The Brazilian TV major Globo enters the battlefield in 2015 with the launch of Globoplay, its dedicated VOD service that combines the hugely popular telenovelas with original high-quality drama, sports and international content, including shows from the U.S. majors.
The service has since expanded to the U.S. market, primarily in Brazilian expatriates, and plans to grow further internationally by 2021. Deadline caught up with the director of Digital, California, Erick Bretas, who oversees all online operations at Globo, including Globoplay, to discuss plans for the coming year.
Bretas reveals that the streaming platform should be available in Europe by the end of the year, although it will still be focused on its Brazilian audience. The original strategy is on the rise with 82 shows now being shot or developed, but the pandemic remains a challenge for production.
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Globo also recently hosted a dedicated ‘Upfront’ event in a digital incarnation, in part because NATPE Miami, which begins today, is being held in a reduced online form this year. During the event, the company revealed that it now has 101.6 million users in all of its digital products, with 30 million users for its paid and ad-supported levels on Globoplay.
In terms of content, the company says the supernatural drama that was recently launched Onsiel is the most ambitious project to date, while leading the way A brighter place, a motherly love and the expected return of his popular Hidden truths for a second season in 2021.
Overall, the company’s goal is to merge digital operations into all of its business, Bretas tells us, as he prepares for a digital future, where the biggest competitors will be Netflix and Amazon, both of which have made significant impressions. . the Brazilian market and increase investment.
Deadline: Hi Erick, can you give us an overview of your responsibilities?
Globo / Sergio Zalis
ERICK BRETAS: I oversee all the digital affairs of Globo, I am equivalent to a chief digital officer. I also wear a different hat than the leader of Globoplay. We have many other digital businesses [alongside the streaming service] and we are entering into new ventures.
We launched Globoplay five years ago, initially it was a service designed to complement TV Globo, but over time it gained strength and is today a more independent service.
Deadline: What can you tell us about Globoplay’s subscriber base?
BRETAS: We do not disclose the total number of our subscribers, nor does Netflix do so with specific markets. We protect the numbers. But I can tell you that we ended the year 2020 with an increase of 89% over the number of subscribers in 2019. It was not only the pandemic, we also had Big Brother Brasil which is very popular in Brazil and gives our subscribers a boost – some people tend to tease after the show, but others stay because they are attracted to the overall content of series, movies, telenovelas. But Big brother is something people use to discover Globo, it’s our biggest show.
2020 was a big year. We stream 100 million hours every month. Most of these come from subscribers, we also have free content. If you are not a subscriber, you can see news, the variety of programs, interviews and small clips from the telenovelas.
Deadline: It is clear that your market share in Brazil is huge. What does Globoplay look like in the US now?
BRETAS: It’s small. Our international strategy is not to disrupt the major platforms. This is to serve the Brazilian expatriates. What we are discovering, however, is that many of the Brazilians are in international families, and that people are starting to ask us to make subtitles so that families can watch together. It expands our content to a wider audience.
Deadline: What about the broader international strategy?
BRETAS: Our plan is to expand internationally. We have to go through Europe this year, our plan is to make Globoplay available around the world. We have imports of our linear channels (available on the digital service) adapted to individual time zones. But we are always focused on the Brazilians living abroad.
Globo
One of the ways we want to reach our wider audiences is to seek partnerships with global or regional services. There are other very strong regional services like Stan in Australia, Joyn in Germany, iFlix in Southeast Asia. The idea is to strengthen our relationships by exchanging content or in some cases producing together. You will see more of this. Although everyone is talking about US streaming services, we are seeing more and more relevant services in national markets, like us.
Deadline: It’s competitive out there, and the American giants have deep pockets …
BRETAS: I think these services will live with the big American services because I do not think American companies will be able to produce local content with the same quality and with the same understanding of the national markets as the local players do. My personal belief is that we will see coexistence of local and global streaming services. But I can not predict how many of these steamy wars are left, it is difficult to maintain markets where you have 12-15 services.
Deadline: Who are your main competitors in Brazil?
BRETAS: Netflix is very big in Brazil. They designed their international expansion strategy in Brazil and arrived there after first expanding to the English-speaking territories of the UK and Canada. They deliver a lot of local content. Amazon is also starting to produce local content, and Disney has just arrived and plans to produce a lot. We also see movement from HBO, they are already producing for their pay TV business and probably also for their streaming service. All the big guys produce in the Brazilian market.
