José Antonio Bastón

May 2008

In a keynote speech at MIPCOM last year, Emilio Azcárraga Jean, the chairman of the board, president and CEO of Grupo Televisa, stressed the importance of global partnerships as part of the Mexican media giant’s continued international expansion. It has been the responsibility of José Antonio Bastón, the corporate VP of television at Televisa, to follow up on Azcárraga vision. As a result of Bastón’s negotiations, Televisa has been forging production deals in China and in Europe, opening up offices in various territories and remaining on the lookout for new potential partners. Bastón talks to World Screen about Televisa’s international growth.

WS: You recently returned from a trip to Europe, and Russia was one of your stops. What plans do you have for Russia?

BASTÓN: For Russia and for all the important European and Asian markets the strategy is basically the same. We not only want to sell our finished programs and dub them into the local language, we want to have a better position in these markets by co-producing with a local partner and trying to [get a piece] of the advertising pie. We’ve had conversations with different companies in Russia and we told the people we met with that [we want to replicate] the model that we have in China, which is to work with a production company that has a relationship with a TV channel and use our formats, which in this case means scripts, to develop novelas together. And we want to apply the strategic plan we use in our domestic market to really derive all the value we can from our novelas—all the licensing and merchandising and ancillary businesses, as well as product integration in the novelas. That is where we see an important upside, and that’s how we see Televisa being part of the advertising pie. We have done very, very well in product integration sales so far, and one of our most important goals is to have Mexican companies that are present in China be part of this. We closed a deal with Grupo Bimbo, who is by far the leading bread company in Mexico. They just opened an operation in China and they are going to be part of the clients who will be in the product integration of the novelas we co-produce in China.

WS: You have also made an important deal in France.

BASTÓN: We made a deal with the JLA Group and with Jean-Luc Azoulay. He is the company’s owner and executive producer, and he just acquired digital channels in France. We already finished one novela, Baie des flamboyants and we are in the process of doing the second season of this novela and developing two new scripts. Product integration did not appear in the first season, but we recently had a meeting and we would like to make an investment in this production company and also try to be more present in the advertising market in France.

We are also opening offices in Italy and Germany and we are having very good conversations with an important Indonesian group.

WS: Looking at Eastern Europe, how do you see that area of the world growing?

BASTÓN: In Eastern Europe you have to separate Russia from the rest of the region. Russia is a monster that is waking up again. I remember 10, 15 years ago you used to hear about Russia as something to be afraid of; it was a big, big power. And what I saw on this trip is the giant is reawakening. The economy is growing like crazy. From 2006 to 2007, television revenues grew more than 40 percent. And they are expecting from 2007 to 2008 close to 40-percent growth in real terms. So we are seeing amazing growth and a need for more content. And I think we are in the right place at the right time. We have a lot of ideas, concepts and formats as well as a lot of new properties because we represent formats from Argentina and we can now offer partners a bigger menu than just the Televisa catalogue.

I also see Romania as an important Eastern European territory. They have been producing some of our formats to great success. The reality show Dancing for a Dream broke ratings records. This is the time to take the next step with them and start to produce locally.

WS: How is Televisa Networks doing?

BASTÓN: Televisa Networks has been growing for a long time, in part because it has kept pace with the growth of the pay-television market in Latin America and also because we have been producing for pay TV. Our margins in pay-TV production are higher than 60 percent.

We are concentrating a lot of our efforts to grow the quality of the networks that we already have and to produce first for the pay-TV window and then to sell the programming to the next window. So we are opening a new line of product for the pay-TV market and then, of course, for the broadcast market, but we are seeing a different business model here. Because in some ways I am going to have Televisa Networks competing against Televisa Internacional, but in the end it’s more content for Televisa. So for Televisa Networks I see a lot of potential. We are looking for more strategic alliances with other companies, because in the end we have to provide the best offer of Spanish-language channels in the world, and I think we are going in the right direction.