Latino webs are racing to feed the voracious television hydra in Asia where channels are growing exponentially.
Consider the following key developments:
- NBC U's Telemundo is setting up a beachhead in Tokyo to boost its presence and sales revenues from Asia this year.
- Mexican media conglom Televisa opened offices in China last May. Plans are under way to co-produce its first content in Mandarin Chinese with state-run China Central Television (CCTV).
- Brazil's media giant Globo recently inked a volume deal in India where a massive expansion of channels is under way.
- Venezuela's Venevision has just completed its first co-production with CCTV.
Although trailing second in ratings and share behind U.S. Hispanic market leader Univision, Telemundo is now the second-largest producer of Spanish-language television content after Mexican TV giant Televisa.
"Sales from Asia, mainly from Korea, Japan and China, make up 10% of our overall sales revenue, which we aim to double," says Marcos Santana, prexy of sales arm Telemundo Intl.
Telemundo Intl.'s sales of original shows and formats have jumped 30% in Asia and Europe over the past year, with 35,500 hours of its programs distributed globally. Telemundo's "Zorro: The Sword and the Rose" and "Marina" air on CCTV this year.
"The telenovela genre remains the most popular in the world and Asia has a tremendous appetite for it," says Telemundo prexy Don Browne. After all, telenovelas deal withmoral and social issues with which Asians can empathize.
Telemundo has also made headway in hermetic Japan where it recently inked two major deals for sudsers "Body of Desire" and "Marina." These pacts not only include rights for traditional broadcasting, but also a revenue-sharing business model for VOD, DVD and IPTV. It won't disclose names of clients until novelas are on air due to a promotional business plan related to both projects.
While telenovelas have been selling to Asia since the '80s, new fast-growing markets continue to open up, with China and India leading the way. China has 9,000 local channels although its biggest foreign programming buyer remains CCTV, which claims 1 billion viewers.
"When I first offered to sell Coral's telenovelas to Asia, my colleagues laughed at me," says Sheila Hall Aguirre, a former sales exec of Coral Intl., renamed RCTV Intl. (Venezuela). She had the last laugh as Coral titles like "Kassandra" and "Cristal" became huge hits in Indonesia and other Asian territories during the '90s. She recalls the time when a Vietnamese web dubbed an entire telenovela in the same man's voice. "It was fun to open these markets," says Hall, now Fremantle Media's sales VP.
Challenges remain. Bureaucracy and a tightly controlled market have slowed down Televisa's plans to partner with CCTV, which includes adapting its telenovelas and formats like competish "Dancing for a Dream."
The co-production pact will allow Televisa to skirt Chinese quotas that restrict the amount of foreign productions local broadcasters can air.
Televisa has sold four telenovelas to China in the past. Broadcasts of "The Mother-in-Law" in 2006 became the sixth-highest rated show in Shanghai.
Televisa refused to provide a detailed update of its Asian plans, but VP Jose Baston says he's planning a trip to China in May.
Meanwhile, Globo has inked deals for telenovelas and miniseries with Guanzhou TV, China as well as a five-year volume agreement with Portuguese-language Teledifuaso de Macau (TDM). In Vietnam, its hit live-action kid's series, "Pirlimpimpim," sold to WPP.
Globo's latest pacts follow a four-year volume deal with India's Sahara One for the media group's new foreign-skewed Firangi channel.
Venevision's six-part docu "China Through the Yang Tze River" with CCTV, presented at NATPE, is in response to the growing interest in the country, host of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Venezuelan web has also sold telenovelas to CCTV, including "Rebel Angel," "The Woman of My Life" and "Wanted: Prince Charming."
Web has also grown sales of both formats and original content to the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and India.
"Business has grown so fast in India where there is a huge demand for content," says Venevision entertainment VP Jose Antonio Espinal.
However, in China especially, sellers must deal with cyber piracy as well as a crackdown on racy content and low fees.
"It's just a landscape we will have to negotiate," says Browne.
"What's important is that we secure our presence in this opening market," Santana concurs.
Michael O'Boyle in Mexico and Patrick Frater in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
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