RCN Colombia is empowering its international division. At Mipcom the company took a big suite in front of The Palais and introduced its different business units: the broadcaster —which now has the two leading programs in Colombian prime time—; content production for the free TV channel, from telenovelas to sports, news; international co-productions, as Cafe con Aroma de Mujer with NBC Telemundo; and production services for third parties, as Top Chef VIP for Telemundo, MasterChef for Ecuador and Chile, etc.
Alexander Marin, head of international: ‘With the recent international market trends, there is an expansion opportunity for the Latin content, if it combines quality product with international deployment. We want to push the chance as much as possible. The broadcaster is in a big moment in Colombia and we are developing fast both the co-productions and production services divisions. For the latter RCN has incorporated Eduardo Bandera, with strong expertise due to his years in Mexican Televisa’.
The broadcaster has nowadays at the top of the Colombian ratings Leandro Díaz, an original production that is released simultaneously at RCN and Amazon Prime Video, and Café con Aroma de Mujer, the 1994 Fernando Gaitan’s classic telenovela with Guy Ecker and Margarita Rosa, that has overcome in ratings even big entertainment formats at TV competitors.
María Lucía Hernández, international sales director: ‘To work together with OTT platforms is a great business formula, because we both have huge brand-new product, we share costs and the promotion synergizes each other. Apart from Leandro Díaz with Amazon, we have Te la dedico with HBOMax Latin America, among other projects to come’.
Eduardo Bandera, head of production services division: ‘We’ve started three months ago and we already have a good amount of projects moving forward. The idea is to bring talent to RCN, to be a production house for all kinds of content ventures, related to the broadcaster or anyone else, with different business formulas and partners per project. Colombia, due to its central position, its technology development and natural talent, is perfect for this’.
