Univision’s ‘Ultima Hora’ set ratings record.

A broadcast devoted to the immigration controversy boosted Univision’s late night network news program, “Ultima Hora” (The Final Hour), to its highest rating ever in New York and to its first-ever time period win against all competition, regardless of language, seen from 11:30 pm to midnight in New York.

Both “Ultima Hora” and its lead-in, New York’s “Noticias Univision 41” (Univision 41 News seen from 11 pm to 11:30 pm on Gotham’s premier Spanish-language TV station, Univision 41 WXTV), devoted large amounts of time to immigration last night (Monday, April 24). U.S. immigration policy has been in the news as competing immigration bills have come before the U.S. Congress, President George W. Bush has advocated broad changes in policy, and many Hispanic-Americans have taken to the streets to advocate a more open immigration policy.

Based on the overnight Nielsen ratings, immigration is a hot topic among Spanish-speaking New York area TV viewers. A record high 253,000 New York TV viewers aged 18 to 49 tuned into “Ultima Hora” on Univision 41 WXTV last night, according to Nielsen Station Index (NSI) Local People Meter (LPM) ratings, pushing the program to first place in its time period among a key audience group in New York for the first time ever. That topped both the first half-hour of NBC-TV’s “Tonight” seen by 210,000 persons aged 18 to 49 on WNBC Channel 4 and ABC-TV’s “Nightline,” which was seen by 93,000 New York viewers aged 18 to 49 on WABC-TV Channel 7.

Among total viewers, 380,000 watched both the 11 pm “Noticias Univision 41” with anchors Rafael Pineda and Denisse Oller and Univision’s “Ultima Hora” last night. That represents increases of 22% over the 312,000 average total viewers who have watched both programs thus far during Nielsen’s April 2006 survey.