At a time when Hispanics account for around 20% of the US population, TV & OTT players must offer content that will resonate positively with this demographic. In this article, we’ll see how historic TV broadcasters such as TelevisaUnivision and Telemundo have been adapting to the streaming era, and how new entrants have been disrupting the market with bold FAST & AVOD offerings. TelevisaUnivision & Telemundo:How to Embrace Streaming as a US Hispanic Entertainment Provider Viewership Funnel Strategy vs. Large Scale Catch-up HubThe most significant brand when it comes to US Hispanic pay streaming has to be ViX. Launched as Prende TV in 2021, ViX was made out of a conglomerate of TelevisaUnivision’s streaming assets (ViX AVOD, Blim TV, and also Pantaya, following its acquisition in 2022) and now boasts 50M monthly active users according to the company. Regarding OTT, the group has adopted a “viewership funnel strategy”, in which the AVOD viewers - FAST Channels - are expected to convert into paid subscribers, to the ad-free tier or the ad-supported plan introduced in May 2024. The latter was made available in Q3 2024 to Charter consumers - those with access to Univision through Spectrum TV Select or via Mi Plan Latino - following a new carriage deal. The negotiations did not imply any blackout, unlike Disney & Charter’s most recent disagreement. The plan was also made available to mobile and broadband subscribers, respectively with T-Mobile and Verizon. TelevisaUnivision has been gradually developing streaming assets. But how does it compare with the other most popular Spanish-language TV Network, NBCUniversal Telemundo? The latter has been broadcasting content since 1987 - although being initially launched as NetSpan in 1984 - for free through its digital terrestrial television network. Telemundo’ streaming strategy has been limited so far, mainly centred around offering catch-up options of the network’s programming, rather than premiering exclusive shows. Telemundo Now for instance, is a TV Everywhere service available through multiple providers, including Xfinity on Demand. Given the financial cost and technical challenges involved in the rollout of an OTT service, we can expect Telemundo’s content to remain on Peacock’s Telemundo Hub - also allowing it to reach a massive scale of 34M subscribers. Mexico Dominates ViX’s Content Catalogue, Drama the Most Popular Genre Share of LATAM Productions & Most Distributed GenresDeep diving into ViX’s catalogue allows us to highlight interesting points: as of March 2024, ViX offered 46% of series (in terms of titles), which accounted for almost 96% of the content hours on the platform. In terms of genres, Drama accounted for 24%, with hits such as La Mujer del Diablo being available both for free viewing (Season 1 only) and through the paid subscription. Comedy accounts for 12%...
