Telemundo: El Señor de los Cielos is one of the most successful IPs of Spanish-language content

For Telemundo, 2024 will kick off with two of its big bets. In January, the new season of La Casa de los Famosos with 23 celebrities, including Lupillo Rivera, influencers, and a Miss Universe contestant, and, in February, the ninth season of El Señor de los Cielos.

“I’m super happy. I just returned from recording El Señor de los Cielos in Mexico and saw the first episode. I’m excited. Everything one thought and conceived was surpassed. There is the DNA of Telemundo. The staging is wonderful, and Luis Zelkowicz’s writing always surprises us. There is a large production deployment, more than 500 people. The Lord of the Skies is one of the most successful IPs, not only of Telemundo but of the content produced in Spanish,” said Ronald Day, president of Entertainment and Content Strategy at Telemundo.

Day added that the new season of El Señor de los Cielos has an “impeccable” cast, and new characters are coming, such as Itatí Cantoral, very important in the plot. “When pre-producing content like El Señor de los Cielos, you always try to raise the bar a little higher. In production, you are going to see a scene, a city within Mexico City, and you are going to see the production deployment because it is not only the cameras that we are seeing but the cameras inside, the shots from the cars, the explosions, the stunts. What comes in that first chapter is incredible. All episodes will have the same value level of production,” he assured.

THE BACKBONE OF TELEMUNDO IS THE SUPER SERIES
Day underlined that one of Telemundo’s successes relies on its DNA and its backbone, which has been to produce super series that stand out on Telemundo USA and other platforms. We are going to continue producing super series with the development team. We are working on some ideas that are catching our attention. We continue creating stories and characters and maintaining our own, like El Señor de los Cielos and La Reina del Sur. The development team, with whom we met along with the writers, make proposals that we love.”

Regarding 2024, Day noted the network’s content strategy will be as competitive as possible. He said that in the past year and a half, Telemundo has become the home of reality shows and that their vision is to make reality shows 365 days a year but without losing the core and DNA of Telemundo, which will always be the stories and series. “There will be a combination of reality shows and series 365 days a year. That will not stop because of what the series represents for the business and because we do not want to stop making Telemundo series.”

He indicated they are already planning the programming for 2024 and 2025 and began developing other programs for the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026.

SUCCESS LIES IN INCLUDING REAL-LIFE STORIES
Asked about the elements that make El Señor de los Cielos so successful, to the point that a ninth season is about to premiere, and La Reina del Sur 3, ranked seventh in the Netflix world ranking in the first half of 2023.

“The keys to this, what is important and the basis, is to use stories that are happening in real life and how to place them in this world, things that you immediately relate to something that is happening today. In a way, it is very current, and one as a viewer identifies with many of the series’ plots,” Day pointed out.

Specifically concerning El Señor de los Cielos he said: “It is incredible that in the ninth season, the stories, the actors, and Aurelio Casillas as a character are still so current. I can tell you that it is a solid story, still very current and interesting.”

He indicated that La Reina del Sur 3 has the same magic as El Señor de los Cielos. “Although the stories are fiction, they are taken from real life. The casting around Kate del Castillo is unique. They have been very successful because the essence is not lost. It is like with El Señor de los Cielos that the essence is not lost in any of the seasons, always trying to surprise the viewer,” he concluded.