W Studios: We will strengthen the Company by adding digital content and sports divisions

Patricio Wills, who this year celebrates 50 uninterrupted years of work since RTI, returns to the presidency of W Studios, regaining 100% ownership after a friendly split with TelevisaUnivision, to whom he will continue supplying content.

In #PRODUprimetime with Ríchard Izarra, Wills revealed that he will consolidate a “different” W Studios by adding two new areas: digital content and sports.

THE NEW W STUDIOS

Wills explained that a “different” W Studios will bring new things. Besides entertainment and scripted TV, “we are going to add two new areas of work: a digital content division—referring to a venture we’ve had in Colombia, in which I’m a shareholder, called 242, focused on digital content in Colombia, which we will now internationalize; and a second area that we are going to open or develop, which is sports content, including sports entertainment and sports on TV. This W Studios, which I’m not sure how to name to say it’s current, will have these three areas: regular TV (development, series, telenovelas, what W has been doing) but we will add two more areas to make the company more contemporary and take it to another level.”

ADRIANA SANTOS, WILLS’ WIFE, TO LEAD 242

The executive noted that his wife, Adriana Santos, has been the CEO of 242 in Colombia for several years, and she will now become part of W Studios “to give it a more ambitious, higher level of development.”

Wills mentioned that a group of new people will be invited to join the company, “probably someone very involved in the digital and sports areas—although talking about digital now is a bit old because everything is digital.” He added that Adriana has led 242 for seven years, and he admired her work. “It’s a company that has borne fruit. The challenge now is to create a more international and slightly larger company,” he said.

HE WILL SOON ANNOUNCE HIS RIGHT-HAND PERSON AT W STUDIOS

Wills announced that he is in talks with “a person widely known in the industry” to join him in the new executive team at W Studios and that the announcement will be made soon.

He added that they are building an in-house development team at W Studios. He clarified that, for ethical reasons, he would not touch the team he had at TelevisaUnivision. “We are already making progress. Martha Godoy, a producer who worked with me at Telemundo, who came from Colombia, was VP of Content at Telemundo, and spent several years at Netflix—we are already working on a series together. I formally invited her to become an integral part of the executive team. She is one of the best producers in Latin America, but she is even better at development.”

WORKING ON TWO SERIES

Wills mentioned that the new W Studios is already working on two series that were being produced for TelevisaUnivision: one is Memorias de un Sinvergüenza de Siete Suelas, with 11:11 & TV from the Cardona brothers, starring Manolo Cardona, which will start filming in three weeks in Colombia; and the second is La Mujer en el Espejo, which they will produce in January of next year.

When asked about the role Colombia will play in the new W Studios, Wills indicated that the way to test how far they can go with production in Colombia will be through the series with 11:11 Films & TV. “It’s no secret in this industry that the most powerful market—and with me being so close to TelevisaUnivision now in a different way—is Mexico and the U.S. Hispanic market. The challenge for Colombia is to produce Mexican series in Colombia, which are different from Colombian series. In terms of people and TV professionals, Colombia is completely up-to-date; it’s very attractive in terms of costs for any producer, but the point is that it needs to be a series that gives it an international tone rather than a Colombian one, and this has already been done. You have Pálpito, which Netflix made and developed well, among a couple of others. We will be very close to Colombia and Mexico as well because I’m in the TelevisaUnivision ecosystem.”

Watch the interview with Patricio Wills on #PRODUprimetime with Ríchard Izarra