Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Interview with Helga Lightowler, Discovery Programming Director for the Southern Cone

Channels become brands to strengthen against new consumer platforms

In the redefinition through which traditional actors of the content segment are going, Discovery, as owner and distributor, chooses to enhance its "brands" (no longer "channels") to become strong in three genres -Kids, Factual and Lifestyle- and therefrom nurture OTT platforms and Internet players who arrive with their own proposals.

<strong>Convergencia: How do new platforms and OTT impact on their content marketing strategies?

Helga Lightowler (HL): Discovery, worldwide, has its OTT "Discovery Go", and in Latin America we have "Discovery Kids Play". Depending on how mature the markets are, actors such as Fox, Discovery, among others, evaluate whether they should give the content on the first, second, third screen. In Latin America, in channels and brands like ours (Children, Factual and Lifestyle), this is still on the way. And the strategy is still focused on the VoD, allied with cable operators.

In the "Kids" (Children) segment there is another strategy, because organically it is a digital audience. In other clusters, audiences are still under maturation process. We believe that in Latin America, linear TV in clusters outside of Kids, has four to five years of healthy life. Meanwhile, we are getting ready, learning to handle another language. For example, now we are dealing with a smaller number of premieres, that is, screens with less information and better stories. Previously, we worried about having more premieres. The user does not have time and is saturated by the content, can not retain schedules, it is necessary to simplify the information for it.

Convergencia: In the children's segment, does digital technology matter as much as traditional one?

HL: We're not going to force a digital audience to a schedule and a place to consume content. Because they will not do it. It is necessary to give them exclusive content and in a language suitable for that platform. The OTT "Discovery Kids Play" aims not only to entertainment but to accompanying 4-8 years old children in education. Discovery commitment is to analyze how to speak to each age group, and develop games that point to the playful and educational fields. Children's channels have digital audiences, so the strategy is that digital is as strong as linear technology.

The platform must be robust because they are users who already play online since a young age. In contrast, digital is a second stage in adult channels. In the case of Kids, regionalization is not needed, because the kids want entertainment, they do not care about what is local. For other clusters, we were the first to regionalize, that is, to apply a regional strategy that in each country is complemented by something specific. We created an international content framework but with local identification, around 4 main markets: Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. These are the priority markets of the linear TV industry. In these countries offices were opened to locate the content, and therefrom it is broadcasted to neighboring countries. In the case of Argentina, to the Southern Cone and Peru: it is important to worry about how to complete programming for markets where we do not have offices in order to understand that culture so that it also works there.

Convergencia: How do you prepare against companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Google and their promise to incur content?

HL: Discovery and Disney are worldwide, the only ones having the largest content library with their own IP. We are the owners of all that, having generated content in genres such as Kids, Factual and Lifestyle. This gives Discovery and Disney an enormous strength. Because they are brands for cable operators, to nourish their programming schedules, but they are diversifying into VoD, OTT or the digital channel associated with each brand.

That who will have more power is the one having more hours of content, better stories, and from those contents, the one having them for any platform. If one wonders what platforms can defeat a cable operator, the answer is Facebook, Google, YouTube, Amazon, that is, large platforms with great reach, but that who wins is the one with the most connections to nurture them. We used to have channels: today we have brands. When the brand has a clear DNA and strength, it gains a lot of power. In this sense, Discovery has a lot of "ownership" from Factual (Reality, for example, "Nat Geo", "History"), Kids and Lifestyle ("Discovery Home & Health", for taking a case). It owned genres, then Facebook goes to it because production is very expensive. Although Internet players are producing loose things, this is volume in a genre and forces actors like Netflix to ask us for content.

Convergencia: Besides achieving this "volume" of content, do you also bet on specific productions, thinking of the platform that will broadcast it?

HL: We started working to generate exclusive "customized" content for each platform. It does not work for a linear content to be cut and braodcasted on a digital platform. Regarding the possibility that the user pays or not for these contents, specific strategies are managed: now we are evaluating to generate miniseries in partnership with YouTube and with the brand Discovery, that is to say that advantage is taken therefrom to sell the Discovery platform, but this can change, series by series, at the local or international level.

Now we are playing with different tailored strategies and working with results. The idea is to not stay out of something that can grow. The purchase of Scripps Network Interactive (owner of channels such as Travel Channel, Food Network, HGTV, for US$14.600 billion in July 2017) aims to take even more over the Lifestyle genre in subjects such as home, woman, gastronomy. In free-to-air television, Discovery reached an alliance with Mega in Chile (Mega is the advertising sales representative of all Discovery Networks channels in Chile, agreed after Discovery acquired 27.5% of Bethia Communications, the company that owns Mega) and we also have an important footprint with Vix for exclusive content on social networks.

Convergencia: How are these changes in advertising content translated?

HL: Advertising breaks must be more organic with the content and there is a work in communion between the Sales and Content areas. It is necessary in this field to "cure" the content, in order to give the viewer marks that serve it as "data", as a contribution (for example, a shampoo in a Lifestyle program or a 4x4 car in one of Adventures). The advertising content must be relevant for the user, and thus the experience is improved so that the linear TV continues with a good performance.

This article was published in Convergencia Yearbook 2017. 

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