped-up action. Súper series El Señor de los Cielos recently launched its second season and, to help audience members catch up, the network released a comic book summarizing season one as well as a digital push preceding the premiere.

“When you try to do something different at a high-quality level, I think Telemundo tends to win," Silberwasser said, "and I think the audience is able to see a shift in the marketplace right now."

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

When charged with bringing a large media company closer in ratings and revenue to its main competitor, it certainly helps to have the resources to “get the job done.”

Perhaps the greater challenge is finding the executive who can steward such a firm in a calculated-yet-aggressive manner.

NBCUniversal's Telemundo Network might have found that executive in August of 2014, when it successfully lured away Discovery Networks International executive vice president and chief content officer Luis Silberwasser, naming the 11-year cable-programming veteran as its new president.

Silberwasser and his team are now looking to close the gap against archrival Univision Communications, the Hispanic market's top media company. And they’ve seen some success.

Viewership in weekday primetime among adults 18-49 is up to an average 757,000 viewers from 697,000. And Telemundo has ranked No. 1 at 10 p.m. weeknights, regardless of language, in the 18-49 demo, since the third season of its "Super Series" telenovela El Señor de los Cielos bowed on April 21.

With NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations president Valari Staab and Telemundo Station Group president Manuel Martinez "laser-focused on making the stations better," Silberwasser told Hispanic Television Update in an exclusive interview that his next task is building on the network's 10 p.m. success with bolder telenovela lead-ins, a fresh take on reality programming and Telemundo’s first stab at a Saturday-night variety show.

A DIFFERENT SONG AND DANCE

Celia — a drama series inspired by the life and career of the late Cuban entertainment icon Celia Cruz — can be a game-changer for both Telemundo and for primetime telenovelas, Silberwasser said.

"We really wanted to define our programming strategy by looking what is working for us at 10 p.m. and why," Silberwasser said. "We used those insights and brought that same strategy to the rest of our primetime lineup. It is a special moment for Hispanics in America, and we saw the need for something new and different to grow our network.

“Celia is a story, with music,” he added. “It’s happy. It’s sad. It has all of the elements of drama and song that has worked [with English-language primetime dramas]. We saw it with Glee and with Empire, and introducing this new format to Hispanic television in the 8 p.m. hour is exciting. Our expectations are high.”

A period piece, Celia is produced by Fox Telecolombia and was filmed in Puerto Rico, starting in February. Jeimy Osorio (Una Maid in Manhattan, Porque el amor manda) and Modesto Lacén (Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights) portray Celia Cruz and her husband and manager, Pedro Knight, during their younger years. The series continues with the introduction of 2014 Latin Grammy nominee Aymeé Nuviola and newcomer Willy Denton, who play the couple in their later years.

Can a show about one of Miami's most beloved Latin superstars attract an audience west of the Mississippi? Silberwasser believes so.

"Our audience will be the ultimate judge, but we think it is going to appeal to a broad audience," he said. "Celia is really an icon across Latin America, and the show resonated with Hispanics across all of our test markets. I think Celia really represents Hispanic America."

At 9 p.m., Silberwasser has put his faith in Bajo el mismo cielo, a telenovela that — for the first time, he said — depicts the U.S. Hispanic migrant experience. "The story line is much more real than the typical fantasy-world production," he said.

A loose adaptation of the 2011 film A Better Life, the story centers around undocumented Los Angeles resident Carlos Martinez, portrayed by Gabriel Porras (El Alma Herida, La Reina del Sur).

The premiere of Bajo el mismo cielo generated Telemundo’s highest ratings for a telenovela premiere in three years.

"As we continue to look at our strategy, we ask ourselves if we can continue to innovate, and what else we can find that is very different from the competition," Silberwasser says.

The result: Adding the first-ever U.S. Hispanic adaptation of Endemol's Big Brother, Gran Hermano, to the lineup and bringing its own variety show, ¡Que Noche!, to Saturday nights.

