In the following interview with ttvnews during LA Screenings, Cristian Ciudad, Carola Silva, and Mauricio Huenteneao detailed Canal 13’s strategy to strengthen its content offering through reality shows, cultural formats, micro-dramas, and new digital experiences, while maintaining a close connection with Chilean audiences.
Produced by Luis Cabrera, from Los Angeles
Chile’s Canal 13 continues to pursue a strategy that combines mass entertainment, brand identity, and cultural content with strong local roots. From reality shows and game shows to documentary formats and new digital narratives, the Chilean network seeks to consolidate a diverse offering capable of connecting with increasingly fragmented and multiplatform audiences.
The strategy is also based on the expansion of its new production hub in Chile, the growth of vertical telenovelas, and the opportunities presented by new digital consumption habits. All of this is under a clear premise: maintaining the relevance of broadcast television while exploring new formats, platforms, and ways to connect with audiences.
At LA Screenings, ttvnews spoke with Cristian Ciudad, manager of free-to-air TV at Canal 13; Carola Silva, from the channel’s Culture department; and Mauricio Huenteneao, head of the International department, about the channel’s editorial evolution, the value of creating cultural content from an engaging and entertaining perspective, and the importance of continuing to innovate in a constantly changing industry.
How have you built the channel’s identity, and how is that reflected in your audience?
CC: As a channel, we’ve always maintained a clear identity and strived to be true to our mission: to accompany, to entertain, and to inform responsibly. That’s our story. We are Canal 13, and as a company, we’ve aligned our programming to convey that in some way, not only technically but also in spirit, in content—always innovating, always trying to surprise, always striving to be leaders. But not leaders in the sense of simply being number one, but rather leaders in the sense that people recognize you as an icon, as an important brand, as someone they choose.
And that sometimes transcends ratings, because ratings are cyclical and fluctuate; it has to do with the weight of the brand. We are a highly recognized brand. In many studies, year after year, we consistently rank at the top as a serious brand, a relatable brand, a very relevant channel. That’s what matters to us. We want to be relevant to people, to have them tune in, to know they’ll find something to enjoy, and to know it’s wholesome television.
That’s also how we strive to innovate. At one point, we were the first to put a reality show on the air, and today we’re bringing that back when no one else was doing it. We were the pioneers again in reviving reality shows, in being the leaders and transforming ourselves once more into the reality channel. This, along with more content, always exploring other avenues. We were the first to bring culture to the forefront, to make it accessible to people with relevant content, and today we have time slots filled with incredibly entertaining and surprising programming. We complement our reality show schedule with other content as well.
We’ve added innovative content like Socios, featuring people who are very relevant to our audience, but now they travel the world and tell their stories. We have a version of them in Chile, going to remote places in an entertaining way, also showing us around, and that has surprised and continues to captivate. I think we’ve also committed to maintaining game shows as one of our pillars, and we have ¿Qué dice Chile?, which has won many awards as a format and continues to captivate audiences every afternoon. It’s super clean content, very wholesome content that appeals to people, entertains them; children watch it, parents watch it, and it’s also in line with maintaining audience loyalty.
We’ve maintained our movie slot on free-to-air television. We’re the channel with the most time slots dedicated to showing great titles on weekends. And now we’re also adding a prime-time slot with movies and major events. We always maintain this.
We’re about to premiere a gem of a program in its second season called El Clan, which features a very important, very famous, very well-known family of athletes in Chile who live in a somewhat remote place called Cajón del Maipo, where their life revolves around adventure sports. They get around on the road, on motorcycles, they ski, they climb mountains, they build their houses.
CS: On May 30th, we premiere this second season of El Clan, now with the tagline “The Adventure Continues.” Why are we doing a second season? Because the first season was a real leap of faith, trusting that the protagonists are very endearing people, the main character and his family. We were truly amazed, because people really appreciated the program.
And what lessons have you learned for what might come next for Canal 13?
CS: I really appreciate that Canal 13 has innovated in this area. This wasn’t the first program; the first was Lugares que hablan, which is now in its fourteenth season. It’s hosted by Francisco Saavedra, who travels throughout Chile, showcasing hidden gems and uncovering the stories of people who weren’t well-known, but whom we now know. Ultimately, the lesson for us is that we Chileans, the country, and the viewers want to get to know Chile; this is a way to discover Chile. People are inspired, and in fact, many have subsequently visited the places we feature. Furthermore, our hosts, those who participate in these programs, present it in a very approachable and straightforward way.
That’s what we want, to make it seem less pretentious, but rather that culture is everywhere, and we bring it closer in different ways, with different types of programs. They’re not all travel shows, either; there are others focused on gastronomy, where we showcase typical patios across the country. There are others where we discover stories from our country’s past. The most important thing is that it’s presented in a very accessible, easy, and entertaining way—that’s what we want to do: make culture entertaining and accessible.
CC: I feel that culture doesn’t have to be unentertaining; they’re not two separate things. I feel that culture itself, and the way we’ve structured our content, has allowed us to tell an entertaining story, making it dynamic and relatable. We can have a movie on, we can have a game show, and audiences choose this program because the way we present it is very dynamic and entertaining.
