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Great narratives know no borders. That’s one reason BBC Worldwide sought out Endemol Shine Brazil for a new partnership intended to take advantage of both Brazil’s potential and growth in the Latin American television industry.
The partnership grants Endemol Shine Brazil — part of the Endemol Shine Group, which is in 30 countries around the world — the right to locally produce scripted and non-scripted formats from BBC’s entertainment catalog. This deal, announced in October, will not affect any previously format agreements BBC Worldwide has in place in Brazil.
It is the first partnership of this type that BBC Worldwide — the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)—has signed in Latin America in the field of formats. BBC Worldwide has worked with Endemol Shine Brazil in other countries, and operates similar agreements in the region with other players, such as Televisa in Mexico.
According to Anna Gordon, EVP and managing director of BBC Worldwide Latin America/US Hispanic, the alliance fits perfectly with BBC Worldwide’s mission of “providing Latin American audiences with the best of British creativity, especially focusing on new content and formats.”
In turn, Juliana Algañaraz, Endemol Shine Brazil’s general manager, highlights the fact that “we are two big content and formats producers in the world,” as well as pointing to Endemol Shine Brazil’s extensive experience in the local market, having been in the country since 1999.
With this in mind, the partners will deploy their unique expertise.
“We are all in the same line when we talk about our method of work, which is based on a constant search for high-quality productions and new ideas when we look to producing formats in the world of entertainment,” says Algañaraz.
What Endemol Shine Brazil brings to the table are its excellent relationships with both free-to-air and pay channels, the knowledge of the Brazilian market and its audience, and its past experience in adapting formats. All of this helps the company discover which formats will work best in the region, turning them into what Algañaraz calls “the Brazilian mode.”
“We know how to do storytelling so that the Brazilian market enjoys the formats we are producing,” Algañaraz says.
And Gordon asserts that “great narratives know no boundaries and therefore we strive to take the best and greatest British content to more Brazilian viewers every day,” she says.
Gordon describes Brazil, a country in which the BBC already has operated for more than 80 years, as “a vibrant market, with great growth potential. We believe it offers our company great expansion possibilities, both in linear and non-linear platforms, in addition to being a country where our content traditionally has been very well received.”
Proof of this are the many natural history programs and documentaries broadcast for years on Globo, as well as the interest generated by recent deals made by BBC Worldwide with OTT platforms such as Looke and Claro.
Other British formats also have resonated deeply with the Brazilian audience, such as Bake Off Brasil—Mão na Massa, a cooking program based on BBC One’s The Great British Bake Off that has broken ratings records for SBT and Discovery Home & Health in Brazil; or Esquadrão da Moda, a makeover show based on the original format What not to Wear from Discovery Home & Health and BBC that’s in its 11th season on SBT.
“All of this demonstrates the potential our content and formats have in one of Latin America’s most important markets,” says Gordon.
Upcoming are adaptations such as Hair — a reality show that’s searching for Britain’s best hairdresser, presented by Steve Jones on BBC Three and Katherine Ryan on BBC Two; Stupid Man, Smart Phone (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rv90y), a travel program hosted by English actor Russell Kane aimed to prove anyone can survive anywhere in the world with just a cell phone; or Strictly Come Dancing, BBC One’s reality television series in that’s already been adapted in many countries around the world, including the U.S., as Dancing with the Stars.
As a first step to consolidate the partnership, BBC Worldwide named Carolina Alckmin producer of new initiatives in the Brazilian market “in order to promote the fast development of quality productions with scripted and non-scripted content,” says Gordon.
In addition, she says having Endemol Shine Brazil as a local partner “allows us to strengthen our relations and interactions with other potential partners in the country, gather first-hand market intelligence and identify productions and topics that generate interest in the Brazilian audience.”
She hopes “the success of this partnership will allow to extend this model to other markets in Latin America.”
One of the greatest achievements already brought about by this partnership is “that we can both expand our own format catalog and now we can even work with BBC’s complete catalog, sharing experiences and offering our clients a wider option of high-quality formats,” says Algañaraz.
RELATED: BBC Worldwide Une Fuerzas con Endemol Shine Brasil
Translation courtesy of Mariangeles Attademo
[Cube image of BBC Worldwide’s Anna Gordon courtesy of Realscreen]
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