We have some other local streaming players. Our competitor Record TV has PlayPlus, which is similar to Globoplay. We have Looke, which focuses more on transactions, but they also have some SVODs. This is a very populated market.
Deadline: And you believe Globoplay is the fastest growing platform in Brazil?
BRETAS: We think it was sometime in 2020 that we grew the fastest. It’s hard to know because the companies do not disclose their actual numbers. Sometimes specific programs mean that subscribers go up in a certain month, it varies a lot.
Deadline: Do you also know where you stand in the market in terms of overall subscriber numbers, without these specific numbers?
Globo
BRETAS: In the Brazilian market, we are probably the second or third behind Netflix and maybe Amazon, with whom we compete very closely.
Deadline: Tell us again about co-production and content partnerships on the content.
BRETAS: Last year we launched the amazing show The principal, manufactured by Mediapro. They were very skilled in forming a consortium of buyers / co-producers, and we were one of them. They also had Hulu Japan, HBO Asia, Viaplay in Scandinavia.
We also have an agreement with Sony that we manufacture The Angel Of Hamburg together and there is a second show that will come into production this year. There are more conversations going on about which I can not give more details right now. We are looking for stories that can be told in different languages and for different audiences; there are so many stories that are interesting to the Brazilian audience, that would also be interesting to an American or European audience, we have seven to eight projects like this in the pipeline that contain characters traveling, or related to a real story or event that took place simultaneously in several provinces. So there is more to come.
Deadline: Do you mean different languages in the same program?
BRETAS: Yes. As Narcos, for example.
Deadline: We talked about Big brother, what other content is successful on Globoplay? Is it mostly Portuguese or is English language also successful?
BRETAS: Oh yes, we also license content from everyone, Disney, Warner, NBCU, everyone. We have very popular English programs. I would say that the most popular drama series we have on our platform right now is The Good Doctor, which is Sony.
Deadline: You also have a bigger deal with Disney.
BRETAS: We have a commercial partnership with Disney + where we merge their service with Globoplay. We truly believe that the two services are very complimentary. If you want the best service for Brazilian content, Globoplay is definitely your best option, and Disney + has the family-oriented range. It’s an excellent combination and the price is very competitive, it’s less than Netflix’s premium subscription.
Deadline: With the expansion of Disney + to Brazil and other markets, do you expect the deal to come to an end?
BRETAS: It may come to an end, but I would say Disney is happy and we are happy too, so at the moment there is no reason to think about the end of this relationship.
Deadline: What can you tell us about the Globoplay original side? Is it rushing up?
BRETAS: Yes it is. We now have 82 shows in the development phase or in production. We released 13 originals last year, despite the problems of the pandemic, and five of them were great dramas. Originals is now the most important part of our strategy.
These programs are designed for streaming; it is very different from a TV broadcaster. For TV broadcasts, there is a greater purposefulness for you, and the narration should be slower so that you can even understand what is going on if you miss episodes. With streaming, the audience is more engaged and follows it more closely. You can demand more from them, and be more excited, giving more information per chapter.
Deadline: Give us a taste of what’s coming …
BRETAS: Hidden truths is one of our biggest bets in 2021. This is the second part of a program that first aired on TV in 2015. It was so popular that the second part would be released because we believe it will increase our subscribers.
Deadline: How much did the pandemic have on production?
BRETAS: We are now starting to resume some productions. It’s still very challenging because we’re in the middle of a second wave. We manage this very carefully, because the health of our employees is, of course, our priority. But we manage to resume some with very strict guidelines, which means it is slower; you deliver 30-40% of what you would normally deliver in one day. Once we have the vaccine, we will start all over again.
In Brazil, some of the global streaming services tried to push through, but they had cases where Covid got the cast and that they had to stop productions. It’s not easy to go right now.
Deadline: And it must be expensive too.
BRETAS: Yes. We had one case at a specific show where the logistics were so complicated that the cost would rise to 120% more than the original budget. In that case, we suspended it – we did not cancel it – and will not resume until we have the vaccine. In other cases, we absorb the rising cost.