ABC News, Univision to launch news network

ABC News and Univision this morning announced a news venture that'll ultimately revolve around a cable news network, though both parties were a bit less forthcoming onthat aspect of the joint venture. It will be, however, an English-language network tailored for a bilingual audience, and initially will begin with a mobile platform alongside the usual social media components.

  Here are the twin statements: 

 It is indeed an exciting joint venture, and calls to mind ABC's effort to launch a cable news network well over a decade ago - an effort that hit that impereable brick wall of cable carriage. ABC and Univision were understandably vague on carriage matters - I have a call in to the network and will report back - but the difficulty to launch is no less difficult in 2012 than it was in the 1990s. (In fact, maybe tougher.) ABC does have the power of Disney behind it, but it's unclear whether recently hard-fought carriage deals allowed for the contingency of such a venture as this. 

  Of course ABC's thought all this out, so we'll see the network - probably - launching on a few systems and build from there.