
Otto Padrón: “What we have, which is very different and very exciting to me, is a linear, over-the-air platform."
Otto Padrón officially joined GAIM in June of last year as co-president and chief operating officer. During that time, his first step was to focus on the company’s overall logistics; the second step has been digital realignment; and now the third step will be development. Padrón spoke with PRODU during Natpe Global in Miami.
“When I arrived, my priority was to better organize the resources we had, consolidate operations, optimize the five channels — Heartland, Retro, The Family Channel, Action Channel and Rev’n — and begin the process of digitizing our platform,” he explained.
He announced that in about 10 weeks — in the middle of the second quarter of the year — they will launch Heartland+, an ecosystem where those five channels will exist, “with the intention of expanding and entering a space where we have seen that transformation is necessary. There hasn’t been a meeting I’ve attended where someone hasn’t talked to me in some way about OTT, FAST, or CTV.” He added that this app represents the consolidation of GAIM’s entire operation.
He emphasized that today everything begins with digital rights. “What we have, which is very different and very exciting to me, is a linear, over-the-air platform. The discovery process becomes much easier when you already have a traditional platform where you can reach audiences and then use that, as we did at one point at Univision when we launched Univision.com — using the master platform, in that case the Univision network, to speak to viewers, guide them toward the new digital technology, and show them where they could further experience and connect with our content. That was Univision.com. That taught me that a third screen does exist,” he noted.
He said the third step in this strategy — which he believes will likely take place after the 2026 FIFA World Cup, around the third quarter of the year — “is to launch a Spanish-language platform, a Spanish-language channel, which I plan to introduce first through FAST or through the app, and then, if possible, launch that channel on our traditional platforms, on broadcast TV. It could be with a partner — perhaps an existing platform that wants to join what we are doing — or a new one we create ourselves, or one we develop together with a partner.”
He concluded by saying that the Spanish-language content he is seeing today, after having been somewhat removed from the Spanish-language national and international television world, impresses him. “The quality and the budgets being handled for production are impressive. That’s thanks to technology, which also helps us. But the talent — which is always behind all that content — continues to impress me. And the desire, the drive, and the determination to keep breaking barriers, to keep improving from where we’ve come from to make where we’re going even better.”
Otto Padrón Evaluates Space for a Spanish-Language Channel Within GAIM’s Lineup
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#PRODUprimetime con Otto Padrón de Get After It Media (GAIM)