In the following interview with ttvnews, Andres Mendoza, Head of Content Acquisition, Programming for Premium & Streaming Latam at Warner Bros. Discovery, shares what content they want to add to their catalog in the international market.
In an industry as evolving as the entertainment industry, it is imperative to stay one step ahead of the latest trends and know what the international market demands regarding content.
To this end, ttvnews presents the Buyers: What are buyers looking for? Initiative to learn first-hand about the programming needs of buyers around the world.
This time, we spoke to Andres Mendoza, Head of Content Acquisition, Programming for Premium & Streaming Latam at Warner Bros. Discovery:
What content, formats, or genres do you go for at industry events?
We try to combine what we know works in our services with novelty and innovation.
I would tell you that, in addition, in our case, we are a company that has the fortune of not only buying finished content and traditional licenses but also having our own productions and original productions.
In that sense, we also go to the markets by looking for cans and supporting our development teams to find new ideas that can be turned into original productions. That is where our acquisitions team enters into the negotiations.
Are you seeking new stories to support the streaming or original production teams?
Of course, we also have our creative heart. If we hear a good idea that is similar to our original production, we always raise our hand for the development team to keep it on the radar, evaluate it, and if it works, make an agreement to develop it in the first place.
What content would you highlight among the ones that worked best for the company in 2024?
In 2024, we will have the original factory in the US, which will have all the HBO and Warner series that come to us through the service in Latin America.
There, we had very strong titles like the second season of House of the Dragons, The Penguin, which was an excellent success for DC. We had a new season of True Detective with Jodie Foster, which was also very successful.
We are very happy about the strategy we renewed in terms of our original production in Latin America, which was to do fewer projects but bigger IPs.
Since that was redesigned, the industry took time to implement and release it. Still, last year, we were finally able to start making these releases, as was the case with Ciudad de Dios, Como agua para chocolate, and even Margarita in Argentina.
As we say in Venezuela, part of this new strategy paid off: “We saw the cheese on the toast”.
That plan we had a couple of years ago finally materialized, a highlight of the previous year.
Are there any trends you are following closely in the market?
It’s hard to shortcut what the trends are or what’s going to work tomorrow. We’re all responding along the way to what our competitors are doing and what we see that works for us.
In general, streaming as an industry is becoming a service where people can find all genres, from short dramas to long dramas, such as telenovelas.
In our case, we have had very good results with telenovelas, something that a few years ago you would not expect from streaming, since they were more traditional from broadcast television.
Sports was also more of open television and cable, with streaming, it is now natural to find different leagues and sports. It seems that evolution is going that way.
