Telemundo Manages A Three-Pronged Strategy: IP Maximization, A Portfolio Approach, And Authentic Windowing

For the LA Screenings market, Telemundo represents a valuable ecosystem due to the opportunity to hold strategic conversations that go beyond mere content.

“It is an opportunity to have strategic and, above all, valuable discussions now that consumption habits are changing so violently and rapidly. The pressure on budgets, distribution, and everything else has turned what was once an option into a real priority: seeking alliances and finding mechanisms where we all help each other across different windows and production arms. It’s a great time to talk with different partners—not just as clients and streamers, but also with fellow producers, production houses, and showrunners—where we can be creative, not only in the stories but also in the structure of the productions,” commented Juan Ponce, Senior VP of Telemundo Studios at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, to PRODU.

Among the new content Telemundo will announce soon are Season 10 of El señor de los cielos, written by Luis Zelkowicz; a new edition of Sin senos sí hay paraíso being filmed by Telemundo with TIS in Colombia; and the adaptation of Operación triunfo for the U.S. Hispanic market.

THREE STRATEGIC VERTICALS

Ponce mentioned that they currently think about content in a 360º manner that includes audiovisual projects, “but creating dedicated experiences—for example—for our streaming audience, the group led by Joaquín Duro (VP of Sports and Head of Streaming).”

He explained that they divide this into three strategic pillars: IP maximization, a portfolio-level strategy, and authentic, natural window management.

“One of our competitive advantages as a company is having highly valuable, well-developed, and established IP with a massive fandom and audience loyalty. Obviously, we want to leverage that IP and continue positioning it in a fresh way, as is the case with El Señor de los cielos 10, where the team, through Luis’s vision, has given it a very fresh, unique perspective that we are sure people will notice and feel almost as something new,” he said.

He added that part of the company’s evolution has led them to a portfolio strategy, very different from before when the fiction strategy was managed separately. “Our offering is being managed as a portfolio that we believe opens up many opportunities to ‘cross-pollinate,’ as we say. To feed the experiences and ensure they are very consistent with our brand,” he highlighted. He added that the investment focus has been very clear: “not only in fiction or reality—which also includes the documentaries we’ve launched—but also in films, where we are very active in various co-productions with our theatrical partners at Cinépolis,” he noted.

He recalled that the first film was Casi el paraíso about two years ago, and they are now evaluating several projects. “We have one that is about to be finished with The Mediapro Studio, us, and Cinépolis called Catch Him If You Can (Atrápelo quien pueda) starring Jaime Camil. We are very excited.”

Regarding the third pillar, he explained that it focuses on ensuring all windowing is authentic and natural. “Creating content for platforms dedicated to that,” he pointed out.

EXPERIMENTS AND LEARNINGS

Ponce commented that they also have a priority and focus on moving toward new alternative content and new platforms, which covers vertical content, podcasts, and “many experiments in the content lab.”

Ponce added that the learning over the last few years at Telemundo Studios “has been tremendous in every sense. Every experience has been different, and today we have various examples, from original commissioned projects for platforms—where we act as a service provider—and well, we learned a lot. We learned how not to be the client and have achieved great results. I highlight the participation of the Underground team, who just premiered Dear Killer Nannies for Disney+ in LatAm and Hulu in the U.S., and Amor animal for Prime Video. We have had other models as well, such as co-productions or licensing, where we work very closely with the platform. One thing to highlight that we are very clear about is that we don’t make ‘Frankensteins.’ That is to say, while it might be ideal for a company to take content and split it up for everyone, we understand that is not the strategy because every window and every consumption habit is either well-established or changing, and requires an authentic experience. Today, we are focused on creating that specific content and experience for each type of platform. From the start, our projects have that approach designed to be multiplatform.”