CANNES – NBCU’s Telemundo Internacional and Chile’s Mega, its leading broadcast network, have inked a long-term distribution deal that gives Telemundo Internacional exclusive worldwide distribution rights outside Chile to Mega’s TV fiction program shows and formats.
The agreement also contemplates co-production between the two new partners.
Deal comes as Telemundo Internacional has also inked with Sony Pictures Television to sell worldwide three Sony series produced out of Latin America beginning with “Lady, la vendedora de rosas.”
New deals being to three the Mipcom announcements of Telemundo which is emerging as the go-to channel for international for top or high-profile brands which, facing much larger competition at home from new OTT players, is now looking to raise the ante in its fiction programs – in quality and investment, in order to produce TV dramas capable of punching big ratings at home and export abroad.
Unveiled Tuesday morning at Mipcom, the pact links Telemundo Internacional to one of Latin America’s highest-flying broadcast networks which, spurred by competition and tapping Maria Eugenia Rencoret as general manager, drama, has powered into fiction production with unprecedented success for the last decade.
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Deal also expands Telemundo Internacional portfolio of Chilean productions, which are increasingly garnering success in international markets, with an offer of near 450-to-500 hour of content per year.
Pact kicks-off with riches-to-rags comedy “Pituca sin Lucas” (“Fancy Girl Without Money”), which Hernandez screened in a trailer format at the Telemundo-Mega press conference.
A hugely successful 2014 Mega production, “Fancy Girl” punched 30 rating points and about 50% audience share, the best result for any drama in Chile in the last 10 years, Mega CEO Patricio Hernandez said at Cannes. Show helped transform Mega into Chile’s No. 1 broadcaster.
“This agreement will add to our catalog excellent quality content with creative and innovative stories, in line with the standards that characterize our brand,” Telemundo Internacional prexy Marcos Santana said at Mipcom.
According to Patricio Hernandez, the pact represents “a historical, giant milestone for Mega in company’s goal of internationalizing its content and presence in the world.”
Under Hernandez, tapped as Mega CEO 18 months ago, Mega, owned by Chilean holding group Bethia, has steadily advanced in the creation of a TV fiction content factory. It now aims to produce six TV telenovelas a year in a first phase of growth. Fiction will account for about 50% of Mega’s production budget, Hernandez said.
Mega has also ploughed $50 million into technology and infrastructure, building 5,500 square-meter studios. Having launched its 8 pm fiction primetime with family-themed telenovela, and its mid-afternoon slot with the femme-skewing fiction fare, Mega will bow more adult-targeted telenovelas in a nighttime berth, Hernandez said.
Telemundo Internacional has a long-running export alliance with pubcaster TVN. “It’s no secret that Chile has one of the highest levels of literacy in the region, a high level of culture and a very young TV sector, with seven free–to-air channels which have created ferocious competition. All this has created a product which stands apart, which can be exported to the world,” Santana added, observing that Telemundo has re-versioned a dozen Chilean formats just in the U.S.
