Richard Izarra Jim Mcnamara Patricio Wills
Jim McNamara, VP of Hemisphere Media Group, Inc., and Patricio Wills, president of Televisa Estudios, took part in the MIP Cancún panel, Líderes de la Industria Hispana, chaired by Ríchard Izarra, Editor-in-Chief at PRODU, where they expressed that TV is experiencing a period of rearrangement and opportunities and that it will never be the same.
“Nothing will be the same. They changed the rules of the game with the arrival of new platforms. The most important thing right now is creativity and joint work,” expressed McNamara.
Wills stated that in Televisa they understood that they had to be updated, change the business model, offer different products and seek more alliances. “Platforms force us to change the business model and that is not a threat but an opportunity. At Televisa, we are developing projects almost daily with different platforms.”
Both agree that this readjustment will raise quality. That is why Televisa increased production budgets and changed the way they make their products. However, they don’t want to drift away from what has been essential in their history: melodrama. “We have great respect for the telenovela genre. Televisa´s icon is telenovela, that is why they are and will continue to be part of our stage, just told and made differently”.
McNamara believes that what is coming is a reaction to changes. “We are going to witness a very interesting moment when there will be no difference between a product from Latin America and one from the US in terms of quality.”
