The SVP and general manager of Telemundo Streaming Studios, assures that the production company expects to invest, co-produce and license more in the future, moving away from its current output of “almost 100%” of productions made for clients
The content is still king, but the IPs -their rights- are the queens, and for this reason Telemundo Streaming Studios, the Miami-based production company, is working on modifying its output towards more co-production or licensing projects, with greater investment, but also with greater control and potential profit over what is produced.
“Today almost 100% of the productions made are for our clients,” Juan Ponce, SVP and general manager of Telemundo Streaming Studios, told ttvnews, in a dialogue held during the third day of MipCancun 2022. “We believe that this balance will change in the next two years: we are going to do more co-productions and licensing, where we are going to invest. Next year this will be 80/20 and, eventually, we will go to a model closer to 50/50”.
The studio, launched as the first focused on serving Latino audiences that consume streaming, works under three pillars: scripted content, non-scripted content, and feature films. As “fiction enthusiasts”, as Ponce defines the team behind the production company, the miniseries have become top-of-the-line content for their clients. “We are making a slate of miniseries, in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina,” the executive commented. “And we are now with new teleseries, which Pablo Culell is leading, in a hybrid format between the traditional novel and the miniseries, which excites us a lot.”
At the same time, Telemundo Streaming Studios understands the reality of the global economy after the pandemic and, one of its strengths, is adapting to the possibilities of its partners. “One of the benefits of working with us is that we can adjust our formats to the infrastructure; we can do them in the millions or in the hundreds of thousands, depending on the format,” Ponce said.
In the US, the growth of the English-speaking Hispanic audience -second or third generations of Latinos born in the US- is part of the studio’s action plan: “We have a quite armed approach and vertical, and now we are producing shows, working a lot with our Universal Studios family for the general market,” Ponce explained. “We are looking for stories to be able to produce them at that level. That is, we are not going to make stories with Latin American budgets, but rather we are looking for those general-level budgets, with universal stories, that have Latino characters. It is an initiative that personally I’m very excited.”
Something similar is happening in Spain, a market that, Ponce explains, Telemundo Streaming Studios approaches with great respect due to the maturity of the local industry. “Spain is a very important region, with a lot of backing, and in this model we are making many co-productions; we are contributing from funding to creative support,” he said. “What is also different is that we do not go with stories from here translated into Spain. We do not believe in that. We believe in hyperlocal organic stories, we share with creatives from there to generate local stories, from Spain to Spain.”
