With the launch of Espacio Latino with top programming and 50 FAST channels, The Roku Channel is strongly focusing on the Hispanic audience in the US, which uses the application more than three days a week, according to company data.
Thalina Bates, business director at The Roku Channel in Spanish, was interviewed by Prensario, and offered details about Espacio Latino, and its strategies with the Hispanic market: ‘We have always looked for ways to improve the users experiences, and thanks to all the data we can get from them, we realized that the content we currently have in Spanish, has a lot of activity, and there are users even who return to see this content in Spanish up to three times a week’.
‘If you add all this behavior to the size of the population of the community in the US, with the purchasing power of Hispanics in the US, it makes perfect sense for Roku to be exclusively dedicated to this market,’ added the executive.
Bates specified that the portion of households that watch content in Spanish and watch The Roku Channel is almost 70%. She also highlighted that Espacio Latino has ‘thousands’ of hours of free on-demand content, as well as live TV channels, with a content offering that ranges from news to entertainment and sports.
‘Espacio Latino will have a robust catalog of titles from our Spanish partners and content providers such as Lionsgate, Cinedigm, A+E Networks, BBC Studios, Sony Pictures Television, Film Movement, Pantaya, Estrella TV, TelevisaUnivision, beIN SPORTS, as well as 50 channels dedicated to all genres for the Hispanic public,’ Bates remarked, who also informed that she has also signed agreements with NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, Eurochannel, Hemisphere Media Group, Cisneros Media, and for new FAST channels with The Weather Channel in Spanish and Canela TV.
On the other hand, the director assured that this section will also have productions with the Roku Original label, one of its first titles being the series Mamas, narrated by Zoe Saldaña, while its second production would be the series Natural born Narcos, and Delicious, co-produced with Robert Rodríguez of El Rey Network, which premieres in December.
Regarding the offering for brands, Bates commented that Roku will continue to bring ‘all the benefits’ of being an advertising partner: ‘We will continue to have half the commercials than traditional TV, but with the differentiator of being spaces selected for each consumer. Likewise, for our advertisers, we offer the most complete information on the traffic of their campaigns and audiences, so that they continue to grow as a brand’.
