Locating SVOD in Australia and Mexico: Stan and Blim contend with Netflix

Abstract

This study employs a comparative analysis of industrial practices and marketing campaigns utilised by subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platforms, Stan and Blim. It evaluates Stan’s creation and launch prior to the advent of Netflix in Australia, and the introduction of Blim well after Netflix had already established itself as the preferred SVOD in Mexico. Despite the substantial differences between the histories and impacts of these respective national television markets, this study identifies that both platforms have experienced relative success by capitalising on Netflix’s problematic ‘global’ status, by focusing on the production and distribution of content that is uniquely reflective of their geographic audiences. The aim of this research is to encourage scholarly inquiry into internet-distributed television to look beyond multinational portals like Netflix, to localise studies of transnational media and SVOD platforms and to consider the many ways that competing with Netflix has impacted the future of national television production.

Keywords

Blim Stan Netflix subscription video on demand local streaming

This article compares the industrial practices of the two national subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services of Australia and Mexico: Stan and Blim. This may seem incongruous, given that their respective industrial histories and impacts are undeniably very different. When compared to the United States or the United Kingdom, ‘the two countries that are most often represented in English language television studies’ (Pertierra and Turner, 2013: 13), Australia has played a narrow role in ‘the English-speaking market or Anglophone geolinguistic market’ (Straubhaar, 2007: 90), as well as in the global televisual landscape as a whole. Conversely, Mexico has ‘the same relation to the rest of the Spanish-speaking…world as the United States does to the English-speaking world’ (Sinclair, 2009: 141), catering meaningfully to ‘cultural-linguistic regions’ (Straubhaar, 2000: 202) in Latin America and beyond. However, existing scholarship has alluded to the value of linking Mexico and Australia’s attempts to contend with the hegemonic dominance of the Anglophone influence. Stevens and Paz Peirano (2015) have previously compared the ‘semi-peripheral nations and cultures’ of screen industries in Latin America and Australia to interrogate ‘their existence as “other” when compared to the more mainstream and better recognised products of the global north’. More specific to our study, Pertierra and Turner’s (2013: 10) pivotal ethnographic research used Australian and Mexican landscapes as specific examples of ‘zones of consumption’ that contribute to ‘television’s function as a social and cultural practice’. Likewise, then, this article is grounded in an analysis of the industrial practices of two semi-peripheral zones of consumption when compared to a dominant force: how both Australian and Mexican television industries, in spite of their differences, have exhibited an eerily similar relationship with, and approach to, competing with American-owned Netflix, in the SVOD sphere. Stan and Blim have each experienced relative success by focusing on the production and distribution of content that is uniquely reflective of their national audiences. Thus, our comparative study suggests that despite Netflix’s best efforts to establish itself as a ‘truly’ global service (Netflix US, 2017), or perhaps more aptly a ‘multi-national’ service (Lobato, forthcoming: 70), these national streaming platforms have been able to capitalise on the global behemoth’s inability to ever become ‘truly local’, even as it has started to develop original slates in Australia and Mexico. Thus, this research seeks to encourage future scholarly inquiry into the digital distribution of television to look beyond multinational portals like Netflix, to localise studies of transnational media and SVOD platforms and to consider the many ways that competing with Netflix has impacted the future of local television production.

