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COUNTRYFILE: Latin America
Channel 21 International | January 2021
Lat ambitions Streaming giants are zeroing in on Latin America while the region’s local players continue to step up their international ambitions in search of worldwide hits. By Nico Franks
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Jaime Dávila of Campanario Entertainment
f there’s one type of content that is synonymous with Latin America, it’s the telenovela. But to assume this genre of TV has stood still over the years would be a mistake, as the groundbreaking and Rose d’Or-winning Argentinian telenovela Pequeña Victoria (Victoria Small) – which stars multiple trans actresses – highlights. The telenovela form continues to evolve and remains a bastion of Latin American cultural exports, drawing sales for Lat Am companies from broadcasters around the world while fending off stiff competition from a host of other countries and regions. Moreover, the telenovela is now just one string in the bow of Latin American programme makers these days, particularly as the popularity of non-English-language content continues to grow internationally. Players such as Globo in Brazil are enjoying the fruits of a shift in strategy to focus on more international, ambitious dramas that they have successfully shopped around the world. For example, Globo-distributed series such as Aruanas, Sweet Diva, Orphans of a Nation, Hidden Truths and Jailers landed on channels and platforms in countries as distant as Germany, the US and Japan in 2020. “Globo today has a robust portfolio of series with current themes, in line with society’s trends, which have narratives that talk to people from all over the world. And seeing that Aruanas is gaining more and more space in Europe signals that our strategy is being assertive,” says Raphael Corrêa Netto, director of international business at the Brazilian broadcast and production giant. Buyer and audience openness to premium non-Englishlanguage content has been helped in no small part by streamers such as Netflix. Watching Narcos – which features both English and Spanish – on Netflix was, for many people, the gateway drug that led them to their foreign-language drama addiction. Since then, another Spanish-language show, crime drama La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), has become one of Netflix’s most-watched originals and its top non-English series to date. Although it was produced in Spain, the success of the show has clearly given Netflix – and other streaming giants, as we will soon see – the confidence to invest in local programming across Latin America. Currently, Netflix is used by 11% of the Lat
Am population and is expected to reach 13.4% by 2023, according to data firm Statista. Unsurprisingly, Brazil is the company’s largest Latin American market by number of subscribers, followed by Mexico and Argentina. One of Netflix’s latest Spanish-language originals, Selena: The Series, arrived to much fanfare on the streamer globally in December last year, telling the story of Tejano singer Selana’s rise to fame and the sacrifices she and her family had to make along the way. Touting a full Latinx cast, production team and writers’ room, the biographical drama marks the latest step in the evolution of Latin American content. Already renewed for a second season, Selena: The Series quickly rose to the number one spot in Netflix’s top 10 in the US and across other parts of Latin America in December. And though it received mixed reviews, creators across the region hope that the show could lead to more nuanced, creative and wide-ranging storytelling for Latinx viewers in Hollywood and beyond. Jaime Dávila, president of the series’ producer, Campanario Entertainment, says the company is committed to changing the way Latinx voices are presented and included in mainstream entertainment. Looking to act as a production bridge between the US and Latin America, the LA-based firm was co-founded by Dávila, former development executive at cable channel Bravo, and Jaime Dávila Sr, a former Televisa chief operating officer and Univision president and chairman. Dávila believes Selena is important because it reflects a side to Latinx people that goes beyond stereotypes that tend to follow them around on TV. “In recent years, I have been perceived as a ‘narco.’ I watched Narcos and it was very good but I am not one of these people. There are also so many other Latinx stories. I wanted to create a company with a voice that could tell Hollywood and Mexican buyers that there are other stories we can tell,” says Dávila. These include Bridges, a multi-generational, multicultural Latinx family comedy, which has received a script commitment from ABC and will be made by Campanario with Eva Longoria’s prodco UnbelieEVAble, and Mexican Dynasties, a docuseries for Bravo about elite families in Mexico City. Meanwhile, Netflix’s hunger for Spanish-language content makes it the latest US media giant to look south of the border for stories to bring not only to Hispanic audiences but viewers around the world. While Hollywood has been guilty of treating Latin America as a monolith in the past, there is evidence that this is beginning to change via the local arms of US
