Fabrizio Torres Latina
Live sports are one of the main pillars of open TV programming, especially when it comes to major events such as FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Latina Televisión, which has the rights to broadcast the matches of the Peruvian National Team, prepares to make the most of the event.
Peru still has to play the playoff in June to guarantee its participation in Qatar. To be prepared for the outcome, Latina has two budgets: one with Peru in the World Cup and the other without Peru in the World Cup.
“With Peru in the World Cup, the brands are going to line up behind us. During Russia 2018, the World Cup in which Peru qualified after 32 years out of the championship, Latina sent 24 people, including journalists and a technical team. It was great,” said Fabricio Torres del Águila, Sports Director of the channel, who has 30 years of sports journalism experience and has already produced several World Cups.
Latina not only has the rights to broadcast the matches of the Peruvian National Team, also of the Argentinian team, and tried without success to get those of the Brazilian National Team. “People want to see Messi and the great figures,” explained Torres del Águila.
To warm up the screen, Latina recorded a promotion in Qatar. Pavel Américo Pacheco Álvarez, Technology Manager, and Uwe Struhalla Olórtegui, General Producer, traveled to Qatar and spent three days recording in different locations: Lusail and Al Janoub stadiums, Souq Waqif market, Corniche boardwalk, outdoors gardens of a palace (camels), Lima and Doha airports, the plane. It was all done with an iPhone 13 and a DJI Osmo Mobile 5 gimbal.
Major events are a highly valued asset for open TV. Latina also has the rights to broadcast the Pan American Games and Lima 2019 was a great success: “We broadcast 12 continuous hours on Saturdays and 10 on Sundays, people were glued to the screen, we only lost the leader viewership three or four hours with the leading channel,” said Torres del Águila.
“When there are big live events, like World Cups, Copa América, Olympic Games, Pan American Games, ratings go up. Without those events, the ratings go down. Local leagues are followed on social networks and the media are learning how to make a post, a video, to reach those audiences,” he explained.
He added that the new management —led by Patricio Hernández— is giving greater scope to the digital world, networks, online, streaming. “That gives us a lot of possibilities in sports because when there isn’t a big event, the channel’s sports world seems to be silent. Our first screen will continue to be the open signal, but also will have online development that I think is great”.
Latina has rights to several sports championships (under-20 soccer, FUTSAL, both men’s and women’s, beach volleyball and others). These types of events, which are not so commercially attractive, are broadcast live on digital and deferred open.
“A major live sporting event, in an open signal, is always a good bet. Open channels are going to need to invest more and more in acquiring those broadcasting rights, because they are not only interested in those for open signals, where there is a rating and a significant amount of money, but also for digital”, concluded Torres del Águila.