For some time, television scholarship has considered the national/transnational duality that the medium straddles. ‘For much of its history’, writes Chalaby (2005: 1), ‘television has been closely bound to a national territory’; but, as Lobato (forthcoming: 51) contends, ‘successive technologies have undermined this structure, complicating television’s spatial dynamics’. Reminiscent of the early apprehensions surrounding satellite and cable, recent assessments of internet-distributed television (particularly of SVOD portals) have largely focused on the ramifications of the unprecedented expansion and escalation of multinational platforms like Netflix (Hallinan and Striphas, 2016; Lotz, 2017; McDonald and Smith-Rowsey, 2016; Wayne, 2018). In doing so, SVOD has been demarcated as distinctively ‘global’, which is understandable given the revolutionary rhetoric that surrounded the ‘birth of [the] global TV network’ (Hastings, 2016). As Lobato (forthcoming: 11-12) writes, Netflix is undeniably a ‘multinational SVOD service that spans national borders and operates in a large number of countries simultaneously, represent[ing] a particular configuration of global television that requires study and theorization’. However, recent scholarship (Cunningham and Silver, 2013; Global Internet TV Consortium, 2018; Lobato, forthcoming) has also alluded to, and begun to assess, the many ways in which Netflix’s profound reach and impact has in fact been constrained or negotiated. Lobato (forthcoming), in particular, considers mediation at a national level, problematising Netflix’s status as a global media provider. Future scholarly work on recent technological screen advances and the rapidly changing trends they create must not only consider what the dominant player in the market is doing but also how minor competitors respond. This article posits that one way that this work could be furthered is by assessing how SVOD portals have not just been utilised as a means to simplify simultaneous access to foreign content to numerous international markets, but also exploited at the national level by location specific and geographically bound services that both respond to, and compete against, multinational players such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now, CBS All Access and Hayu. Thus, this article embraces Miller’s (2010) emphasis on television’s persistent industrial continuities, particularly in production and advertising, to stress the reality largely overlooked by existing scholarship: that just as content and audiences have retained national distinctions, so too have SVOD platforms. Television institutions – broadcast and digital alike – remain largely territorially based, despite global concerns and pressures. After all, it has been suggested that by 2022, the current SVOD market could double in some regions, due in large part to the ‘strengthening of offerings from local media providers’ (Broadband TV News, 2018). Accordingly, Netflix is only one of the numerous platforms that should be examined; Australia’s Stan and Mexico’s Blim can serve as an interesting entry point for uncovering the evolving landscape of SVOD services.

Stan and Blim

Stan is a joint venture between the Nine Network, a local free-to-air television broadcaster, and newspaper/digital media company, Fairfax (these entities merged in July 2018). It launched on 26 January (Australia Day) 2015, a month before Netflix arrived. Although it only has approximately 1500 discrete titles (Justwatch, 2018), it has established itself as the country’s second most successful SVOD after Netflix, with over one million subscribers (Lallo, 2018). In 2016, the service had a free trial to active subscriber rate of 75%, leading company executives to project that it would turn a profit by early 2018 (Battersby, 2016). This remains to be seen. The service has a tiered pricing system, with a standard plan with HD capabilities costing AU$12 a month. Stan’s focus on licensing a substantial catalogue of international, well-known serialised television has seen it partner with, among others, Sony Pictures, MGM, BBC Worldwide, Viacom and Warner Brothers for exclusive streaming rights, reminiscent of ‘the most visible and probably most significant global consolidation via partnerships’ (Straubhaar, 2007: 100) developed by satellite and cable systems. Although the SVOD is likely to have its Amazon and CBS content pulled as these players, respectively, expand and enter into the Australian market, Stan is generally acknowledged by local consumers to have all of the shows that Netflix doesn’t. It also licenses a significant amount of network content as it is released in the United States, streaming new episodes on a weekly basis, rather than holding onto programming for full season release.

By comparison, Blim launched across Latin America on 22 February 2016, some 5 years after Netflix’s expansion into Mexico. It is owned by Televisa, Mexico’s main media conglomerate and the largest producer of Spanish-speaking content in the region since the 1950s. Other than four free-to-air channels that broadcast nationally in Mexico as well as other regional channels, Televisa also has 18 network channels for cable and satellite distribution that align well with Sky Mexico – Mexico’s leading pay-TV provider via direct broadcast satellite which is co-owned by Televisa and DirecTV – as well as with Izzi – Televisa’s own cable, internet and phone provider. It was reported that between 2007 and 2016, the combined revenue of Televisa’s cable and satellite undertakings steadily grew to represent 60% of Televisa’s total income, with 8 million cable subscribers and 7.3 million satellite subscribers in Mexico. As a point of comparison, after only 5 years of operation in Mexico, Netflix had close to 6 million subscribers (Pérez Moreno, 2017). It is, therefore, unsurprising that Televisa would decide to launch its own streaming service, for Mexico has relied ‘on strong internal cultural industries to displace cultural imports’ (Straubhaar, 2007: 106) in an attempt to keep cable and satellite subscribers under its own umbrella, as well as reach some of the 36 million smartphone users in Mexico (Martínez, 2014), which is predicted to rise to 95.9 million over the next 3 years (Redacción, 2017). The cost of Blim in Mexico clearly considers the crossover potential of pay-TV and streaming subscribers: when Blim launched, it was announced that for MX$109 Mexican pesos (US$6.05) per month – and with the first month free – subscribers could access 11,000 titles (Lucotti, 2016; Mérida, 2016; de la Fuente, 2016), which, in turn, translated to 13,000 hours of programming (Solís, 2016; de la Fuente, 2016). However, Blim’s CEO Carlos Sandoval also announced that the service would offer a special discount for Izzi and Sky users to the tune of MX$89 Mexican pesos (US$5.50) per month (Lucotti, 2016; de la Fuente, 2016).

