Gustavo A. Cisneros on Buying Univision

By 1992, I wanted to be in the U.S. market on a big scale. I thought the telenovelas and programming we'd developed in Venezuela could do very well in the U.S., but no one believed me. People thought Hispanics in the U.S. were different and that you had to make TV productions there to capture the experience. Not only was that an expensive proposition, but I didn't think it was true.

Then Univision came up for sale, which was exciting and risky. I had a deep friendship with Mexican entrepreneur Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, who had failed in the U.S. market and was itching to get back. Neither of us had enough programming to fill a network, so we decided to join forces. But to satisfy the FCC, we needed an American partner. I introduced Emilio to Jerry Perenchio, who owned a Spanish channel in New York. Unfortunately, they just didn't get along. I had to convince Emilio to like Jerry and Jerry to like Emilio. Jerry wanted to work with only me, but I told him it had to be a trio.