28 APR 2020
SPECIAL CONTENT

ED BORDER: “NETFLIX IS FOCUSING LESS ON WHERE CONTENT COMES FROM”

During the week spanning March 23 to 29, the three most viewed titles on Netflix were all made in Spain. The Research Director at Ampere Analysis explains the reason behind the worldwide success of Spanish content.

During the week spanning March 23 to 29, the three most viewed titles on Netflix were all made in Spain, according to a research by Ampere Analysis. In detail, “Elite,” “Toy Boy” and “The Platform” were the three most watched titles outside the United States, dominating across Spain and Latin America, but also showing strong uptake in major European markets such as France and Germany.

This demonstrates that Spanish-produced titles are proving an international hit for Netflix. “In South America in particular a lot of consumers are watching foreign language series more often than local content. A lot of that has previously been served by US content, but now some countries like Argentina or Mexico are receiving Spanish content that comes in with the same quality as the American content they were getting used to. The culture impact also plays a factor,”  commented Ed Border, Research Director at Ampere Analysis, in conversation with Señal News.

The specialist noted that Spanish content is also doing really well in America, which has a large Hispanic people population, but that does not mean that the success of these series is given by the language, as they are also performing well in European countries such as Germany, France and the UK.

“It is becoming increasingly common now for non-English language titles to perform well in foreign countries. There are differences in terms of how that content needs to be addressed for different markets. In English-speaking markets, for example, is very common for content to just be subtitled. However, in other markets, like Asia or South America, dubbing is more common,”  Border said. “There are different approaches, but what we see is that Netflix is trying to offer content to an international audience, focusing less on where that content comes from,”  he added.

According to Ampere Analysis’ report, the increase in Spanish-language content is helping Netflix create an appealing service to its growing Latin American audience, which together with Spain, makes up around one third of international subscriptions. On the other side of the world, a similar story is taking place with South Korea, a market whose titles perform strongly across South-East Asia and Japan.

While some of these titles are Netflix original productions, most of Netflix’s Spanish and Korean content is licensed on an exclusive basis – where a title may be produced by a local broadcaster, with international rights then subsequently sold on to Netflix. This arrangement provides a cost-effective way for Netflix to target key parts of its increasingly international subscriber base – with Spain and Korea currently acting as content hubs for wider regions.

“Netflix’s subscriber base is increasingly international. It started off as a very American-focused platform, but is becoming to be dominated by Europe, which is the largest market outside America now, followed by South America and Asia. In order to better localize for these markets and provide more content that can resonate there, Netflix is starting to buy more and more rights. However, it is a large territory to cover, and you cannot but content from every single country. That is why they are doing two things – they are producing more originals in those regions, and contacting local producers to distribute their content globally. Therefore, they identify a couple of key hubs and work from there,”  Border explained.

Lastly, the Research Director at Ampere Analysis pointed out that, due to the production of originals and exclusives almost everywhere in the world, Netflix is growing at least a little bit in every market. “When you see the charts, the real growth comes from regions where Netflix is trying to expand. You see a great diversity in what sort of originals Netflix is buying and where are they coming from, and you see a less and less reliance on some of the major countries they originally work with. Now they are trying to diversify more and more,”  Border concluded.

By Federico Marzullo

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