Apart from the fact that both Stan and Blim are the result of traditional media monopolies diversifying their interests into online television distribution, there exist a number of startling similarities in their respective brand strategies and user interfaces, approach to and support of local content, and advertising policies. First, a relatively superficial but nevertheless interesting similarity between the services is how they came up with their brand names. Blim’s CEO Carlos Sandoval stated:

We took between four and six months with very deep market studies, we started with over a thousand names. What was very clear for us was that we wanted a name that was a blank canvas with which we could build the brand positioning and an SVOD of our culture, something of four letters with a dot com available worldwide. We moved away from the typical OTT and subscription names, everything that had to do with Go, with Play, with Now, with Anything. (Lucotti, 2016)

For CEO Mike Sneesby, ‘Stan’ was

really about simplicity and a clean palate…we tested a lot of different names and different categories. We wanted to move our name away from that technology platform of being a ‘view’, a ‘flix’, or a ‘tube’…We wanted to move to a brand name that consumers could actually associate with and actually have a character with. Stan is not going to be a character in itself but a brand that will build its own character in being truly Australian. (Ward, 2014)

The creative agency charged with finding a fitting name also found that Stan tested really well in the focus groups and ‘as effectively a clean palate’ (Ward, 2014). In this way, Stan and Blim join the likes of local, or at least geographically bound, SVOD services, such as Mubi, Shomi, Hayu and Hulu, in the use of an industrially ambiguous but distinctive portal brand name.

Another noteworthy parallel between the services is the clear visual similarities between their respective user interfaces, an example of the ‘incorporation of global models in national industries’ (Straubhaar, 2007: 19). While both Stan and Blim utilise Netflix’s established and familiar categorisation systems, prioritise search capabilities on the homepage and enable discoverability through scrolling browsing, both have adopted a distinctive blue colour palate that distinguishes them immediately from Netflix’s sea of red. What follows is a more detailed discussion about how Stan and Blim have each, respectively and quite similarly, approached and supported local content and customised their advertising policies. Overall, while this was no doubt borne from necessity in that it became integral to distinguish themselves from Netflix, it was also buoyed by local owners and their local ambitions.

Local content and local ambitions

From the outset, Stan positioned itself as a distinctly Australian service. Using actress Rebel Wilson’s familiar twang in its prelaunch advertising campaign (Mumbrella, 2015), the streaming company presented itself as a purveyor of local content for local audiences. At present, it offers significantly more Australian titles than Netflix, both in absolute terms and in overall proportion of the available catalogue (9.5% as opposed to Netflix’s 2–2.5%) (Lobato and Scarlata, 2017). Many of Stan’s film titles are national classics, such as The Castle (1997), Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994) and Romper Stomper (1992). Much of the television content is licensed from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or from Stan’s owner, Nine. Stan’s attention also very quickly turned away from aggregating existing and foreign content towards the production of exclusive local programming. While the production and distribution of telenovelas speaks to Blim’s cultural specificity, as will be explored shortly, Stan has not focused on commissioning a particular genre of programming, perhaps because Australian legacy broadcasters have long imported economical, popular English-language content from the United States and the United Kingdom (Straubhaar, 2007: 90, 164, 173–174, 200) and thus have never been known internationally for the dissemination of a certain type of content. Instead,

Stan has set out to be a pioneer of Australia’s evolving television landscape…[It is] committed to supporting the local production industry and producing the highest quality Australian television that will not only stand amongst the best at home, but also in international markets. (Sneesby as per Mediaweek, 2016a)

While some of their first originals mimicked Netflix’s popular stand-up comedy special format, fostering scripted production is also seen as having the potential to sustain subscriber loyalty long term.

