In 2020, Pluto emerged as a FAST service and now the streaming world is looking at this business as an opportunity. “An interesting time is coming in Latin America with FAST services. We began to evangelize and it has exploded. We have a very big opportunity with Pluto as a mainstay,” said Eduardo Lebrija, Executive VP, Chief Commercial Officer, and Latin America leader for Paramount.
After several mergers, the company went global and expanded its possibilities to monetize. “Media without commercialization has never been viable. With the increase in operation costs, the commercial component becomes increasingly relevant. Now we have to distribute streaming in SVOD and we’re doing it with Paramount + and in FAST with Pluto,” he told Ríchard Izarra, editor-in-chief of PRODU.
He considers that the complexity of the media is an opportunity for a company with a portfolio like Paramount’s with open TV channels, pay TV, and free and paid streaming. “In the end you want more audiences watching your content. For example, open TV is a key for marketing and for attracting subscribers for streaming,” he said. “To a regional buyer we can offer a variety of audiences and segments and there’s no waste as in the past. That’s the competitive advantage Paramount has.”
For Lebrija, after the boom of SVOD platforms, new opportunities arise. “Today we realize, with all this content, that we have the opportunity to do content syndication. We thought everything was going to be exclusively for platforms, but not anymore. And in these markets, we realize that there is a lot of appetite for content.”
He also oversees the sports area, with which Paramount ventured into Latin America when it launched its streaming services. “In the US, the perfect formula for premium entertainment is sports. We took a risk and we had the Premier League and the Copa Libertadores,” said Lebrija, who has a sports lineage coming from his grandparents who participated in soccer and baseball leagues and teams in Mexico.
In addition, they have achieved alliances with the Chilean national team in Chilevisión and also with the Liga Femenina de la Libertadores. “We have big and small things. Sport is a unique content and there is no subscription driver like that.”
View EN VIVO with Eduardo Lebrija