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Hispanic pay-TV at The Cable Show 2014: Important topics include OTT, corporate consolidation and greater interest in multicultural audiences

May 11, 2014

Maribel Ramos-Weiner

José Antonio Espinal, COO of Somos TV

At The Cable Show 2014 in Los Angeles, PRODU spoke with a group of TV executives about the topics that dominate the pay-TV agenda. They emphasized the impact of OTT, corporate consolidation, and the growing importance of multicultural audiences, as well as the reduction of the exhibits in the show and the growth of technology. “I think nowadays technology is represented within the pay-TV companies themselves, whereas in previous years technology companies were the ones that had booths,” said Rubén Mendiola, formerly of Comcast Cable, recently appointed President of mun2.According to José Antonio Espinal, COO of Somos TV, this is an important event because his main clients are here and it is vital to making new contacts and growing the business.“There is more interest, not just on the Hispanic market but also on other segments that make up the multicultural audience in the U.S.,” said Rolando Figueroa, director of Affiliate Sales and Distribution of ¡HOLA! TV.According to Walter Córdova, National Manager of Marketing and Services in Spanish for U.S. and Puerto Rico of EWTN Global Catholic Network, the big different this year is technology. “There is a lot of discussion about platforms like TV Everywhere. The event is smaller and there has been a lot of mergers and consolidation,” he added.Álex Alonso, VP of Marketing of mun2, says the conversation about TV Everywhere dominates the agenda, and it’s no longer just at the distributor level but at the channel level as well. “Figuring out how to distribute content on all platforms is very important if we want to stay relevant,” he added.Luis Torres-Bohl, president and CEO of Mexicanal, said the hot topics are the net neutrality involving Netflix and the OTT trend, as well as the mergers between Time Warner Cable, Charter and Comcast.