“Targeting Billennials”: Billenials, Linguistic Flexibility, and the New Language Politics of Univision

Abstract

Univision, historically the number one Spanish network, departed from its long tradition of safeguarding neutral Spanish to embrace not only English, but also Spanglish and Spanish-Caribbean accents in 2015. This article explores Univision’s new linguistic flexibility via two emblematic reality TV shows: Nuestra Belleza Latina (2007–) and La Banda (2015–). Through a textual analysis of these shows and industrial analysis of the strategies deployed by the network, the authors argue that Univision’s targeting of “billennials”—bicultural and bilingual millennials—prompted a linguistic flexibility that challenges the traditional lineup of neutral, Spanish-only, television, and is more inclusive of Latina/o audiences’ language use.