Trade Fair Rio2C Wraps Reflecting Brazil’s Streaming Market Battle

variety.com:

Marcelo Cajueiro Rio2C 2022, one of Latin America’s largest entertainment industry trade meet wrapped May 1 reflecting the huge competition between streaming players in Brazil, the region’s main market.The first in-person Rio2C since 2019 featured sessions with over 200 market players, including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, HBO Max and local giant Globoplay, which are said to figure in this order on informal Brazil’s SVOD market rankings, as companies do not disclose subscription figures.Even though Brazil has a population of 214 million, only about 20 million pay for video content, noted Fabio Lima, founder and CEO of local Sofa Digital, a VOD aggregator.

It is not for lack of interest – 100 million Brazilians or more watch free-of-charge videos on YouTube and telenovelas on free-to-air TV –  but of money, in a country where income is highly concentrated and the majority of the population has to cope with severe economic crisis. “In order to break this 20 million growth barrier, streaming companies will have to offer Brazilian content in Portuguese with extremely high appeal for the local audiences,” Lima told Variety.He speculated that the favorite genre could be an evolution of  telenovelas, which have a long tradition in Brazil dating back to radio dramas.

Now being made, what some call “elevated soap operas” have fewer episodes and incorporate some sophisticated features of series.If so, Globoplay, the streaming arm of Brazil’s number one media group Globo, has a competitive advantage to fight the world giants operating here.

Since the 1970s, Globo is by a large head the free-to-air TV leader in Brazil and one the world’s top telenovela producers.“We have never faced this type of competition,” Erick Bretas,.