Dori Media’s José Escalante

December 2007

By CONTACT _Con-3F4A1850B c s l Mansha Daswani

In the last few years, Dori Media Group has emerged as a significant force in the telenovela business. The company, headquartered in Israel, has been busy doing finished-program and format deals in traditional novela markets like Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, and has been making headway in tougher territories such as Asia and Western Europe. Outside of program sales, Dori has established a track record for generating successful merchandising campaigns for telenovelas, and has kept up with new-media trends, launching four channels on YouTube. As part of its overall growth strategy, the company recently tapped the former RCTV International executive José Escalante as the CEO of its new Miami-based subsidiary, Dori Media America, and as president and general manager of Dori Media Distribution.

WS: What is your overall strategy for expanding Dori Media’s distribution business?

ESCALANTE: One strategy is to conquer the U.S. Hispanic market and the [English-speaking] market. Then I want to get Dori Media into Asia and Africa, which are new markets for our library. I also want to increase the European market and open the Scandinavian and the CIS [territories]. And then I want to concentrate on the Latin American markets, which are very competitive.

WS: What are your plans for the U.S.?

ESCALANTE: It’s a combination of several things. Whatever is needed to get into the market as a content provider, as a format provider, as a consultant, as a co-producer, we’re going to do it.

WS: And how are you looking to expand your Asian business?

ESCALANTE: There are several Asian countries that demand telenovelas for their slots—Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines—so my intention is to get Dori Media product into those markets. I’ve been working to open Korea, China, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan. [India] used to [only buy novela] formats. Now we’re selling our original versions, too. It’s a huge market.

WS: How has your business been in Europe?

ESCALANTE: Great. Dori Media has placed product in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, in all the main markets, and of course in Eastern Europe. We are concentrating our efforts on Western Europe, which is very important in terms of numbers and prime-time slots.

WS: You’ve launched four channels on YouTube. What are your other plans for exploiting new-media platforms?

ESCALANTE: YouTube is providing the tools to get to the audience, to get to the buyers. We’re developing new channels for them. We’re also working on content for mobiles. We already have telenovelas [streaming] on mobile. And there are a few other things we’re working on.

WS: Dori recently acquired a 50-percent stake in Argentina’s Central Park Productions. Do you envision replicating this strategy to gain a foothold in other key territories?

ESCALANTE: We want to be vertically integrated. We have the distribution facility, we have the production equipment, we own the intellectual property, so we might get into other investments in different countries. It will depend on what opportunities arise.

WS: Are you looking at third-party deals to further expand your catalogue?

ESCALANTE: We are considering that option. We are in the process of examining different catalogues. We’re going to be very selective.

WS: You’ve been in the novela business for some time now. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve witnessed?

ESCALANTE: One of the biggest things has been the [emergence of the novela] format. The telenovela has been in Latin America for a long time. Outside of Latin America, people were not really paying attention. That is one of the greatest shifts I have seen. The other is seeing that other people are now producing telenovelas. It’s no longer a Latin genre—we see telenovelas being produced in Korea, Japan, China, Romania, Spain, France and Italy.

WS: Do you think some of those telenovelas could be adapted for Latin American broadcasters?

ESCALANTE: I think it could go both ways. I’ve seen a lot of great Asian love stories and we’ve seen a lot of good telenovelas being produced in Israel now. We’ve actually started to sell Dori Media novelas produced in Israel into Latin America, the formats and the canned versions.

WS: What are the main challenges when adapting a telenovela?

ESCALANTE: Being able to adapt a story and not change the heart of it. You have to be able to do your own local version, but not lose the main ingredients of what made that telenovela distinctive.