The largest group of buyers at the recent L.A. Screenings wasn't from Europe or Asia. It was the contingent from the two dozen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that have emerged as a growth market for Hollywood series and movies thanks to robust economies in key territories, especially Brazil, and distribution technology that has created new paths to reach consumers from Mexico to Argentina.
"Latin America has risen in importance recently because there are so many windows you can sell simultaneously," said Gary Marenzi, president, worldwide television at MGM. "The pay television business is booming, and we have seen our partners down there grow in subscribers and build new channels and new businesses. Basic cable and broadcast are as strong as ever and the S-VOD business is starting to grow."
Unlike other parts of the world, Hollywood's most important customers are not the big local television stations. "The fact is that for most terrestrial television networks in Latin America, our programming is not the must-have and the foundation," said Jeffrey Schlesinger, president of Warner Bros. International Television. "It's much more telenovela-centric kind of broadcasting."
The telenovelas, soap opera-style serial dramas, are made in Latin America, especially in Mexico. Instead, the most voracious customers of American shows and movies are the cable and satellite services, which produce little of their own content.
"Technology has created opportunities in digital media in Latin America," said Peter Iacono, managing director of international at Lionsgate. "The way people consume media is so different than it was a few years back."
It is not just the Americans who have benefited either. "It's any quality content that will perform for them," said Sheila Aguirre, senior vp sales and development, Latin America and Hispanic U.S. at FremantleMedia Enterprises. "We have American series, but we also have British and Australian series. Quite frankly, if you dub them, they all look alike."
Aguirre said Latin America has also grown as a customer because the region was not as hard hit by the 2008-09 recession as Europe, Asia and the U.S. "Latin America was not as affected by the global crisis as many of the other countries," added Aguirre. "They've become more resourceful."
What that means is that they have been through economic, political and social turmoil for years, but at present are, with some exceptions like Venezuela, more economically and politically stable than in past years.
"Certainly the economic environment is much better than it was the last few years," said Armando Nunez, president of CBS Studios International. "The demand for our content remains robust. We were lucky even during the darkest hours of the global financial crisis the demand for American content remained strong."
Thank you Hollywood Reporte
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --> Translate post:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment