Disney channel or Disney+: how are broadcasters tailoring their offers to the shifting customer demands?

The two major American content providers Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery both launched OTT offers in Latin America in recent years, starting first with Disney+ in November 2020 and Star+ in 2021 in Latin America. Indeed, Disney gained control of the three-decade-old Star brand as a result of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. As more and more content is now available on demand, these broadcasters along with the locals, have been adjusting their lineup of channels to balance it with their OTT offers, with different strategies. On their side, Pay TV operators like Claro, DirecTV or Totalplay have been pushed to revamp their offers to remain competitive. How are Pay TV operators, American and local broadcasters adjusting their strategy in Latin America to address all segments of their customer base? TV Broadcasters are balancing their lineup of channels with new OTT offers We are covering more than 400 unique channels in Latin America (this figure does not include religious, local and adult channels). The distribution of channels is highly concentrated in the region, with only 135 groups operating TV channels (against 550 in Asia Pacific for instance). On top of that, the top 10 ranking gives the lion's share to American players with global expansion strategies, while medium local players often operate one or two channels in their portfolio. Looking at the variety and quantity of channels in its lineup, WarnerBros. Discovery remains first with 39 channels. The group has chosen not to reduce its offering but either to keep its channels, rebrand them or replace them. They, for instance, replaced Boomerang with Cartoonito at the very end of 2021, entering the preschool segment as a company producing original content. They recently announced the closing of TBS Channel, to be replaced with TNT Novelas, as part of a global trend of American broadcasters trying to meet with Latin American consumers’ prevailing preferences. Indeed, the American networks had been offering mainly US-based channels in Latin America, meaning channels with almost identical programming as in the US, but dubbed in spanish, and with very few regional shows. In 2022, 77% of WarnerBros. Discovery’s channels in its lineup were based on US content programming only, vs 70% for Disney. Meanwhile, The Walt Disney Company shut down 5 of its linear Pay TV channels in 2022: Nat Geo Kids, Nat Geo Wild, FXM, Star Life and Disney XD, in order to increase the convergence of the businesses run by the company between Disney+ and Star+. However, the group continued to give a relative importance to its linear channels as the content from both Nat Geo channels are not exclusively distributed on Disney+ but airing on the third National geographic linear Pay TV channel....