Talking TV Ratings, Immigration, and Salsa Sales With Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos

May 3, 2014
By Reid Cherlin

“Cada vez más numerosas y más intensas, las protestas en contra de las deportaciones de los Estados Unidos,” Jorge Ramos says to the camera in front of him: Protests against deportations from the United States are swelling in number and intensity. It is a few minutes after 6:30 p.m., which means that Ramos, the most widely watched Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, is beginning his nightly news program, viewed by an audience of more than 2 million. Tonight, as often happens, Noticiero Univision is leading with an immigration story, this time about protests in Illinois.

Ramos throws to his correspondent in Chicago, and the sound of civil disobedience plays softly over the PA system here in Univision’s Miami studios. Ramos looks down, below the anchor’s desk, to a hidden monitor showing his competition. “I have ABC, NBC, CBS, and Telemundo,” he says to me in flawless but heavily accented English. ABC, Ramos remarks, is leading with President Obama’s signing of two orders on equal pay, NBC with Ukraine, and CBS with Obamacare. “We’ll do much, much better in cities like Los Angeles and Houston,” he says. Partly, the focus on immigration is a ratings play—in places like those, along with New York and Miami, Univision often has the top local broadcast—but it is also personal for Ramos, who considers himself a hybrid of advocate and journalist. “The Latino community expects from us much more than just news,” he says, a monogrammed shirt cuff peeking out of his suit jacket. “They expect from us leadership. And they expect from us somehow to represent them”...

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