Stan was the first SVOD in Australia to commission a locally produced television series, No Activity (2015–), which was later renewed for a second season and a Christmas special. In its first year of operation, the platform also announced the ongoing development of a six-part spin-off of the internationally successful horror movie Wolf Creek (2016–; 2005). In September 2017, they released the coming of age story The Other Guy (2017–), a semi-autobiographical comedy series based on the experiences of well-known Australian radio host, Matt Okine. Stan kicked off 2017 with a sequel/reboot of Romper Stomper (2018–). Interestingly, in May 2016, Stan commissioned its first movie, a psychological thriller entitled The Second (2018), which was funded by and filmed in the state of Queensland (Burrowes, 2016). It was released in cinemas nationwide in early July 2018 and on the SVOD 2 weeks later. Stan currently has at least four more television series in various states of production (Lallo, 2018; Mediaweek, 2016b). While these do not seek to cater to existing audiences of established intellectual property, as with the Wolf Creek and Romper Stomper throwbacks, they nevertheless utilise an Australian ‘point of difference’ (Lallo, 2018) and presumably take advantage of the development and production funding opportunities that Screen Australia now offers online portals. In the last year, these have been amended to support a ‘diversity of voices’, and ‘moving and merging platforms’, and represent a strategic move at the national policy level away from backing the high-end content so often associated with multinational SVODS (Screen Australia, 2018).

Although Stan was launched in Australia immediately prior to Netflix’s arrival, it had to work hard to announce its entrance into the market and establish its brand identity and point of service. Some 200,000 Australians were accessing Netflix using VPNs before its official launch (Lobato and Ewing, 2014), so the conglomerate relied on word of mouth to propel it forward in this new market. By comparison, Stan launched numerous public transport-advertising campaigns to coincide with the release of its exclusively licensed and original content. It also held event-based premieres; Stan brought the Central Perk set to Sydney when it secured the rights to Friends (1994–2004) (Mediaweek, 2015), set up a Wolf Creek Roadhouse pop-up bar in Melbourne’s Federation Square (O’Doherty, 2016) and took over popular ice-creameries in Melbourne and Sydney and turned them into Twin Peaks’ (1990–1991, 2017–) inspired diners (Muscat, 2017). Unsurprisingly, Stan relies heavily on social media blasts – posting their own behind-the-scenes content on Facebook, retweeting cast posts and positive reviews and utilising paid Instagram advertising. Their 1980s inspired ‘Hungry Eyes’ campaign, though not widely played, has taken on something of a cult status in Australia, for its sheer cringe-worthiness (Dawson, 2017), and established this tactic as Stan’s marketing modus operandi.

Unlike Stan, Blim rolled out in Mexico years after Netflix. As such, the conversation, social media interactions and analysis around Blim always seem to pair with its well-established rival. On its launch, Hecht (2016) indicated that ‘Blim’s subscription model and cost are similar to that of Netflix, but with about 20% (consistency) of Blim’s catalog consisting of Hollywood fare, the content is more Latin American-centric than the streaming giant’. This statement is unsurprising if you take into account that Blim is available in 17 countries across Latin America (Blim: Preguntas Frecuentes, 2017). From its beginning, however, the plan was for Blim’s content to quickly grow from 11,000 to 18,000 titles (Mérida, 2016) for a total of 20,000 programming hours by the end of 2016 (Solís, 2016). Its ability to increase its library so rapidly was linked to the company behind Blim: Televisa. This media conglomerate also makes visible the rapid expansion of Blim into the Spanish-speaking market and its deficiency of US-centric content. After all, to understand the impact of Mexico in the global television market, it is imperative to recognise the influence of Televisa across Latin America and beyond, precisely because of its point of difference when compared to American productions. In his understanding of globalised television production and distribution, Sinclair (2000: 19) explains that a geolinguistic region is ‘defined not necessarily by its geographical contours, but more in a virtual sense, by commonalities of language and culture’. Historically, Televisa has used Spanish-language as a ‘competitive advantage’ (Sinclair, 2000: 25) to connect with Latin American countries and the Hispanic diaspora located elsewhere, and its exporting capacities extend to a pan-Latino audience for its productions that resonate ‘with viewers based in more deeply old-fashioned, patriarchal nations, often with a strongly conservative, religious heritage’ (McCabe, 2013: 17) including markets in Africa, Eastern Europe and South East Asia.

