Think about prime time television viewing for a moment. A typical weekday line-up between 6 and 10 pm could include four half-hours shows and two hour-long series. Considering that different shows are broadcasted on different days, it's easy to see that in order for a network to complete a full line-up of programming, collaboration between content providers and the broadcaster is a must.
This scenario came to mind when discussing the maintaining of international alliances, as content providers for US television networks do not always stem from the continental 50 states. Much of the television content we consume comes from Canada as well as overseas (The Office, America's Got Talent, etc.). In the world of Spanish language television, the need to collaborate and maintain international alliances is even greater.
When looking at the 7 key issues in Alliance Management, we find that there are three strategic goals behind the logic of Collaboration: product exchange, corporate learning and market positioning (Gomes-Casseres, 2). This was applied to Rank Xerox and Fuji Photo in the reading - the 50/50 partnership between the two was a positioning strategy for Rank Xerox and a learning strategy for Fuji Photo (Gomes-Casseres, 3) - and this can easily be applied to the collaborative efforts between Telemundo Network and RTI Producciones (Productions) in Colombia.
As the second-largest producer of Spanish language content in the world, Telemundo Network has maintained strategic partnerships throughout Latin America. With the reading mind, the goals behind Telemundo's collaborative efforts is to acquire new content through product exchange and increasing its position in the global marketplace (Gomes-Casseres, 2).
According to the reading, there are alternatives to collaborating, such as "building the needed capability internally" (Gomes-Casseres, 4). In Telemundo's case, this would mean having to produce the original content itself. While Telemundo has the capability to do this for 1 or 2 telenovelas at a time, it simply would not be able to accomplish this for 4 telenovelas at a time. These hour-long programs air 5 days a week in comparison to once a week for English language television, or the general market.
Another alternative to collaboration would be for Telemundo to actually purchase the content like other networks might. Again, for hour-long programs that run 5 days a week, the network would prefer to be more involved with the content and have more control. So much rides on these programs (ratings, revenue, relevance) that collaboration is essential.
Reference
Gomes-Casseres, (1993). "Managing International Alliances: A Conceptual Framework." Harvard Business School. pp. 1-20.
Phillip, you say that Telemundo aims to acquire new content through product exchange, but then you mention that purchasing content is not an option because Telemundo wants some control over the programing. In the product exchange, does Telemundo voice their options and have control over content/programs made by other organizations? Or is that only for their own programming?
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of times when these alliances have ended or failed? What were the causes of it?
Content exchange doesn't necessarily mean purchasing. I'll clarify - Telemundo does purchase some content, but this content is normally daytime content and other shows like games or courtroom "Judge Judy" types. But when it comes to prime time, that's our bread and butter and control is necessary, especially when you air 5 hours a week for up to three months. So I guess the more content it receives, the more control the network would like to enjoy. I hope that makes a little sense.
DeleteIn response to your second question, yes, this happens. Perhaps the most high-profile occurence is the relationship between Televisa in Mexico and Univision in the U.S. To put it bluntly, these entities hate each other and they are counting the days until their contract dissolves in 2016.
Interesting post, Phillip. When it comes to the question of developing programming/capabilities internally versus finding production partners, how does Telemundo tackle the challenge of an audience with different levels of acculturation? Are there some programs designed primarily for a Spanish-only audience and some for an audience with more bilinguality? Also, with the Spanish-speaking audience identifying with many different Spanish-speaking countries in Central and Latin America, how does Telemundo fulfill the programming needs of, say, Mexican-Americans and Colombian-Americans?
ReplyDeleteGreat question, Andrew. And it all comes down to numbers and hard census data when the network makes key marketing and programming decision (even the ethnicity of the actor playing the lead). What it all boils down to is this: you can't please everyone. The objective of having fresh and original content means that said content has to reflect today's Hispanic consumer or viewer with today's themes. And since 1 out of every 10 people in the U.S. (everyone not just Hispanics) is of Mexican decent, according to US Census data, guess what ethnic group or sub Hispanic group gets top consideration? That also means you could hear English and Spanglish in some of our programming.
DeleteThis growing population reflects a lot of the moves that we'll be seeing VERY soon with Fox (launching MundoFox this summer), and ABC's partnership with Univision to create a bilingual news channel.