"This is our next big bet for Saturday night," Silberwasser said. Asked about the timing of the show's debut, after the Sept. 19 finale of the Don Francisco-helmed Sábado Gigante on rival Univision, he said: "We wanted to capture the Sábado Gigante concept but with a much-younger audience, and talent that resonates with this audience.” Telenovela actress Angélica Vale and Raúl González — a host of Univision morning program Despierta América from 2001-2014  are the combo that Silberwasser believes "will bring Saturday night back to life" for Latino TV viewers.

AWARENESS AND AWARDS

In addition to its programming plans, Telemundo is hedging its bets on Pope Francis’s visit this month to the U.S. and Latin America, devoting significant news and programming resources to the trip.

Over Sunday nights during the next three months, Telemundo will air faith-themed programming tied to the pope’s trip, including the miniseries A.D. and a four-part, four-hour miniseries on Pope Francis’s life. 

Meanwhile, the network has integrated the struggle of Type 2 Diabetes — a common ailment for U.S. Hispanics — into the storyline of Bajo el mismo cielo through a newly forged partnership with pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim.

Storyline integrations follow character Andrés Cabrera as he manages the disease. The integrations are supported by a custom vignette airing in conjunction with the storyline and featuring actor Juan Cepero, in character as Cabrera, encouraging viewers to visit www.cuidatudon.com for more information about Type 2 Diabetes.

Telemundo is also featuring Boehringer Ingelheim-sponsored custom Q&A-style segments on its weekday morning show, Un Nuevo Día.

Lastly, Telemundo believes it can stage its own Latin music awards program by launching its Latin American Music Awards. Televised live from Hollywood on Oct. 8, the LAMAs are a Hispanic take on the American Music Awards, created by Dick Clark in 1974. Dick Clark Productions has yet to announce the show's host or musical performers.

YOUTH MOVEMENT ‘EN ESPAÑOL’

As Telemundo makes an aggressive, schedule-wide push for 18-to-34 Hispanic viewers, Silberwasser said he isn’t worried about the industry pundits who posit that younger Latinos don't consume Spanish-language television and live in a largely English-speaking world.

“We believe that we can bring 18-34s who want to see great programming on our network,” Silberwasser said. “Great programming can be in Spanish. Remember, this audience is bilingual. They are watching a series in Spanish, and commenting on Twitter in English.

“If we can properly speak to this audience with great programming, there will be no further gap to bridge,” he added.

Telemundo has salivated at the opportunity to topple its chief rival, Univision, in the ratings for many years.

Twists and turns in programming rights, and programming strategies, across the networks have left Telemundo firmly in the No. 2 position. But things are changing at lightning speed at the NBCUniversal-owned Spanish-language broadcast network.

It has invested heavily in local and national news in an era where manila folders filled with COBRA information are more common than offer letters. At the same time, Telemundo has hit its stride with so-called “super series” that shed the traditional start-to-finish telenovela story arc by introducing a second, or even third, season — something not seen since the days of Dallas, Dynasty and Falcon Crest.

Perhaps most importantly, Telemundo and its sister properties are now the U.S. rights holders of FIFA World Cup coverage in Spanish. Telemundo also happens to be the Spanish-language home of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — part of a $1.2 billion investment by NBCUniversal in securing the rights to what potentially could be a ratings and revenue windfall for parent Comcast.

It therefore stands to reason that Luis Silberwasser may be the luckiest television executive in North America. Or he may be the most challenged, given the heavy expectations presented to him and his team. Just six months into his role as Telemundo Network president, it is evident that Silberwasser is ready for battle and is leading the attack on Telemundo’s top rival, Univision.

“I am super excited about the possibilities,” Silberwasser said. “I’m super excited about being here at Telemundo. It is a very different company than Discovery, and we have very different programming genres. Here, at Telemundo, we are running a big broadcast network that has general entertainment, from prime-time programming based on scripted series to our sports offerings. The combination of those genres makes this job a challenge … and it makes this job exciting. Telemundo is a challenger, and we have a tremendous opportunity to challenge.”