Analysis of two of its portfolios demonstrates the benefits that Televisa’s content presented for Blim’s localised business model and its potential to grow beyond its current Latin American market. Through Videocine, Televisa’s domestic and international film production and distribution branch, Blim, has an extensive list of films. These titles are expected to grow, as Blim’s executives aim to distribute ‘relevant cinema’ from other Latin American countries (Maldonado, 2016). The second portfolio is that of Televisa’s telenovelas. During a press release interview for the launch of Blim, Sandoval stated:

Eventually we are going to have Televisa’s content in an exclusive form, it will be possible to enjoy the entirety of Televisa’s archive […] to provide the audience with content that has been relevant not only in Mexico but also in Latin America. (Mérida, 2016; author’s translation)

Sandoval’s mention of Televisa’s content implicitly refers to the conglomerate’s telenovelas; after all ‘the persistence and frequency of the telenovela genre is the most marked characteristic of Latin American and Spanish-language television as a whole’ (Lopez, 1995: 256). When considering the production units of Televisa, telenovelas are certainly the standout product, for they have represented a sustainable and fruitful commercial undertaking and ‘succeeded in creating a genre that rivals American series in exports’ (Straubhaar, 2007: 181) across non-Anglophone geolinguistic markets.

The development of Blim, however, does not seem to stem from global aspirations, but rather from domestic ones: the appeal of telenovelas to Mexican audiences. Sandoval reiterated, in a separate interview, the importance of Televisa’s content as a mark of distinction for his SVOD: ‘The exclusive content will be there before the end of this year, if I am not mistaken it is towards the end of the year when it will gradually disappear from the competition and will be exclusively with Blim’ (Pizano, 2016; author’s translation). Sandoval was careful not to mention Netflix (which launched in Mexico as Netflix Latin America (LATAM) in September 2011) by name in his market outline. Still, it was allegedly a Netflix report and its connection to telenovelas that helped bring forward the development of Blim (Vargas, 2016). In 2014, Kari Pérez, a Public Relations Representative for Netflix in Mexico, announced that two of the most watched titles on Netflix by Mexicans were Rebelde ( Rebel, 2004 –2006) and Teresa (2010–2011), both of which were successful telenovelas originally produced by Televisa for its national channel, Canal de las estrellas (Channel of the Stars) (Solís, 2016). Rebelde’s original run as a telenovela consisted of 440 episodes, while Teresa was made up of 151 episodes. In this way, telenovelas provide SVOD services with many hours of content under the same title. This is different to Netflix’s original programming, which tends to favour short-form series or miniseries, albeit with the possibility of various seasons (unlike telenovelas which usually have one run per title).

Televisa ostensibly saw an opportunity to recover from the impact Netflix had had on its satellite and cable subscriptions. When it came time to remove Televisa’s content from its platform, Netflix also had a similar response to Sandoval (as noted above); Netflix LATAM did not acknowledge Blim by name, but Netflix LATAM did not hesitate to outwardly poke fun at Televisa’s telenovelas. On 3 October 2016, Netflix LATAM released a video to its social media platforms, in which a young man is sitting on a couch in a living room, vacantly staring ahead in disbelief, his hands slowly moving up. The shot opens out when a woman enters the living room and it is then obvious that the man is staring at a television screen; it is an empty search in Netflix. The woman notices the scared man and asks what’s going on. The man responds in Spanish: ‘Netflix removed my favourite series’. The woman, now also taken aback, asks whether he is talking about Stranger Things (2016–present). The man says it is worse than that. The woman wonders whether it is Breaking Bad (2008–13). The man begins to choke up, leading the woman to ponder whether he is talking about Narcos (2015–). The man once again says no, so the woman asks incredulously whether it is Orange is the New Black (2013–). The man finally caves in and answers: ‘No, they removed Rebelde’. The woman, now in disbelief, holds him so that he cannot see her bewilderment at such a presumably ridiculous answer and tries to calm him down as he begins to sob while proclaiming: ‘I didn’t do anything to them’ (Netflix América Latina, 2016).

By the end of the month, on 25 October 2016, Blim had released its response to Netflix LATAM’s video by painstakingly recreating it: a similar set, identical costume and look-alike actors; except this time a festive score accompanies the action which begins with a happy man. The shot opens up when a woman comes into the room and it is apparent that the man is staring at a TV screen: Rebelde is on Blim. The woman holds the man and says that it’s good to see he is no longer sad. The man proclaims in Spanish: ‘No, now I will be able to watch Rebelde’. The woman wonders whether it is back online, and the man quickly responds: ‘Yes, but on Blim’. The man proceeds to explain that he learned about it through a Netflix ad (although the word Netflix is bleeped) and states: ‘Yes, I thought it was a joke but they’re letting those who like Rebelde know that we can now watch it on Blim’. Blim’s video is clearly referring to the humorous ad Netflix LATAM created in the first place to disparage Blim’s key content. Blim’s video continues when the man tells the woman that Netflix also removed El señor de los cielos ( The Lord of the Skies, 2013–). This time, the woman goes in to a state of shock and wonders what she did to Netflix, as that’s her favourite series, but the man quickly calms her by pointing out that El señor de los cielos can also be found on Blim. The woman breathes a sigh of relief and proclaims: ‘It sucks that they removed Rebelde, but El señor de los cielos does hurt’. The woman wants to find out whether they now have Blim and the man assures her that they do, so they hold each other and turn their attention, and their TV remote, to the screen.

