RioContentMarket 2017: rethink strategies to grow

When RCM was launched back in 2011, near 1.200 executives attended, and in 2016 this number grew up to 3700 participants from over 35 countries, with a 75% of the companies being independent producers and 25% being TV channels and OTT platforms and foreign producers. The organizers expect a similar number of attendees this year.

This event, which is unique in Latin America, emerged because there was a concrete need from the industry: to gather the ever-growing independent producers community, born and developed thanks to these public funding. In essence, RCM is a production market, but it is necessary that the organizers rethink and implement new strategies in order to attract international distributors that are targeting Brazil, which represents over 50% of the regional audiovisual business.

Here is one of the big challenges: how is it possible to add to the established production market, a space focused on content distribution. Prensario heard that big global companies are interested in taking part of the show, but still can’t find the best way to attract the local buyers. They are in Rio, but most of them, don’t take meeting on site. RCM should do extra efforts to understand and attend this need from the international marketplace.

With 0.52% of the country’s total revenue and generating 98.700 direct jobs and 107.600 indirect jobs, the Brazilian audiovisual market remains strong and as one of the few sustainable business models facing the economic reality of the country and the region, and thanks to a scheme where all the links of the chain work together.

And RCM is fully showing this trend: SBT + Mixer + Fox Life = A Garota da Moto; Band + Hungry Man + TNT = Terminadores; or Record + Endemol Shine + Discovery Home & Health = Batalha dos Confeiteiros com Buddy Valastro were some of the successful association cases in 2015/2016. ‘Partnering in strategic projects is the best way to have high-quality content with international projection’, highlight to Prensario key representatives of all sectors.

Government has become the most important player in the TV industry thanks to promotion policies. Until mid-January 2017, Government approved 593 proposals for the financing of feature films and 531 for series and telefilms. It has also invested in 263 projects under development and 69 creative centers in all regions of the country, which will generate 398 new audiovisual projects.

During RCM 2016, Manoel Rangel, president, Ancine, announced that a federal judge denied a claim for a court filing of an international telecommunications company operating in Brazil, and approved a 28% increase in the tax the government charges from telecoms and redistributes to the audiovisual sector, which in April/May last year reached R$ 1 billion (about USD 250 million).

Even in this context, Brazil's challenging political-economic reality during last few years, coupled with the sharp devaluation of 2016, forced the audiovisual industry to rethink strategies to improve costs without losing the quality of production, of which the country is a reference internationally.

Rodrigo Cantisano, from Rio de Janeiro