Globo, a major Brazilian TV broadcaster, entered the streaming battlefield in 2015 with the launch of Globoplay, its dedicated VOD service that combines the broadcasters’ extremely popular soap operas with high-quality original drama, sports and international content, including major American programs.
Since then, the service has expanded to the United States market, serving mainly Brazilian expatriates, and the plan is to grow even more internationally in 2021. Deadline spoke with the company’s digital director in California, Erick Bretas, who oversees all of Globo’s online operations, including Globoplay, to discuss plans for next year.
Bretas reveals that the streaming platform should be available across Europe by the end of the year, but will remain focused on the Brazilian audience. The original strategy is increasing, with 82 programs now running or under development, but the pandemic remains a challenge for production.
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Globo also recently hosted a dedicated ‘Upfront’ event in a digital incarnation, partly because NATPE Miami, which starts today, is being held in a reduced online form this year. During this event, the company revealed that it now has 101.6 million users in all of its digital products, with 30 million users in its paid layers and supported by Globoplay ads.
In terms of content, the company says the newly released supernatural drama Without soul is your most ambitious project to date, while promoting projects like A brighter place, a mother’s love and the early return of his popular Hidden truths for a second season in 2021.
Overall, the company’s goal now is to merge digital operations across all of its businesses, Bretas tells us, as it prepares for a digital future where its main competitors will be companies like Netflix and Amazon, which have already made considerable advances in the market. and are accelerating investments.
DEADLINE: Hello Erick, can you start by giving us an overview of your responsibilities?
Globo / Sergio Zalis
ERICK BRETAS: I supervise the entire digital business of Globo, I am equivalent to a digital director. I also wear another hat as the leader of Globoplay. We have many other digital businesses [alongside the streaming service] and we are entering new ventures.
We launched Globoplay five years ago, at first it was a service that was intended to complement TV Globo, but over time it gained strength and today it is a more independent service.
DEADLINE: What can you tell us about Globoplay’s subscriber base?
BREAST: We do not disclose the total number of our subscribers, Netflix does not do so with specific markets either. We protect these numbers. But I can say that we ended 2020 with an increase of 89% over the number of subscribers in 2019. It was not only the pandemic, we also had Big Brother Brazil which is very popular in Brazil and boosts our subscriptions – some people tend to give up after the show, but others remain because they are attracted by the general content of series, films, soap operas. But Big Brother it’s something that people use to discover Globo, it’s our biggest program.
2020 was a great year. We are broadcasting 100 million hours every month. Most of them are subscribers, we also have free content for viewing. If you are not a subscriber, you can watch some news, variety shows, interviews and short clips of the soap operas.
DEADLINE: It is clear that your market share in Brazil is huge, how is Globoplay’s presence in the USA now?
BREAST: Is small. Our international strategy is not to hinder large platforms. It is to assist Brazilian expatriates. What we are discovering, however, is that many of these Brazilians are in international families, and people started asking us to subtitle programs for families to watch together. This extends our content to a wider audience.
DEADLINE: What about the broader international strategy?
BREAST: Our plan is to expand internationally. We must pass through Europe this year, our plan is to make Globoplay available worldwide. We have feeds from our linear channels (available on the digital service) that are adapted to individual time zones. But we are always focused on Brazilians who live abroad.
Globe
One of the ways in which we want our content to reach wider audiences is by seeking partnerships with global or regional streaming services. There are other very strong regional services, like Stan in Australia, Joyn in Germany, iFlix in Southeast Asia. The idea is to strengthen our relationships by exchanging content or, in some cases, co-producing together. You will see more of this. Although everyone is talking about streaming services in the United States, we see more and more relevant services in national markets, like us.
DEADLINE: It’s competitive out there, and the American giants have deep pockets …
BREAST: I think that these services will coexist with the great services of the United States because I don’t think that companies in the United States will be able to produce local content with the same quality and with the same understanding of the national markets as the local actors. My personal belief is that we will see the coexistence of local and global streaming services. But I cannot predict how many will remain from these smoking wars, it is difficult to sustain markets where you have 12-15 services.
DEADLINE: Who are your main competitors in Brazil?
