Challenges of a new reality in the audiovisual sector

The Television Academy and Fundación Telefónica organize a meeting between television managers and professionals to talk about the challenges facing the sector.

Within the cycle #RethinkingTomorrow the Academy of Television and Audiovisual Sciences and Arts and the Telefónica Foundation They have organized the event online Challenges of a new reality in the audiovisual sector, a meeting between television managers and professionals to talk about the challenges facing the sector.

The event, held yesterday, included the participation of Mario Lopez, antenna director of Atresmedia Linear Channels; Carmen Amores, general director of CMMedia; Alex Martínez Roig, content director of Movistar+; and Xelo Montesinos, founder of Unicorn Content. Jota Abril, presenter and member of the Board of Directors of the Television Academy, has been in charge of moderating the meeting.

How are work teams adapting? Have consumer habits changed? How has the way of making television changed? What are the challenges of upcoming television? These have been some of the questions that Jota Abril has asked all the speakers and that they have tried to answer.

In the first phase, Mario López explains that “we had to reorganize our entire schedule and we had the complicity of all the producers and content providers.” In a second phase “we reflected on the panorama we were facing, above all, economically in terms of advertising income to unravel the possible impact on the grid.” “Many of the things that have happened to us have forced us to have much more flexible operating structures when it comes to producing and programming,” he comments. Furthermore, Mario López during the day spoke about consumer trends, pointing out that "individuality is a trend that we have been observing for many years. The viewer watches television as they want, where they want and when they want and technology allows that to be the case." Without forgetting the great work done by all the professionals, Mario López affirms that "we must thank the viewers because they have once again demonstrated that television is crucial in the social debate that occurs every day. Very high consumption rates have been achieved, demonstrating the great relevance it has."

Carmen Amores valued all the work carried out by the regional television stations: “it has been very important in this pandemic due to our vocation for proximity and the relevance that our news programs have in each of the communities.” Furthermore, he comments, "technology has shown all the positive things it has and, above all, that it helps and optimizes all forms of communication. We have learned from the difficulties and we will keep the good things about technology."

Álex Martínez Roig comments that they have had a double challenge since "being generators of entertainment, at the same time, a company like Telefónica felt that we had to guarantee connectivity. In this sense, we have gone from having a fairly distanced prime time to having use of the network throughout the day." Regarding the 2020 budgets, Martínez Roig affirms that they are continually reinventing it. "There has been no savings here, what has happened is that we have not been able to spend or invest because we have not had the capacity to produce and we have had to stop many of the productions that were planned." Furthermore, he points out that "it would be important to start thinking that collaboration is essential in the world of platforms. We will not go anywhere alone."

"With everything we have experienced, we have discovered new ways of working and new ways of getting ahead with the means we have available. Many things are here to stay," says Xelo Montesinos. In addition, she feels the responsibility of guaranteeing the correct security protocols among her work teams: "as a producer, I have to allocate a part of my budgets to security protocols and, in the face of new projects, the budgets will be adjusted more because we are in a stage in which advertising is going to decrease."

This collaboration is framed within the cycle Rethinking tomorrow from the Telefónica Foundation, an ambitious initiative that aims to draw a panorama of what the post-covid-19 world will be like and the challenges and opportunities that we are going to face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCSq-rLCNLk