BEAUTIFUL TRANSITION

Silberwasser’s lone connection to Telemundo 20 years ago — or to Hispanic television, for that matter — would likely have been a 60-second commercial for Secret or Oil of Olay. From 1991 to 1997, he was a brand manager at Procter & Gamble Co., overseeing the two beauty brands.

His entry into Hispanic television came in late 2003, when he joined Discovery Communications as its senior vice president of strategic planning in the international division. Now, armed with a Harvard MBA and a Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech, he has “gone against the stream” by strengthening Telemundo’s news operations.

“I want to give credit to where credit is due,” Silberwasser said, “and [NBCUniversal CEO] Steve Burke and [NBCUniversal chairman of Hispanic enterprises and content] Joe Uva felt as I did that, given the importance of Telemundo as a voice for the Hispanic viewer, we needed a much stronger effort to connect to the community and to connect to the Hispanic marketplace.

“We are investing in dual anchors, and [the opportunity to provide] breaking news,” he added. “We are investing in our weather coverage. The network has completely supported this, and we’ve even changed our network programming schedule so we can have a local newscast at 5:30 p.m.”

Silberwasser said he is also pleased with the ratings growth at Telemundo’s weekday morning show, Un Nuevo Día, following a six-year period that saw a name change from ¡Levántate!, a shift in production from Telemundo Puerto Rico to Miami-based studios, and the addition of longtime telenovela actress Adamari López and veteran newscaster Ana Maria Canseco — one of the original hosts of Univision’s Despierta América morning show.

“We have a ways to go, but I think we have a tremendous opportunity,” Silberwasser said. “Un Nuevo Día is a still a news and entertainment morning show, but we are providing much more information than ever before. We have segments with financial advice, with medical advice — segments that are more consistent on the schedule.”

In fact, Silberwasser said he believes Un Nuevo Día is “more of a utility vehicle” of a morning show while remaining fun. “The ‘other’ show is really about entertainment and frivolous things, while we are providing a little more info … and it’s paying off,” he said.

Additionally, Silberwasser is quick to point out that José Diaz-Balart, anchor of the 6:30pm weeknight news show Noticiero Telemundo, is now on MSNBC, making him the first news anchor in history to appear on an English-language and Spanish-language newscast at the same time. Veteran Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos appears on a newsmagazine on the Fusion cable channel, while former WSVN-Channel 7 in Miami and CNN news anchor Rick Sanchez now helms a Spanish-language newsmagazine for Miami-based Mira TV while simultaneously hosting a daily talk-radio show for iHeartMedia’s WIOD in Miami.

PRIMED FOR GROWTH

Silberwasser said Telemundo has  much room for ratings growth in prime-time — at least before 10 p.m. He’s particularly proud of his network’s performance in the 10 p.m. hour, where the Telemundo-produced telenovela Señora Acero debuted in late September and wrapped up its run on January 12. Señora Acero was the No. 5 prime-time series in Spanish-language television, averaging a 9.5 rating across its final Monday-Friday broadcasts and attracting more than 2.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen viewer estimates for Spanish-language television households for the week ended Jan. 11, 2014.

“Señora Acero [beat] the competition on a consistent basis for the past three months,” Silberwasser said. “In launching of each ‘super series,’ we are seeing numbers we’ve not seen since the first Kate del Castillo telenovela, La Reina del Sur.”

La Reina del Sur, a 2011 blockbuster telenovela, set the stage for the “super series” concept of multiple-season story arcs for Telemundo. The star power of del Castillo was key to the series’ success, and Telemundo has once again called on her to continue its ratings riches at 10 p.m. The new Telemundo Studios soap Dueños del Paraíso, in which del Castillo stars, is now airing in Señora Acero’s old time slot.