CS: Starting May 30th, our programming includes El Clan, which is cultural; Lugares que hablan, which is also cultural; and then Siempre hay un chileno, which is also cultural. In other words, for the rest of the year, our Prime programming consists entirely of cultural programs, all of which are running for several seasons.
CC: The fact that we’re constantly renewing seasons allows us to place this type of content in other spaces, at other times, and also to have a very good audience. These are formats that, for us, are reruns that we put in the access prime time slot and that are number one in their time slot. They continue to be a hit, so having content that is constantly being renewed is part of our overall strategy.
What can you tell us about Vecinos al límite?
CC: Vecinos al límite is our current reality show; it’s the first format we’re producing at the new hub. It’s a program that developed its own format, and that format is also allowing us to fine-tune everything we’re going to do with establishing ourselves in Chile with our hub, and to develop future projects. We’ve been generating all the resources that we were producing from Peru; now we’ve brought them here and we’re reinstalling, adjusting, and calibrating. After a long history of producing reality shows in Chile for years, we now want to have our own hub. These were always spaces we rented, and now we’re building our own, and this is the starting point for everything that’s coming up. It’s a very large space that allows us to produce more formats simultaneously, and it represents a significant investment in technological development. We believe it’s a very important project for us as a channel.
What’s new in terms of micro-dramas?
MH: The team I lead made a commitment to promoting this in Chile, to be the first to do it, because Chile has a very strong telenovela culture. There’s a long-standing tradition of watching telenovelas at a specific time. But that tradition was lost, or in some way, monopolized by one particular channel, and other channels stopped producing their own shows.
With vertical series, the goal is to reach an audience that’s very difficult to win over—it’s very diverse and broad—in order to capture them with shorter stories that have a different pace. This also allows the audience to watch them for free, which is very important when launching them.
Canal 13 was the first channel to launch this format, and thanks to that, we now have competition, because other producers have also decided to launch their own vertical productions. We’re still eager to continue this format throughout the year; we already have the stories ready for this year—10 in total. We’re currently airing the fifth one, which has already been released. They’re also available on the Canal 13 Go app, which is also very important.
The team is working very hard to promote this format. There’s an interesting project we’d like to share more about, but there will be surprises in what we reveal on this vertical platform.
Is this the gateway to micro-drama for a new audience? How do you see this as part of the strategy?
MH: This opens a window so that in the future, not only dramatic series will be in this format, but probably other programs or even spin-offs of existing programs as well. The goal is to first diversify the content already seen on broadcast television, and then reach audiences who are glued to their devices 24/7, glued to them all day long, and who also need content that engages them in a different way than traditional TV. That’s a challenge. I think vertical series have opened this window, they’ve strengthened it, and we want to continue strengthening it. But at the same time, we’re going to add other types of content. The vertical series are on the same Instagram account, so people can access them there, but also through the Canal 13 Go app, which also features a lot of original, Latin American content, and of course, what’s happening on social media, which people can also watch there.
It’s been a very challenging project, a real gamble. Because obviously, the revenue a new project brings to a channel isn’t the same as a long-running project. And people need to be more informed; we have to educate them through their devices, and that involves advertising, sponsorships, and so on. But we’ve already completed the first phase of work thanks to the hard work of the team behind it, and the excellent vision of the team that proposed and made it possible.
Finally, what were your objectives for this event in Los Angeles?
CC: Something I really value about our channel is that it never loses sight of the fact that we’re a free-to-air television channel. And free-to-air television has to cater to diverse audiences. Audiences that are dynamic, audiences that change, audiences that are drifting away from television, others that are tuning in, others that don’t want to drift away and want to keep watching, others that want it to survive, others that want it to adapt. So, in that sense, the channel offers a content lineup that has to be quite dynamic and always subject to the changes in the industry. Investing in these kinds of global industry events, where you can buy films, adapt them, sell them, learn about them, see a script, hear feedback, and get involved, taking that idea to bring it to life on our channel and on screen, I think that’s challenging, and that’s why Canal 13 participates in these kinds of events.
And that’s why we have someone from the culture and entertainment sector, someone from programming, someone from contracts and content in international formats, who can give us a much broader perspective on what can happen here. I think it’s important not to downplay it, even though people often say that the television industry has changed, that it’s declining, that there’s less and less of it. I believe that the few of us who remain and persist in this are the ones who love it the most.
We have to always keep that in mind and embrace it, understand it, import it, adapt it, and keep making more television. I think that’s what’s important about these kinds of meetings.
And on the other hand, it’s also about always being open to new opportunities that can program innovative projects that allow us to surprise our audience. I think we’re always open to that. And also, it’s not just about building loyalty, but we have a responsibility to our audience. They expect things from us. They expect us to deliver excellence, whether in production levels or content. And events like LA Screenings allow you to be present, share, and interact with different players in this industry who are always pushing you to innovate, to surprise, to take risks, and to seize opportunities.
