TTVNews celebrates its first 20 years, inviting friends and industry colleagues to share their personal experiences over the past two decades. Cecilia Gomez de la Torre, General Manager and Partner of Tondero Distribución, answers “Where were you 20 years ago?”

This 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of TTVNews, a big reason to celebrate for the group, which is consolidating itself as one of the go-to media platforms in the audiovisual industry in Latin America.

And to mark the occasion, we’ve invited friends and colleagues to share their experiences, challenges and lessons learned over the last 20 years in this industry.

This time, Cecilia Gomez de la Torre, General Manager and Partner of Tondero Distribución, answers, “Where were you 20 years ago?”

Where were you 20 years ago?

Twenty years ago, I was at Frecuencia Latina. I was the Programming Manager for fiction production, programming, and international acquisitions.

It was a very nice stage in my life. We did very interesting things. In that stage, we produced more than 40 telenovelas and series. We worked very closely with Miki Ivcher because her father had just returned. She went to International Sales, and I went to Programming and all the content part of the channel. We coincided in those fairs. We were all younger, and we still are, but it was the golden age of broadcast television.

What do you consider to be the future of the industry?

The opportunity for growth goes hand in hand with new technologies. More channels are opening, and the public is consuming different content. FAST channels, digital TV channels, and platforms are beginning to open up to other content and original productions. I think virtual topics are starting to have an exciting space.

I believe that there is no turning back, in what sense, as technology advances, it will be added to all this new stage of changes and modernity, of a younger consumer who has learned to live differently, to the public that was used to live it in another way with open television and cable.

This does not mean that broadcast television and cable are going to disappear. As someone from broadcast television, I consider this the most massive medium. I will probably remain so for a while because the purchasing power in our Latin American countries is still limited to obtaining certain platforms.

Besides, broadcast television still has something significant: the minute-to-minute, so everything goes hand in hand with live events, press, sports topics, or its products, such as soap operas. For example, América Televisión continues to produce in its prime time telenovelas that reach more than 20 points rating in prime time, which means that more than one million people, minute by minute, follow that telenovela every night.

The traditional media are also beginning to create more opportunities, and it is good that this is happening and all these media coexist.