Violeta Trincado: “We have given top priority to selecting the best projects”

Eccho Rights continues to expand its catalog in Spanish-speaking countries after closing sales with Caracol in Colombia, Canal 13 in Chile, TVN in Panama, and a channel in Spain for the Turkish drama "I Am Mother." Señal News interviewed Violeta Trincado, Sales Coordinator for LATAM and Spain at Eccho Rights, to understand the company's business's progression in the Americas.

How do you analyze the business growth opportunities for the Latin American market?
"It is no secret that the Latin American market has struggled, perhaps more than any other globally, since the pandemic. Advertising revenues are down, broadcasters have to take a conservative approach, and where we once were able to introduce a top Turkish title to buyers and see it spread quickly across the region, it is now not so easy, even if the content is proven to work in Turkey and elsewhere around the world. That said, we are seeing signs that the market is ready to start mounting a comeback. We have titles that are slowly but surely taking hold – we just announced the first round of deals for 'I am Mother' in Latam," with the title dubbed for the LAS audience; we expect to see this title really take off. Then, we also see an excellent opportunity to bring more daily drama to the region. For 10 years, we saw unbelievable success with our title ELIF – it was a lower-budget production without an A-list cast, but it captured the hearts of Latin American audiences. We see that other daily titles in our lineulineupe' Winds of Love" and the brand new 'A Journey to Belong,' have a great chance to do something similar. Of course, there are also opportunities in co-production, and we are excited to see an increasing number of LatAm-Turkish productions appear. It will be fascinating to see how these new production models succeed and what doors they open up."

What is Eccho Rights' strategy for meeting the different needs of the region's clients?
"We have always prioritized selecting the best projects, with a great script, top acting talent, and a reputable director being an absolute minimum requirement. Operating entirely independent of production companies and broadcasters allows us to be very selective and ensure that we only work with series that we truly believe have the potential to work for our clients. At the same time, we remain committed to offering a diverse range of series and having several strings to our bow. We are growing our English-language series particularly strongly at the moment, which gives us a chance to work with the types of broadcasters and platforms for whom a 120 x 45' Turkish Drama series is not a feasible acquisition!"

How do you analyze the never-ending growth of Turkish drama worldwide?
"While we have been enjoying the huge global success of Turkish series for more than 10 years now, it is exciting to consider how much of the world is yet to embrace these dramas fully, and what still lies ahead – Africa is becoming a more regular sales territory but has plenty more potential, and the same could be said of much of Asia. Following Spain's example, France and Italy have started to take more of a chance on Turkish content, and the last great hurdle will perhaps be being embraced by English-speaking territories where dubbed content is a harder sell. But with the growth of premium shorter-form series, such as 'Beneath the Surface,' which we launched at Mipcom, we see an opportunity to break Turkish series there as well, as the proliferation of foreign language content on platforms like Netflix has started to gain traction for even English-speaking viewers."

Eccho Rights just signed a deal to distribute O3 Medya's "The Cost of Lies." What expectations do you have for the show's global distribution?
"We are really excited about 'The Cost Of Lies. It is a rather unconventional family story that feels very modern but also consists of the key elements we count on for a successful Turkish Drama series: love and sacrifice, family and loyalty, revenge and redemption, class conflict and social issues, identity, and transformation. The initial reception at Mipcom was excellent, and we have been delighted to see the series delivering excellent ratings straight away on Show TV, so our clients are assured of a long-running success!"

At Mipcom, Eccho Rights announced a deal for the "Queens of Tears" remake. How important is that show for the company's global portfolio?
"We are so excited to be once again working with a hugely successful format from our friends at CJ ENM. We have a long history of working with Korean scripts and have enjoyed great success on adaptations in the past. Having O3 Medya take care of this adaptation is just a perfect marriage, and we know they will do an excellent job of this beautiful, romantic script. They have highly ambitious plans for the casting of the project, which has the potential to be an enormous global hit!"