MIAMI — The best thing about the Miami Hilton Downtown is its vistas from above Biscayne Bay and opposite the city’s iconic serried strip of high-rises. Delegates at Content Americas, which begins its third edition this Monday, will be hoping that the market will afford an equally panoramic view of the international TV business.
That’s crucial. Few areas of the world became so dependent on global platform investment as Latin America during the pandemic. Bucking worldwide trends, series season orders actually soared in Spain over 2024, shooting up from 43 a year earlier to 75, according to Ampere Analysis.
“Content Americas is the first TV event of the year and, therefore, an opportunity to test, by talking to folks, your incoming hypotheses about how market trends will play out,” says Gaumont USA’s Christian Gabela.
As of Sunday, participation sits at just short of 2,000 delegates and 175 exhibitors, edging up from compared to 2024.
That slight increase reflects the fact that, when it comes to Latin America, most all players have attended from last, with Content Americas serving as both a market and production meet, connecting major players from Latin America, the U.S. Hispanic and Spain.
Some urgent, specific questions need answering. One case in point: After across-the-board top exec layoffs and departures, effective from December, how will Televisa-Univisión streaming service ViX handle acquisitions?
The big question delegates hope Content Americas will address echoes across the world: After a severe corrective in 2023, will global TV streamers in any way be back in the saddle driving growth in Latin America?
Don’t Expect Easy Answers
Content Americas attendees shouldn’t expect easy answers. “Global streamers are still in different phases — some are consolidating, some are driving toward profitability, and some are business as usual. It’s hard to know what the next year will look like. This unpredictability represents a challenging time for producers,” says Erik Barmack at L.A.-based Wild Sheep Content. Sales cycles have slowed dramatically after the launch of original production across the region, from Netflix’s “Club of Crows” in 2015 to Paramount+ and HBO Max service bows in 2021.
2024: As Bad As It Gets?
There is a dire need for visibility, however. Some stats set to be fired off at Content Americas will make for startling viewing. In 2022, major global streamers – Netflix, Amazon, Apple, WBD, Disney, Comcast and Paramount – made 69 season orders in Brazil. By 2024, that figure was down to 28. Mexico’s 49 commissions in 2022 plunged 27% to 36 in 2024. Given global streamers have been the fundamental industry driver of recent years – and lifeboat in 2020 – their corrective plays out over the whole industry.
One-year results, however, can be hugely misleading. In some countries, such as Brazil with Globo, incumbents are still highly important. One bottom line is that buoyed by ad tiers, SVOD players will continue to grow their subscription bases in Latin America, Netflix from 51 million in 2024 to 69.5 million in 2029, Omdia predicts. Some established players, such as NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, look bullish on production growth. Its chairman, Luis Fernández, will deliver one of the most awaited keynotes at this year’s Content Americas. “At a time when Telemundo is the most-watched network in prime time, we are super-charging our scripted content production under one strong brand: Telemundo Studios,” Fernández told Variety last April.
A Stabler Market
The bottom line, per industry consensus, however, is that far fewer originals will be produced in Latin America in the future compared to the explosion of orders in the recent past. Producers hope, at least, that the market will settle. “2024 was clearly a year where streamers’ budgets for “originals” became increasingly under pressure,” says Gabela. “Our hope is that there’s greater stability in that regard in 2025.”
Ringing the Changes
“Stabler” is another way of suggesting that, of course, money will be tight throughout the industry. So the story of 2025’s Content Americas may well be producers’ and distributors’ reactions to that.
“Independents need to be creative now about financing plans that incorporate multiple territories, to be clever about understanding public funds and the general ecosystems in particular markets,” says Barmack.
There are some more obvious ways forward that are already on the radar. “Last year, as streamers cut back on commissioning projects, co-production and windowing became the talk of the town. In 2025, I think we’ll see more of those conversations materialize into deals as the industry readjusts,” says Gabela. “Fewer originals means the need for more co-productions and invites us to be creative to find the financing,” agrees EO Media’s Eze Olzanski.
Movies: A TV Industry Future
At least in the English-speaking world, there’s a kind of rebound in films from A24, Blumhouse, and Neon with “Longlegs” and “Terrifier,” for example, auteur genre films with talent cast against type. “[Creative] talent can make the difference and become a part of the business equation, and the payoff can be really, really high,” says Fremantle’s Manuel Martí. Gaumont USA, with Pasajero, has produced Netflix’s “The Biggest Fan” with Kate del Castillo as it sets up remakes of its classic film catalog at platforms. The Mediapro Studio has scored one of its most significant hits in 2024 with “El 47,” the frontrunner at February’s Spanish Academy Goya Awards.
“I think the sector’s going back in some ways to what it was before,” Olzanski tells Variety, noting that global streamer production is ever more ‘local for local,’ though local may be one territory and fewer projects will be for all Latin America or aim for global.”
