New Telemundo Headquarters In Miami Mixes Sound Stages With Offices
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises has cut the ribbon on its new global headquarters in Miami, a novel facility with few equals in the entertainment industry given how many business functions can occur under its sizable roof.
Telemundo Center, whose cost NBCU pegged at “more than $250 million,” was first announced in February 2016. It will host news, sports, entertainment and digital production, and up to 1,500 total employees. Original series will be produced on sound stages down the hall from the sets where news and sports are broadcast live. Executives overseeing it all will work a short elevator ride from the action.
Deadline got an early sneak peek in January at the then-unfinished 21-acre, 476,000-square-foot facility. One recurring feature throughout is flexibility. The atrium space near the entrance is large enough that the Miami Symphony Orchestra will play there during the official opening ceremony later this morning, which will also feature remarks by executives including Cesar Conde, Chairman, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and NBCUniversal International Group, and NBCU CEO Steve Burke. Across the entire campus, the open-plan design offers space for small group meetings, live shoots, meals, performances, conferences and purposes yet to be conceived. Fifteen separate studios, many of them soundproofed, can be configured in a multitude of ways depending on the size of casts and crews.
For comparison, consider the legacy Hollywood studio lots — the sound stages on many of them stretch across far more than Telemundo’s 21 acres. But that level of production capacity is not combined with national news and sports networks broadcasting live from adjacent sets. For Telemundo, the consolidated space comes as it is making strides against longtime rival Univision. Production of a wide range of shows — including Don Francisco te Invita, morning show Un Nuevo Dia and several other news and sports programs — will now be hosted in-house, compared with their previous setups at multiple sites.
The new HQ is opening about two months before the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to which Telemundo holds the exclusive Spanish-language rights for the first time. More than 500 hours of World Cup-related programming will be made available across Telemundo Network and its sister cable network Universo. Additionally, more than 1,000 hours of original content will also be available to stream across Telemundo Deportes’ digital platforms. Telemundo and Universo will broadcast all 64 games live, and all the matches will stream live via the Telemundo Deportes’ En Vivo app and TelemundoDeportes.com.
“Telemundo Center is the physical manifestation of our commitment to the Hispanic market and a representation of our core values of innovation, collaboration and transparency,” Conde said. “Latinos are a growing social, cultural and economic force influencing every aspect of our country. Telemundo Center is the only facility that can fuel the preferences and demands of this dynamic audience, while driving unlimited growth and opportunity for our company, our employees and our community for years to come.”
The facility will produce more than 3,000 hours of original content a year, including via two digital studios, virtual and augmented-reality sets, and a fully functioning news operation. The company says the building is meant to “inspire employee collaboration, mobility and flexibility.”
Along with production will be all of the offices, broadcast and production operations including the Telemundo Network, Telemundo Global Studios, Universo channel, Telemundo’s digital media operations and NBCUniversal International Group’s Latin American offices. The former Telemundo Network’s headquarters had been located in Hialeah, Fla., from where the network operated for the past 30 years.
The new headquarters is an eco-friendly structure built to sustain a Category 5 hurricane and fully remain in operation during weather and other environmental emergencies. Telemundo Center has already generated 3,400 construction jobs and $475 million in sales for Florida businesses, and over the next 20 years, the facility is expected to contribute at least $360 million in Florida taxes, execs say.
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