Don Browne, President of Telemundo, said this that the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, still pending FCC approval, will facilitate setting in motion a series of investments which the network expects will help achieve a greater business scale by consolidating U.S. markets and by expanding its international alliances with high-quality productions.The new NBC Universal will allow Telemundo to continue growing with quality content on all possible distribution platforms, said Browne to the agency EFE. He believes the new stakeholders will understand the importance of continued expansion in the U.S. Hispanic market.The magnitude of the Hispanic market is such that companies that are not in it yet will be forced to enter at once, pointed out Browne, who currently allocates around US$100 million of its budget to producing original content. We need to be more aggressive to achieve a greater scope both domestically and internationally, he added.As an example of the expansion already in motion, Browne highlighted the importance of the co-production with Antena 3, La reina del sur, which will be shot in the U.S., Colombia, Mexico, Spain and Morocco. It is the most expensive and ambitious co-production Telemundo has participated in, and shows our commitment to high-quality content at levels similar to the best American shows, said Browne.When asked about the impact the partnership of Televisa and Univision has over Telemundo, he said: It is not good to have only one dominant network in the market. Competition is healthy and having a competitor such as Univision stimulates us. What is yet to be seen is whether Univision will continue its strategy of increasing original productions, as is the case with Telemundo, or it will prefer, as it did in the past, to load up on programming produced by Televisa.
