As digital video continues to vie for consumers’ attention, nearly half (48.4%) of Mexico’s population—or 61.0 million people—will watch streaming or downloaded video content via any device at least once per month in 2019, according to a new eMarketer estimation.
As broadband and mobile Internet speeds continue to improve and more people go online for the first time, a nascent cord-cutting culture is taking hold. This is affecting the pay TV landscape, which the company discusses in its recent report, "Latin America Digital Video 2019".
According to Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), the number of total pay TV subscribers in Mexico decreased from 19.2 million in December 2018 to 18.7 million by the end of March 2019. Despite this, Mexico is still Latin America’s biggest pay TV market, according to calculations based on data from local government agencies.
Televisa is one of the country’s most powerful and influential TV networks, controlling 59.9% of the pay TV market, according to March 2019 data from the IFT. The group has played a major role in boosting the popularity of Spanish-language TV content, having produced some of the most popular telenovelas in the region.
Because of changing video-viewing behaviors, Televisa has had to adapt its strategy, including what it does on YouTube. Andrés Bayona, content and digital production manager at Televisa, said that using YouTube’s “Premieres” feature has been effective in bridging the provider’s TV and digital video content.
“We discovered that YouTube is an excellent platform to allocate digital long-form content, as well as a great way to serve as an extension of linear productions or what you essentially see on the TV screen,” Bayona said. “We’ve had great success finding these integrations between linear TV and digital through YouTube with this strategy,” he added.
As Mexican consumers’ viewing habits continue to change, no single company can predict what the future holds. However, Bayona firmly believes that “you can certainly create it—and video content is a great way to do that”.
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