Three jobs cut in 'incredibly painful' layoffs at Univision Chicago stations

Univision Chicago stations

Veteran sports director Hector Lozano and midday co-host/entertainment reporter Aureliano "Auri" Salgado were among three longtime staffers at Univision Chicago who lost their jobs this week in a companywide restructuring.

Both Lozano and Salgado were 26-year employees of the Spanish-language media company.

Lozano doubled as sports anchor at WGBO-Channel 66 and sports talk host and play-by-play announcer on sports/talk WRTO 1200-AM. Salgado co-hosted middays on regional Mexican WOJO 105.1-FM alongside Rafael Bautista.

Also cut was Michael Bania, an Emmy Award-winning broadcast design artist in the creative services department.

Univision Chicago

"It's incredibly painful," said Doug Levy, president and general manager of Univision Chicago. "These are people I've worked with for many, many years who have made a great contribution to our mission. This had nothing to do with anybody's performance."

An undisclosed number of layoffs hit Univision local stations across the country Monday. They closely followed the sale of parent company Univision Communications to an investor group led by private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners LP, Latin American broadcaster Grupo Televisa SAB and ForgeLight LLC. The deal closed December 29.

The job cuts also reflected significant revenue declines attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and the shift of consumers  from traditional broadcast media to other content delivery platforms.

"This week we announced some important changes to the company’s structure," a Univision representative said in a statement. "The changes reflect a reorganization of the way we work, and in some cases we are saying goodbye to some colleagues.

"These are difficult but necessary decisions for our company as we transform to position Univision for its next phase of growth. We remain dedicated to informing, entertaining and empowering the Hispanic community."

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