In order to diversify the content business, Megamedia undertook, in addition to selling formats and finished programs, to internationalize its IPs, assuming the executive production of their adaptations in new markets. One of the first to debut this business model is the adaptation of Papa a La Deriva, for Latina TV (Peru), whose local version will be called Papa en Apuros.
‘This business model that we are presenting to new partners is possible thanks to María Eugenia Rencoret, our director of the dramatic area, who is capable of producing almost six annual fiction productions’, said Rodrigo Norambuena, Development Director of Megamedia.
The executive explained that this agreement between both broadcasters arose from the Peruvian channel’s need to have local fiction in its programmatic offering. ‘They knew about the success of our television series in Chile and the formats in various parts of the world and they wanted us to produce one of our most successful formats’.
The business model consisted of Mega incorporating, in addition to the sale of its format, its executive production. ‘This is how today Papá en Apuros already has an airing date and we are already working on the second title to be produced in the first quarter of 2024′, Norambuena added.
Challenges of adapting to a new market
For Rencoret, production and know-how in a new market was a ‘challenge’. The executive highlighted that they had to study the Peruvian audience to achieve a successful adaptation: ‘An important challenge is studying the local audience. The behavior and habits of the audiences where the production will take place. Understand their idiosyncrasies and from there choose well the story that we are going to propose to them. In this way the plot and its conflicts become closer and are identified with the public’.
This format is an adaptive example in several markets, but for this to be possible, Rencoret believes that universal values such as love and human emotions are necessary for this to be possible: ‘In an adaptation it is essential that the story can be recognized and easily digested by the public. In this framework, there are different emotions that are very important, but the determining and most transversal one is love. Stories of crossed, idyllic, difficult and impossible loves, in short. Love stories that can be approached in different ways depending on each theme’.
