Emilio Azcárraga: ‘Televisa Has Become the Latin Major’

MIAMI: In his Global Navigators keynote this morning at NATPE, Emilio Azcárraga Jean, the president, CEO and chairman of the board at Grupo Televisa, discussed with World Screen’s Anna Carugati the company’s production prowess, taking advantage of new distribution platforms and plans for international growth through joint ventures.

Azcárraga began by talking about how Grupo Televisa has grown in scope from the time since he took the reins. “A lot has changed from 1997 to 2014, in the technology and the devices and the different businesses that we have,” he said. “It’s a completely different environment, but at the end of the day, it’s about the production and distribution of content.” He said that the business is still about producing for pay television, but is also focused on “taking advantage of new distribution platforms to get to the audiences wherever they are.”

Carugati mentioned how storytelling is the engine driving the business, which is marked by Televisa’s production expertise. The company is responsible for producing more than 90,000 hours of programming, according to Azcárraga. He emphasized that Televisa is looking to take advantage of new platforms with this huge amount of output. “We understand that producing for linear channels is different than for pay-television channels and is different than for the Internet and other new platforms that are out there. When we start to build a story, when we start to build a program, we always think about these different distribution [platforms].” He added, “What I believe Televisa has been very important in achieving is not just producing a program, but producing a concept that can travel in different windows.”

Looking at the distribution side, Azcárraga touted the tremendous success of Televisa Internacional. “What we see is that Televisa has become that Latin major,” he told the audience. “It’s not only because of the amount of hours [we produce]. We can produce a lot of hours but the trick is to produce a lot of hours with good quality and great ratings. Televisa has achieved that.” He mentioned how Televisa has achieved this not only in Latin America, but also in countries around the world.

Azcárraga got a hearty laugh from the crowd when he admitted that over the years, Televisa has produced some “really bad programs” here and there. This led to a discussion about the value of high quality. He said that Televisa has a unique capacity when it comes to ensuring a production’s level of quality: “When a program is not performing as we’d want [it to], we have the capacity to react very fast—with the production system and the creative ideas of producers and the way we are placed to react to substitute a program, substitute a producer.”    

Azcárraga emphasized that delivering high quality is especially important in the U.S. market, where Televisa supplies programming for Univision. Competition in this market is heating up, as new channels are launching that target the Latino audience. “There’s a generation of Latinos that wanted to adapt to the U.S. and speak [both Spanish and English]. For us, it’s an opportunity, but has made us very, very careful to produce the high quality that [audiences expect] because they can not only change the channel to a Spanish-speaking channel, but can change the channel to all the English networks that are out there.”

Azcárraga also discussed the success of Pantelion Films, which is a partnership between Grupo Televisa and Lionsgate Entertainment targeting Hispanic moviegoers. “After doing $40 million-plus at the box office, Pantelion is doing great!” Azcárraga said. The success of Eugenio Derbez’s Instructions Not Included, he noted, is an example of how audiences will embrace good content, regardless of what the language is.

Carugati asked, given all the different platforms nowadays, how Azcárraga feels about the future of linear channels. “Linear channels are still a good business now, and will be a good business in the future. What I believe is that those programs done for the linear channels need to be available afterwards to many devices,” since audiences are increasingly watching programming out of the home. “I believe that what we need to work on is producing exclusive content for this audience, but also make available all the content to all the people on any device at any time they want to see it.”

The conversation then turned to international growth, and Televisa’s plans for the future. Azcárraga said that he is keen to explore more joint ventures. The focus for Televisa has largely been on the U.S., but Azcárraga said that Brazil is also becoming a bigger focal point. He said that Televisa is open to working with partners from any market though, and has a view to establishing long-term partnerships with these international companies. “Latin America is a buoyant place to invest,” he said, noting the different economies of the various countries in the region. “I believe that Latin America is going to be a highlight of the next decade.”