Exclusive Interview: Cisneros Media’s Jonathan Blum

PREMIUM: Jonathan Blum, who was recently appointed president of Cisneros Media, a division of the Cisneros Group of Companies, talks about the newly created corporate unit, its international-distribution business and co-production models.

WS: Tell us about the recently formed Cisneros Media.
BLUM: A huge challenge that we have right now [is that] we are managing in one unit all the media and entertainment businesses of the Cisneros Group of Companies, which range from free TV, pay TV, production companies, a distribution arm, a music label and beauty contests. The truth is, it’s a wide portfolio of businesses. I will be relying a lot on the current leadership of the organization. We are making some changes; we are starting to produce television series in our studios in the U.S. One new initiative we started last year was the reality show surrounding the Miss Venezuela beauty pageant. It gave the audience the opportunity to interact with the content in a 360-degree manner, on free TV, pay TV and also digital platforms.

WS: How are you modifying your international-distribution business to accommodate today’s digital, multiplatform world?
BLUM: In growing our distribution effort, we are relying not only on the content that we produce but we are also broadening out our portfolio with third-party content. In terms of digital, for all of our current productions we are also producing exclusive content for digital platforms, so our audience can not only watch our content on TV, they can also go online and see exclusive content.

WS: The company has been involved in a number of co-productions, including ones with the BBC, Sony Entertainment Television and E! Entertainment Television. Why are these deals advantageous?
BLUM: I believe that co-production allows you to join forces with people that complement you, and you end up with a product that has more value, that helps you expand your brand and has the potential to travel.

That was the case with what we did last year, particularly with Miss Venezuela; we associated ourselves with three different co-producers for three different products. With Sony Entertainment Television we produced the reality show Miss Venezuela, todo por la corona [Miss Venezuela, Everything for the Crown]. It aired on Venevisión in Venezuela, and on the same evening it aired throughout Latin America on Sony Entertainment Television, and the same week it aired in the U.S. Hispanic market on Univision.

We are also co-producing a documentary with the BBC that looks behind the scenes of the pageant: the lives of the different contestants, where they come from and their families. The documentary isn’t finished yet, but I’m sure that it will be very interesting.

In addition, the night of the pageant, we did a co-production with E! Entertainment Television where, for the first time, we covered the red carpet, in the same way E! covers the red carpet for major awards ceremonies like the Oscars. We did this for the first time in Venezuela and it was very interesting.

In the area of drama production, we are also looking to form co-productions with big players in the region because this allows us to enrich our story lines and make product that can travel to other countries.

WS: What are your priorities for Cisneros Media in 2014?
BLUM: We are obviously living in a world that is undergoing a lot of changes, particularly in the area of media. We are making a lot of changes to the whole organization in Cisneros Media’s umbrella, and at NATPE we will announce some changes in our distribution company. It will be focused not only on distributing the content that we produce, but also on third-party content. So at NATPE we will have new announcements.