Claudia Sahab Televisa
European channels, as well as those from the rest of the world, are looking for canned products to cover the slots that are empty after the suspension of their original productions.
“They are asking for finished and dubbed available content because dubbing companies also stopped their activities. We are in the stage in which channels react to the situation, we haven`t reach any definite decisions yet,” added Claudia Sahab, Director of Europe at Televisa Internacional.
The first to react have been Hungary and Poland, countries with a great deal of production of their own. Hungary is a territory that is loyal to Latin telenovelas and, in this situation, is asking for more products. Poland, where for two-year Turkish drama has beaten Latin novelas, has asked for Televisa fiction once again. Poland has an additional advantage: they air the content with voice over, a service that is still being used, since it does not require gathering actors, as in dubbing.
Also, Portugal, a novela-producing country, is requesting material (available in Portuguese), whereas Spain, where Turkish drama is strong, is thinking once again about Latin novelas.
“Since we have so much finished content, we are a solution for these times. The work pace has not decreased, but instead has gone up, because there are more catalog requests,” explained Sahab.
The executive explained that the suspension of Televisa productions, for the time being, does not affect her work, because sales to Europe are not tied to the launches in Mexico or the US.
