Epic productions like game of Thronesfrom drug traffickers like Breaking Bad or spies like The lobbyist They are creations of scriptwriters passed through the sieve of producers before going to the screen, a filter that is often carried out through studies that include metrics on networks and on the platforms themselves, marketing studies, focus groups, surveys and works. linked to sociology and psychology.
“It’s crazy,” the Head of Talent Management and Scripted Development at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) said last year. Monica Albuquerque, consulted by the press. From that company, Marcela Doriahead of the Data & Insights department, explained exclusively to Infobae how the kitchen works in the house of successful creations like The Bronze Garden.
“It is a fairly technical area and sometimes we say that it is the brain of everything because when we make a decision we do so based on the data,” said Doria, in an interview by video call from Miami, where she is based in what can be defined as the media giant’s headquarters for Latin America. With a past in corporations like X (when it was called Twitter), this technique knows well what it means to read data and how to diversify studies.
The “pillars”, as she calls the strengths of her department, are the performance of the brands and their positioning; market intelligence, where she sees the progress of the competition and “the streaming market in general”; the data area related to navigability on the Max platform and the “purchase and consumption” sector.
“In the area of content production and development, consumer knowledge is analyzed and here you can see everything you can imagine. What is most relevant comes out of this area. And we do everything, focus groups, content testing to see how we continue. We do panel studies, brand trackers, there is a whole range of studies and analyzes with a tour of social networks to see how this or that topic or talents are doing. We see how this or that content responded. It’s quite a long job. Sometimes, months before seeing a production, we are already working with Communication,” Doria explained.
From Flow, Silvana Cataldo, the Business Owner of Entertainment at Telecom Argentina, explained to this portal that to know in depth the tastes and preferences of users, they are based on two sources of information. “The first,” she said, “identifying which content is the most chosen and what generates the most hours of consumption and, secondly, conducting research on customer searches and preferences.”
As it is a platform that integrates others, Cataldo commented that from his office the evolution of the habits of each segment is followed in order to define the content offer. “In this way,” he said, “as a super aggregator, we integrate into our selection of our own projects and content that arrives through traditional linear channels, the main distributors such as Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Star+, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ among others.”
Back to WDB and a more global vision, due to the company’s global reach, Doria explained that the research methodology does not vary by country, although what does change is the specific content. In this sense, they focus from the first moment on defining which productions will tend to be for local consumption and which have “possibility of traveling”, as they say in the jargon in reference to the chances of being seen in more than one country.
“Content that has the ability to travel, such as Happy Six either Ugly, which we know can leave Mexico and even Latin America, is feasible to be tested if it has that potential. “That varies a lot in terms of importance to the platform.” Ugly is a series based on Mexican gangs and their relationship with urban music; Happy six is an Argentine romantic comedy with Nico Furtado, Delfina Chaves, Malena Sánchez, Elisa Carricajo, Mónica Antonópulos, Andrea Rincón and Romina Ricciamong others.
“Argentina is an interesting country that highly values local culture.. We know that having content that speaks to what is Argentine is interesting and important. TO Sometimes what works in Mexico doesn’t work in Argentina because of the type of humor, to give an example. Soap operas do well in Brazil and Argentina too, but they are of a different type. The same thing happens in Colombia, although in this country a lot of other cultures are accepted. And Mexico is more conservative, so the stories are less daring. It is very interesting to see how each content works in each country,” said Doria.
In the case of Flow, Silvana Cataldo explained that to meet the demands of users they developed a platform that integrates not only the other OTTs (Over The Top, according to its acronym in English, in reference to the services that are mounted on Internet servers). Thus, they have come to the conclusion that the most consumed within its ecosystem are live productionsin what would be a parallel to the still alive open television, and the great musical events, which since the pandemic have had an explosion not only in ticket sales, but in their consumption through the internet.
“The music vertical – Cataldo indicated – had a sustained growth in demand on the platform and, accompanying this growth, we continue to produce the streaming of exclusive shows from the most important artists and festivals that take place in the country such as the Lollapaloozawhich had more than 1 million views on the platform for the third consecutive year.”
While the “live” numbers speak for themselves and show that television is still in operation, although in this “a la carte” service it is consumed after hours. In 2023, 200 million hours of live content consumed (newscasts, entertainment programs, sporting events) was delayed. “Live TV consumption continues to be the main attraction on our platform. Current affairs and news channels broadcasting events of great interest to the public and sports channels are the most chosen,” he said.
The entertainment proposal of flow It is made up of the convergence of content that comes from Pay TV, linear channels and the VOD catalog obtained from this world. The service has its own window of titles On Demand that are acquired from various industry allies such as production companies, studios and distributors.
Additionally, flow It has a national production strategy that is carried out together with partners to offer clients fiction, music and streaming. On this last point, Flow has accumulated more than 50 co-productions since its launch and for the current year it plans to release around five.
“In relation to their own projects, the Programming and Curation departments work on the analysis and evaluation of dozens of proposals that arrive at different stages and with the help of a large number of Product Owners (the owners of the products). These teams select those scripts and ideas that respond to the company’s strategic needs and that represent opportunities to satisfy the demand of the platform’s users,” said Cataldo.
“All the teams that make up flow -he added- they are aligned in contributing to the construction of a service with a clear purpose. From the acquisition of the product to the way it is presented to the customer, everything in the process is coordinated and aligned. Once the segment that is intended to be addressed is defined, the promotion, exhibition and communication strategies are designed, in a synchronized manner.”
The work of Data & Insights of WBD is not minor. They usually do so a year before the productions see the light of day, providing information not only on their own or co-produced content, but also on purchases that can be made in markets and festivals such as Cannes, San Sebastián, Berlin or Ventana Sur.
“We feed the daily departments. We are their instrument to be prepared for these talks, although it is not something they ask us or in which we participate,” he clarified. Marcela Doria. With the 2024 productions already “mapped” and with the 2025 productions advanced, the analyst aims to work with enough time to set up focus groups on two or three chapters, although sometimes, she said, she must go to her own panels if the time allows. urges them.
“All this is planned in January to see our calendar to December. It is something that never stops because it is always rechecked. It is something proactive that comes from the production and development team. Sometimes what you do is look at the trends. The true crime They were very strong and we investigated how to develop it. We pass that on a monthly basis to the departments,” said Doria.
Flow’s work is similar: “The data input we obtain from the studies and research we carry out is useful both for producing content and for purchasing it or exploiting new genres and targets,” he reports. Silvana Cataldo.
Thus, the image that cinema often returns to us in films like Trumbo (2015, Jay Roach), mank (2020, David Fincher), The sweet life (1960, Federico Fellini) either Sunset Boullevard (1951, Billy Wilder), with tormented writers with cigarettes and whiskeys, can be exchanged in this new modernity for desks with computers, programmers and data analysts who investigate the same thing as any screenwriter: the interests of human beings and how to bring this to the screen.
[Fotos: prensa Max, Warner, Flow]
