Televisa Ramps Up Digital, Inks Spanish Deal

CANNES, October 14: At a press conference in Cannes,
Televisa Internacional announced two key initiatives—the expansion of its
new-media capabilities, and a tie-up with Spain’s Imagina that kicks off with a
local version of the Argentine series B&B for commercial broadcaster Antena 3.

Spain has become a core international market for Televisa,
which owns a stake in LaSexta, alongside producer Imagina. Building on that
relationship, Televisa and Imagina are forming a production company in Spain
that will produce adaptations of formats from Televisa and its partner
companies. The first will be B&B,
from Cris Morena Group, which entered into a strategic partnership with
Televisa last week. Antena 3 is on board for the Spanish production of B&B, which is about the love/hate relationship between a
prim and proper ballerina and a rebellious rock musician. A key goal of the new
venture is to create content that can be sold to other markets in Europe.

On the digital front, meanwhile, Televisa yesterday
announced its plans for targeting the 139 million users with Internet access in
Latin America, 80 percent of which are able to receive high-quality video. The
Televisa Interactive Media division kicked into high gear last week with the
premieres of the online and mobile productions La doble vida and Colinas. Announced in Cannes yesterday was the new site tvolucion.com, housing
some of the Mexican broadcaster’s output. This will include a catalogue of
classic movies and telenovelas, the exclusive online content and daily
newscasts.

—By Mansha Daswani