Live Programming Only Way to Beat Streaming
Telemundo Studios is focusing on three strategic pillars and betting on live programming to compete with streaming giants, Javier Pons, who was promoted to the role of chief content officer and head of the production arm of Comcast‘s NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises earlier this year, told an industry gathering in Madrid on Tuesday.
The guidance from his bosses overall is “to play offensively,” Pons told the industry audience. Live content is one key element of this. “The ability to create live programming is the only way to beat streaming,” he argued. “Live cannot be beaten.”
In a spotlight session at the fifth annual Iberseries & Platino Industria, he also highlighted his team’s focus on fiction and formats that reinforce its identity in the U.S. Hispanic market, along with outlining three core strategies.
“A key focus is the creation of our own IP. Therefore, it is a priority to create original series,” Pons said, according to an English translation of his comments made in Spanish. “And I think we’ve moved toward a more collaborative world, which is why the second point is multi-windowing,” meaning making content available in various distribution windows, he added.
Finally, “the third point is the diversification of formats,” the Telemundo Studios content chief said. “In the past, [our work] was practically limited to making long-running series for our network. There used to be series of between 80 and 95 one-hour episodes that we broadcast in primetime.” But that has changed now, he said: “For the last year and a half, what we have been trying to do is expand the focus and launch a strategy to also create short series, docuseries and scripted series for streaming.”
His appearance came late on the first day of Iberseries & Platino Industria 2025. Earlier in the conference day, executives from the likes of Disney+ Spain, the studio Gaumont and independent production powerhouse Banijay appeared.
Source link
