Univision wants Televisa to keep its telenovelas off the Web

Although viewers are increasingly turning to the Internet to watch popular TV programs, fans of the blockbuster Spanish-language soap operas are out of luck if they want to see the shows legally on the Web. That could soon change. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Los Angeles is scheduled to hear evidence to decide whether Mexico's largest media company, Grupo Televisa, has the right to offer its enormously popular telenovelas to US audiences via the Internet. The trial is the latest legal skirmish between Televisa and Univision Communications, which owns the dominant Spanish-language television networks in the US. The two companies have been feuding for years over the rights to Televisa's telenovelas, which depict stories of love, betrayal and power -- and fuel Univision's smash prime-time TV ratings.