The main goal of THEMA America in Colombia is to continue promoting the Kanal D Drama brand. “Although the channel is well known across the region, in Colombia, which is a market that loves good Turkish stories and telenovelas in general, there is a lot of room to grow and have more presence both for linear, with large and small operators, such as the Kanal D Drama app, which is our direct-to-consumer offer,” said Francheska León de la Barra, Director of Marketing and Communications at THEMA America.
She believes the FAST trend will keep growing and this year it is climbing strongly in Latin America, after its presence in the US and Europe for several years now.
“We saw the opportunity of this FAST segment, and we decided to capitalize on it last year by launching several of these channels for Spanish-speaking audiences. So we will focus on boosting our FAST channel offer. While it is true that the FAST audience is smaller than the audience for SVOD services, it is growing very rapidly in Latin America. This year we will see a lot of innovation in FAST and with our experience, global reach, and extensive library of content, we can adapt and offer our partners in Latin America the products and services they are looking for to satisfy the demand of their audiences.”
León de la Barra considers that Colombia and the Andina Link fair have great potential. “Colombia and the Andean region have welcomed the linear offer of Kanal D Drama very well. However, in the last two years, pay TV operators have become important players in the expansion of OTT in the region, where I see a coexistence of direct pay TV and OTT services based on the provision of differentiated services. Currently, distributors in the Andean region are going through an interesting moment. We are in talks to offer them the necessary flexibility so that they can satisfy the needs of their subscribers, and also we have developed some VOD offers for their platforms.”
For THEMA America the Andina Link fair is a great opportunity to meet and network with colleagues from the Latin American industry, especially from the Andean countries: Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. “Expectations are always high, and even more so for a TV market as prolific as Colombia. Our objective is to continue working hard to expand our network of business partners, both sales and operators, in the Andean region and other Latin American countries,” she added.