Movistar Series Channel to Roll Out in LatAm

Telefónica is bringing the Movistar Series channel, featuring a number of original productions, across Latin America.

The new channel will be available in Chile, Colombia and Peru on February 15 and will be added to the Movistar offer in Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay in the next few months. Movistar Series is slated to premiere 12 original series throughout 2018.

In addition to the Movistar+ original series, the channel will broadcast Spanish-language content produced by third parties, successful Latin American series in different duration formats, as well as movies and documentaries. Each week Movistar Series will premiere episodes of nine shows, as well as five movies.

Michael Duncan, CEO of the Telefónica global consumer unit, commented: “We will become a platform of platforms in Latin America, offering the best contents in the market, but that will also have differential attributes that make our value proposal unique and distinguished by its quality. We believe that there is enormous potential for a platform of quality contents made in Spanish, and we want Movistar Series to become the benchmark channel for these contents.”

Sergio Oslé, the president of Movistar+, commented: “As a group, Telefónica is stressing its capabilities as a creator of original fiction contents and its broad multiplatform scope. The operation that is being announced today will make it possible for the Movistar series to arrive to more than 13 countries in 2018, making it possible to reach 3.8 million pay-TV customers in Spain and more than 3 million pay-TV homes in HisPam. The more than 110 million Movistar mobile clients in the region must be added to this scope, all of which would also have access to these contents.

“We want to create benchmark television where the client has the freedom to choose. We’re going to continue working on the television model that the user wants; we have the highways and the contents, and the challenge is to continue to adapt to the market, and for our clients to have the best contents together with a customized, multiplatform and on-demand experience.”

Domingo Corral, director of fiction at Movistar+, added: “The Movistar original series are not only in our own language but also represent us and sound like us. They are local stories with a universal attraction. For example, The Plague has surpassed the number of viewings of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead or The Big Bang Theory. This fact demonstrates the relevance of local contents for our clients.”

Corral added: “We have the best talent for producing quality series with the same level of the best movies. We’ve already begun to see the results with our first premieres.”