BREAST: Netflix is very big in Brazil. They designed their international expansion strategy in Brazil, arriving there after expanding for the first time to the English-speaking territories of the United Kingdom and Canada. They produce a lot of local content. Amazon is also starting to produce local content, and Disney has just arrived and plans to produce a lot. We are also seeing movement from HBO, which already produces for its pay TV business and probably also for its streaming service. All the big guys are producing in the Brazilian market.
We have a few other local streaming players. Our competitor Record TV has PlayPlus, which is similar to Globoplay. We have Looke, which is more focused on the transaction, but they also have some SVOD. It is a very populous market.
DEADLINE: And do you believe that Globoplay is the fastest growing platform in Brazil?
BREAST: We think that sometime in 2020 we were the ones that grew the most. It is difficult to say why companies do not disclose their actual figures. Sometimes, specific programs mean that the number of subscribers increases in a given month, fluctuates a lot.
DEADLINE: Even without these specific numbers, do you know what your market position is in terms of the overall number of subscribers?
Globe
BREAST: In the Brazilian market, we are certainly the second or third, behind Netflix and maybe Amazon, with whom we compete closely.
DEADLINE: Back to content, tell us about co-production and content partnerships.
BREAST: Last year, we launched the amazing show The head, which was produced by Mediapro. They were very adept at forming a consortium of buyers / co-producers and we were one of them. They also had Hulu Japan, HBO Asia, Viaplay in Scandinavia.
We also have an agreement with Sony, we are producing Hamburg’s Angel together and there is a second show that will go into production this year. There are more conversations going on that I can’t reveal details about right now. We look for stories that can be told in different languages and for different audiences, there are so many stories that interest the Brazilian audience and that would also be of interest to an American or European audience, we have seven to eight projects like this in the pipeline that has characters that travel or relate to a real story or event that happened in several counties at the same time. So there is more to come.
DEADLINE: Do you mean different languages on the same show?
BREAST: Yes. Like Narcos, for example.
DEADLINE: We talked about Big Brother, what other content is successful on Globoplay? Is it mainly in Portuguese or is the English content also successful?
BREAST: Oh yes, we also license content from everyone, Disney, Warner, NBCU, everyone. We have very popular English programs. I would say that the most popular drama program that we have on our platform right now is The good doctor, which is Sony.
DEADLINE: You also have a broader agreement with Disney.
BREAST: We have a commercial partnership with Disney + where we add your service with Globoplay. We really believe that the two services are very complementary. If you want the best Brazilian content service, Globoplay is for sure your best option, and Disney + has the family-oriented line-up. It is an excellent combination and the price is very competitive, it is less than the Netflix premium subscription.
DEADLINE: With the expansion of Disney + to Brazil and other markets, do you expect this business to come to an end?
BREAST: It may come to an end, but I would say that Disney is happy and we are happy too, so there is no reason to think about ending this relationship right now.
DEADLINE: What can you tell us about the original side of Globoplay? Is this increasing?
BREAST: Yes, he is. We now have 82 programs under development or in production. We released 13 originals last year, despite the difficulties of the pandemic, and five of them were major dramas. Originals is the most important piece of our strategy now.
These programs were made for streaming, it is very different from an open TV program. For open TV, you target a broader audience and the narrative needs to be slower, so even if you miss the episodes, you can understand what’s going on. With streaming, the public is more involved and follows it more rigorously. You can demand more of them and be more nervous, give more information by chapter.
DEADLINE: Give us a taste of what’s to come …
BREAST: Hidden truths it is one of our biggest bets in 2021. It is the second part of a program that was first launched on open TV in 2015. It was so popular that the second part will be launched in streaming because we believe it will increase our subscriptions.
DEADLINE: What was the impact of the pandemic on production?
BREAST: We are starting to resume some productions now. It is still very challenging, as we are in the middle of a second wave. We are managing this very carefully, because, of course, the health of our employees is our priority. But we are managing to resume some with very strict guidelines, which means it is slower – you are producing 30-40% of what you would normally produce in a day. When we have the vaccine, that’s when we’ll be back in full force.
In Brazil, some of the global streaming services tried to move forward, but there were cases where the cast managed to Covid and had to end production. It is not easy to go full throttle at this point.
DEADLINE: It must also be expensive.
BREAST: Yes. We had a case in a specific program where the logistics were so complicated that the cost would rise to 120% more than the original budget, so in that case we suspend – we do not cancel – and we will only resume when we have the vaccine. In other cases, we are absorbing the rising costs.