Globo TV International is bringing its latest hits to NATPE 2017 which starts today in Miami. CEETV’s Yako Molhov talks with Raphael Corrêa Netto, Executive Director of International Business at Globo, about the company fresh titles and the latest trends on the Brazilian and Latin American markets.

CEETV: What are Globo's main highlights for NATPE Miami 2017? What are the new titles you are bringing to the market?

RCN: We’ll introduce our 2017 licensing catalog, with six telenovelas, three series, and two movies. The highlights are telenovelas ‘Total Dreamer’ and ‘Time After Time,’ which had great results in Brazil, including among online audiences, and the series ‘Above Justice,’ which also made a splash in Brazil and at the MipCancun, where we did an exclusive pre-release.

‘Total Dreamer’ is a modern and young fairy tale, in which a humble girl turns into a successful model and has to choose between two loved ones. In Brazil, the telenovela featured exclusive multi-screen actions for the digital environment before, during, and after it aired on network TV: we launched a chapter 0 and a spin-off on Globo Play. The result was great and showed that a good story can be aired on different platforms beyond TV, in addition to proving that broadcasting on a screen generates traffic for the other, and vice versa.

‘Time After Time’ has a very different, but no less interesting plot. It’s a classic story about a love that survives and overcomes the barriers of time. The main couple is stopped from living a romance in the 19th century, but gets a second chance 150 years later, when they meet again with the same souls, but in completely different contexts and lives.

Finally, we have ‘Above Justice,’ an extremely intense, realistic 16-chapter series, which hooks the audience right away and features an innovative narrative structure. The series follows the independent, but intertwined stories of four people who are arrested and, seven years later, get out of jail and try to rebuild their lives. The intense plot proposes a reflection on how people react and what they are capable of doing in limit situations.


CEETV: Which are your best-selling titles? And your best-performing titles in terms of ratings?

RCN: We set up our catalog with our most successful titles in Brazil, which have the strength to travel to the most distinct places and cultures. The three titles listed above are great examples. For instance, the audience responded very well to the story and multi-screen actions of ‘Total Dreamer.’ The telenovela reached more than 182 million people in Brazil (considering those who tuned in for at least 1 minute of the complete telenovela). In Portugal, the telenovela aired on Globo’s basic pay TV channel and reached more than 100.000 viewers/day (3% share).

‘Time After Time’ reached more than 173 million viewers in Brazil (considering those who tuned in for at least 1 minute of the complete telenovela). In addition, while it aired in the country, there were over 654.000 comments about the telenovela on social networks, an average of more than 5,000 comments per chapter.

‘Above Justice’ also has good indicators. As I said, the series’ narrative was structured in an innovative way: Each day of the week was dedicated to one of the four protagonists. And it also featured an unprecedented digital action: Its first four episodes were made available on Globo Play, Globo’s video on demand platform, before the premiere on network TV. The strategy was very well received by the audience and was maintained while the series aired, and Globo Play subscribers had early access to each daily episode. That allowed ‘Above Justice’ to reach more than 3 million unique users, and more than 25 million video viewers.

CEETV: Tell us more about Supermax. Are you satisfied with its performance in Brazil and are you planning a second season?

RCN: We have two versions of ‘Supermax’: a Brazilian one, produced in Portuguese, which aired in September 2016; and an international one, produced in Spanish, which will be aired first hand by our co-producers and strategic partners. Both versions were produced based on the same argument, but each follows a different path, developing its own stories, with its own plots, characters, locations, and conflicts. In addition to having different scripts, each series was produced by a different team and had its own cast, resulting in unique content.

The Brazilian version of ‘Supermax’ reached very positive results, considering what we anticipated with the release strategy. The series introduced a new genre in Globo’s grid, in a time slot previously taken by comedy series, with the main goal of reaching a younger audience. And the response to this new proposal was quite satisfactory. We won over a new audience profile: During the first seven episodes, in proportion to their national ratings, we realize that there is a 19% increase of people aged from 12 to 17 in the slot. In regards to people aged from 18 to 24, there was a 12% increase in the same period.

CEETV: What is the current trend in telenovelas? Are there more original productions than adaptations? Is it true that LatAm broadcasters now prefer to shoot more miniseries, rather than long-running telenovelas and what is Globo's strategy in this respect?

RCN: For more than 40 years, Globo has been nationally and internationally known for its dramaturgy, regardless of the format, and for its original content (more than 90% of what we air is created and produced by us). In recent years, much has been said in the market about producing more series, but series, miniseries, and serials, as well as telenovelas, have been part of our network’s programming for decades, including prime time. Globo engages the whole of the Brazilian family, and therefore has a quite diverse programming in terms of formats and genres, which conveys very well all our efforts to achieve quality, innovation, and portray our society. Our licensing catalog is a reflection of this. Even because our international partners, whether they are network TV, pay TV, or other windows, also seek to complete their programming grids with diverse, quality content. We have telenovelas with an average of 100 chapters, and also much more lean series, and even movies. Therefore, we have good entertainment content options with mobility within the different grids, windows, and distribution platforms that exist in the market. Our goal is to facilitate those strategies with telenovelas, series, and movies that also speak to international audiences.


CEETV: You recently announced that your video streaming application Globo Play has been downloaded nearly 10 million times since its launch a year ago. What are the latest viewing numbers?

RCN: We’ve surpassed the 10 million downloads mark in mobile devices in Brazil. The total number of unduplicated users on all platforms has varied from 12 to 15 million per month. We have completed one year of operation in November, and 7 billion minutes in content were consumed in this period on Globo Play, with 1 billion video views.

CEETV: You announced Globo Lab this year, with 20 young creative people working on their ideas for reality shows. What is the status of this project?

RCN: This project doesn’t aim to work on ideas for reality shows. Globo Lab was created to promote listening to and exchanging experiences with the new generation of audiovisual producers, in addition to identifying creative talent, encouraging co-creation, and experimentation with languages and formats. The winner was Diego Tavares, who alongside 20 other young semifinalists – selected among 1.200 applicants – went through workshops, orientation in the creative process, and had his history chosen to be produced after a presentation to the review board.

We are in the process of producing this web series. The product will be aired on Gshow, our Entertainment portal. In addition to writing the script for the series, the winning author is participating in all stages of the production process.

CEETV: Have you planned similar to the Totalmente Demais initiatives, i.e. when you launched episode zero of the telenovela online?

RCN: Certainly, Globo is always searching for new possibilities to bring relevant content to its audience, both on TV and on the digital environment. The launch of Globo Play provided us with another space where, in addition to providing all our network TV content, we can go further. That is, we can try out new content distribution and production possibilities, as was the case with ‘Total Dreamer.’ Before ‘Total Dreamer,’ series ‘Dear Death’ also had its chapter zero released on GShow, our entertainment portal. The success of multi-screen actions before, while, and after the telenovela aired on network TV encouraged us to carry out new actions. For ‘Lady Revolution,’ another release of ours in Miami, we made a spin-off about the early life of an extremely charismatic character with whom the audience fell in love. And for ‘Burning Hearts,’ also in our 2017 catalog, we made a spin-off, while the telenovela was being aired, which complemented its content by explaining the disappearance of the matriarch of the Abdalla clan, one of the plot’s main families.