“We are creating telenovelas with the idea that [the shows] can come back,” Silberwasser said. “Usually in this marketplace they come and they go, and perhaps seven years later they’ll come back as a remake. Now we have a Season Two, or a Season Three, of a show. We’re giving the viewer something different, and you’ll notice that the tone of our 10 p.m. telenovela is different than what has been seen at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.”

Indeed, Telemundo broke new ground on telenovela plots by airing the Caracol TV-produced Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal, based on the true-life occurrences of Colombia’s most notorious drug lord, from July 2012 through early January 2013.

SOARING WITH SPORTS

Although the next FIFA World Cup is three years away, Silberwasser said Telemundo and basic-cable sibling NBC Universo (née mun2) are already employing a portfolio strategy that involves getting viewers interested in the athletes set to make a statement in 2018.

“We will be the Spanish-language broadcast home of the under-17 games, and a lot of those players will be stars of the 2018 World Cup,” Silberwasser noted. “We want to follow them, and take those tournaments ahead of the big tournament seriously, instead of just focusing on the main event.”

Player profiles will help in establishing familiarity with these potential future stars.

The use of social TV, where live tweets and social media updates corresponding to a Telemundo program help generate conversation among viewers, will also likely help build early interest in FIFA programs. Social TV is already generating buzz at Telemundo for the level of activity associated with some of its telenovelas.

“One of the fascinating things I found here was the symbiotic relationship between our social side and our programming side, and how the one side supports the other,” Silberwasser said. “It’s the conversation that happens, and the viewer engagement, that are truly amazing. For the final episodes of Señora Acero, I was watching it on screen and following the Twitter feed at the same time, and people were really into it.

“With the plot line, everyone thought that the lead male character was going to incriminate the lead actress on the show, and they were upset,” Silberwasser said of Señora Acero. “But in the end he didn’t, and everyone reacted by putting hearts all over the Twitter feed. Our viewers are commenting while things are happening, and they are very much engaged with the story. That is something that I hadn’t seen before. Social TV is something we are all learning how to do better. Hispanics are a young audience, and we have to think of a multiscreen environment when thinking about this audience.”

Understanding the audience and all of its Telemundo touchpoints is one component of a network vision that Silberwasser has done much to fulfill in the short time he’s been at the network.

“We have a vision to be the best of what Hispanic America is all about,” he said. “This market deserves something different: unique original content for the people that live here. My goal is to ride the curve of the growing U.S. Hispanic population. While this marketplace still has a foot in Latin America, it is a market that lives here and is growing in economic and political clout. I think we are positioned to be the best place for this audience.”

NBCUniversal’s management shuffle under Hispanic Enterprises and Content chairman Joe Uva continued with the hiring of Luis Silberwasser as president of Telemundo Network, starting in August.

Silberwasser is joining NBCU from Discovery, where he was chief content officer for Discovery Networks International, based in London. He will report to Uva and have overall responsibility for the Telemundo Spanish-language broadcast network, including Telemundo Studios.

“Luis is a world-class operating executive with exceptional management, content and leadership experience,” Uva said in a release. “His deep understanding of the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets, coupled with his strong track record in successfully building global brands and developing and producing high quality content make him the ideal leader to fulfill the growth potential of Telemundo Network.”

Discovery's international business has been growing, and Silberwasser was in charge of overall content strategy for the international channels and DNI's production and development unit that creates original content in more than 220 countries. While there, he oversaw the international rollout of TLC.

Earlier this week, NBCU said Jackie Hernandez, who had been chief operating officer at Telemundo, was joining the Hispanic Enterprises and Content group as chief marketing officer. And Ruben Mendiola, Comcast’s top buyer of multicultural content, was named president of mun2, the sister “digital” network to Telemundo.

The Telemundo president’s job has been vacant since the October 2013 departure of Emilio Romano after two years. Romano had succeeded longtime Telemundo president Don Browne.

Telemundo’s upfront presentation will take place tonight at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City.