[6] The following year, KVEA's part-owner, Reliance Group Holdings, acquired the Telemundo brand when it purchased John Blair & Co., which also owned WSCV (channel 51) in Fort Lauderdale–Miami–West Palm Beach in addition to WKAQ-TV.

The network also began to produce its own original telenovelas, the first of which to premiere were Angélica, mi vida ("Angelica, My Life"), Marielena, Guadalupe, Señora Tentación ("Lady Temptation") and Tres Destinos ("Three Destinations").

Telemundo's effort faced an initial setback when Mexico's leading broadcaster, Televisa, purchased production company Capitalvision, which had been producing the telenovelas in conjunction with the network.

In an effort to boost its tepid ratings and quell complaints from advocacy organizations such as the National Hispanic Media Coalition that criticized both networks for not featuring content relatable to American Latinos, Telemundo outlined a new strategy to better compete against Univision by increasing production of domestically produced programs.

The new team struck a programming agreement with TV Azteca for the U.S. rights to the Mexican broadcaster's novelas and other programming, and restored a two-hour block of telenovelas originating from Mexico, Colombia and Brazil – later expanded to three hours with the shift of its late local and national newscasts to the traditional 11:00 (or 10:00) p.m. time slot in 2000 – as part of its Monday through Friday prime time slate which resulted in the cancellation of Angeles and Reyes el Rey.

[2] After the NBC Universal merger, Telemundo ceased importing telenovelas from Latin America and started producing its own dramas, either independently or through co-production arrangements with other production companies.

In 2005, McNamara retired as CEO of the network; he was replaced by Don Browne, who had previously served as president and general manager of NBC's Miami O&O (and WSCV sister station) WTVJ.

[34] Telemundo achieved ratings success during 2012, with the telenovela series Rosa Diamante ("Diamond Rose"; a remake of Enrique Torres' Perla Negra) and the Caracol TV-produced Pablo Escobar.

[35] During the 2000s, Univision also lost several key on-air personalities to Telemundo, including longtime weekend news anchor María Antonieta Collins (who left to host the morning program Cada Dia), Primer Impacto anchor María Celeste Arrarás (who became the host of a similarly formatted newsmagazine, Al Rojo Vivo) and sports announcers Andrés Cantor (known to many Americans for his exuberant announcement of "Goal!"

Other key on-air personalities that joined Telemundo from Univision or Televisa in the 2000s are Gabriela Spanic, Pedro Fernandez, Kate del Castillo, Aracely Arámbula, Raúl González, Blanca Soto, Laura Flores, Ana María Canseco, Cristina Saralegui.

Continuing the momentum in 2013 were telenovelas La Patrona ("The Return") and El Señor de los Cielos ("The Lord of the Skies"),[37] and the musical competition series La Voz Kids ("The Voice Kids"; a Spanish language adaptation of The Voice franchise featuring children as contestants), hosted by Daisy Fuentes and Jorge Bernal, featuring musical coaches Paulina Rubio, Prince Royce and Roberto Tapia.

[38] Telemundo also began improving its ratings during the 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) hour, following its transition from traditional novelas to the "Super Series" format, with El Señor de los Cielos posting some of the network's highest viewership for an entertainment program, when its second-season finale in 2014 drew 3.2 million total viewers.

A separate block of feature films (and occasionally, other entertainment programs) also airs overnights on Monday through Wednesdays from 3:30 to 5:00 a.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 3:00 to 5:00 a.m., and weekends from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time.

with Angelica and Raul"), a family-oriented series using the traditional Saturday evening variety program model that was created to fill part of the void opened up by the cancellation of Univision's Sabado Gigante.

Telemundo was the first Spanish-language network in the United States to incorporate English captions during its programming, beginning with the premieres of La Cenicienta ("Cinderella") and Amor Descarado ("Barefaced Love") on September 8, 2003;[45] this generated a small, loyal fan base among English-speaking viewers.

Some programs (notably the defunct long-running erotic anthology Decisiones ("Decisions"), which the network now airs only in reruns), include English captions only for certain episodes, depending on when they were produced.

On January 30, 2012, Univision began airing CC3 English captions on its evening programming (primarily with its weeknight telenovelas, along with select weekend prime time series).

It also produces the morning news and lifestyle program Un Nuevo Día ("A New Day"), the late afternoon newsmagazine series Al Rojo Vivo con Maria Celeste ("Red Hot Live with Maria Celeste") and the Sunday morning talk show Enfoque ("In Focus"); the network previously produced weekend editions of Al Rojo Vivo and Noticiero Telemundo until 2007, which were replaced with feature films and reality-based series; the latter returned to a daily broadcast with the restoration of Saturday and Sunday editions on September 4, 2014.

[50] When Salazar accepted a position as a reporter for Noticiero Univision in Miami, Chilean former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco joined Gestoso on the Telemundo newscast.

This program and its companion show En la Madrugada ("In Early Morning") were canceled due to the much heralded arrival of María Antonieta Collins from Univision.

Cada Dia was canceled in May 2008, after Collins announced that she would leave Telemundo when her contract expired in August of that year return to news anchoring and as a result of low ratings for the program;[51] it was replaced by a new morning show called ¡Levántate!

Telemundo maintains affiliations with low-power stations (broadcasting either in analog or digital) in a few markets, such as Orlando (WTMO-CD), Milwaukee (WYTU-LD), Tampa (WRMD-CD), Albuquerque (KTEL-CD and its repeater K46GY) and Minneapolis (KMBD-LD).

[86] Cataloged episodes of past telenovelas seen on the network are also available on DramaFever, a streaming service that had originally exclusively focused on television shows and movies imported from various Asian countries, through a distribution deal signed on December 13, 2013.

The service also offers special features like "Mi Lista," viewers can catalog their favorite shows for fast access and easily resume play to pick up right where they left off.

In the case of NBCUniversal-owned WSCV, a 480i standard definition feed of the station is carried on a digital sub-channel with ads targeted at the nearby West Palm Beach market.

Concurrently, Telemundo's owned-and-operated television stations in nine markets (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Juan) became the first to begin broadcasting the network's programming in HD; the remaining O&Os upgraded their digital signals to allow the transmission of high definition content over the next twelve months, while its affiliated stations gradually followed suit over a four-year period.

The network's scripted prime time telenovelas became the first regularly scheduled Telemundo shows to upgrade to the format, beginning with Mas Sabe El Diablo ("Falling Angel"), which premiered in September 2009.

[93] SAG-AFTRA continued to stand its ground, stating that "Telemundo's decision to censor 30 seconds of truthful commentary about its working conditions shows just how averse it is to having a transparent discussion about its refusal to fairly compensate Spanish-speaking performers.

L. Brent Bozell III, the president of Media Research Center responded by demanding Telemundo to apologize to Donald Trump and to fire the crew involved with the incident.

NBC Universal had considered launching a Mexican version of Telemundo as early as 2005, which led to a legal battle between it and TV Azteca over allegations that Azteca "engaged in the wrongful use of force" to shut down production of the Telemundo-produced reality singing competition series Quinceañera: Mamá Quiero Ser Artista ("Sweet 15: Mom, I Want to Be an Artist") in Mexico and a news story featured on an Azteca news program that accused then-NBC Universal parent General Electric and Grupo Casa Saba of fraud and corporate corruption with the intent to prevent the approval of a license application by Telemundo and Grupo Xtra to operate a television network in Mexico.