Selectivity
Volume for volume’s sake is a waning philosophy: “Independents need to be pickier, frankly, about projects. Not all of this pullback is bad — it’s forcing higher standards that the industry could use,” Barmack observes. Olzanski agrees. “The industry is finding its new balance, understanding its current size, how much it can produce and sell, and working for that size. It’s a moment of honesty for the industry.” “Reducing the number of productions and releases, particularly releases, might seem a bad thing, but on the positive side, gives more visibility and value to launches,” he adds.
What Will Buyers Be Buying?
There was a time – broadly last decade – when experiments ran wild at pay-TV operators and an early Netflix. From the turn of this decade broadly, a pivot occurred: “Creators are working with known genres and frameworks and then trying to reinvent them,” Berlinale Series head Julia Fidel noted in 2022. Now, “series are genre layering, layering one genre on top of another,” said Fremantle’s Manuel Marti. One part political exposé, another part espionage thriller, “Yosi, The Regretful Spy,” whose Season 2 competes for a Rose d’Or Latino, is one case in point. Another contender, the Natalia Beristáin showrun “Midnight Family,” from Fremantle and Fabula, melds a reality-sourced medical thriller and family drama. Series, Martí points out, will remain plot-driven, “making you want to see the whole season,” and character-driven, “making you come again for the second season.” Character-driven drama is, moreover, on the rise. “I guess at the Emmys, both ‘Shogun’ and ‘The Bear’ were character-driven, which is what people especially crave,” Martí observes.
More Buyer Interests
Beyond that, “Regular, returnable and franchiseable content will be the most attractive,” says Ampere’s Fred Black. “Particularly crime dramas, which work globally and are produced internationally.”
On distribution, apart from the more relevant new launches, buyers are moving ever more into non-exclusive deals, says Olzanski. On the local side, “we’ve gone back to a more normal thing with the usual slots for television: Action, natural disasters, a family, kids, co-viewing, and so on,” he adds. The production of fewer originals doesn’t mean that streamers will be acquiring more, he cautioned, “and that is part of finding the new balance.”
Brazil
“Thanks to the global presence of the streamers, Brazilian producers’ content has been watched outside the country, which was great for them, and now they want more. Being in such a huge market, having success abroad is a newly acquired desire, not necessarily a need,” says Martí. Also, he notes that global streamers look set to be obliged to invest a percentage of gross revenues in Brazilian content. Content Americas 2025 takes place, also, as “I’m Still Here” scored a best actress award for Fernanda Torres and “Senna,” praised for its production values, has played in Netflix’s global Top 10 non-English TV charts. It’s a special moment for the international industry to see Brazil as a key production center,” says Luis Toledo, the former highly active Spcine exec, who is launching Filomena Productions to connect Brazil, Latin America and the global South with established international markets.
“This is exactly the reason for creating Filomena. To “prove” or guarantee to the more developed film markets that the global South can deliver the same quality but with lower prices and also new stories/narratives. The world can’t stand watching ‘Fast and Furious’ number 156 anymore.”
Deals to Date
*El Estudio, partnering with L.A.-based Happy Accidents, has acquired adaptation rights to ”Here Come the Habibs,” a fish-out-of-water Australian comedy about a Lebanese family. The adaptation will be set in Mexico City.
*Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fabula and BBC Studios-backed Spanish shingle Brutal Media are set to co-produce “Los crímenes del Glaciar,” a Patagonia-set triller adapting Cristian Perfumo’s novel. Rights were licensed from Scenic Rights.
*Luiz Toledo, the formerly highly active director of investments and strategic partnerships at Spcine, the São Paulo Film Commission, has launched Filomena Productions, a private sector consultancy that aims to help supply missing links between burgeoning audiovisual hubs in Brazil, Latin America, and the global South and established international markets.
*Murilo Benício, star of smash-hit Globo telenovelas such as “The Clone,” “América” and “Brazil Avenue,” and Kevin Vechiatto, who grew up in Brazil’s biggest kids franchise “Turma da Mônica,” are set to headline “Nico,” a smart comedy from LB Entertainment, behind “Netflix” global No. 1 Non-English TV series “Sintonia.”
*Banijay Rights’ Content Americas lineup is headed by doc series “Bosé Renacido,” the most-watched non-fiction format in the history of Spain’s Movistar Plus+ platform. Title is produced by Shine Iberia, part of Banijay Iberia.
*EO Media-sold ‘Sumergidos’ will make its Latin America pay TV Debut on A&E Jan. 27. The 13-part crime thriller had its local debut on Paramount Channel in Brazil and on Argentina’s TV Publica in 2022.
*SkyShowtime has announced that production is underway for “Nails,” its third original series commissioned in Spain. A comedy about four women seeking to escape societal pressures, “Nails” is produced by Federation Spain in collaboration with Telemundo Studios and SkyShowtime.
More news to be published Tuesday and throughout Content Americas.