Blim’s response to Netflix LATAM’s challenge was both creative and necessary, as Blim was banking on telenovelas as a point of difference for its SVOD. However, a comparison of audience engagement with both YouTube videos suggests a partiality for the first; Netflix LATAM received over 30,000 likes and only 1000 dislikes, whereas Blim garnered only 1000 likes to its 46,000 dislikes, with many comments not only reflecting on the cringe-worthiness of the ad, but more notably on the cringe-worthiness of Televisa launching Blim in the first place. This is certainly reminiscent to the cringe elements alluded to in Stan’s own advertising campaigns. Further research is needed to identify the national audiences paying for subscriptions to Stan and Blim, not only to assess the motivations behind a specific SVOD subscription, but also to look into the reasons why some households purchase subscriptions to readily available content providers while others do not even consider buying into one. As Straubhaar (2000: 202) contends,

cultural capital, identity and language tend to favour an audience desire for cultural proximity, which leads audiences to prefer local and national productions over those which are globalized and/or American. However, cultural proximity is itself limited by social class stratification

So a study of national SVOD services might reveal more about the social dynamics of a country than the industrial practices of specific media providers.

In effect, Blim serves as an example of SVOD’s function as a social and cultural practice. The despondent reaction to its YouTube video was concordant with most of the media reportage around Blim’s introduction to the market, which pondered over and over if Blim could have a future when competing against Netflix. Upon Blim’s launch, Netflix had an estimated 8 million subscribers across Latin America with content produced by Netflix with this geographical audience in mind, such as Club de Cuervos ( Club of Crows, 2015–), the first original series in Spanish by Netflix (Hecht, 2016). While Blim has not been able to destabilise Netflix, it has surprised critics for almost 2 years now as the SVOD has continued to gain traction. In December 2016, the Competitive Intelligence Unit in Mexico released an Over-The-Top content report indicating that Netflix had a 70.1% market share in Mexico (approximately 5.6 million subscribers) (Gutierrez, 2016), with Blim in second place with a 17.5% market share (1.3 million subscribers) (TTVNews, 2016). Blim was followed by Claro Video (9.3%), Mubi (1%), Fox Play (0.7%), HBO Go (0.7%) and YouTube Red (0.7%) (TTVNews, 2016). Televisa has not released any financial information around Blim, but Citibanamex (Mexico’s National Bank) has calculated that by 2022 Blim will have recovered its investment and that by 2025 it will have around 3.5 million users (Pérez Moreno, 2017).

Blim, however, is not aiming to beat Netflix and their approach seems to indicate that. Blim’s CEO reflected:

The competitive strategy is that we want to be the SVOD of Latin American culture. We will produce constantly and regularly original series in the short term. We will also have exclusive premieres for Latin America of series in Spanish that are not originally from Blim but that will have their first window here. We have Televisa series that cannot be seen anywhere else such as El hotel de los secretos (2016) […] The idea is that the user always has something new to see, either original or premiere. (Lucotti, 2016)

Blim has since gone on to release 11 titles as part of their original programming line-up, including three telenovelas: El hotel de los secretos ( The Hotel of Secrets, 2016), Yago (2016) and Sin rastro de ti ( Without Your Trace, 2016); four series: Blue Demon (2016–17), Sincronía ( Synchrony, 2017), Dogma (2017–) and Érase una vez ( Once Upon a Time, 2017); and four TV comedies: 40 y 20 (40 and 20, 2016–), Nosotros los guapos ( We the Handsome Ones, 2016–), Súper X (2017–) and Las 13 esposas de Wilson Fernández ( The 13 Wives of Wilson Fernandez, 2017). Thus, Blim is now banking on not only producing telenovelas but also a Mexican version of the content Netflix has become known for: quality miniseries and provocative comedies; series that would not normally air on Televisa’s free-to-air channels, developed by edgier production companies, although still featuring recognisable stars, and always with a Latin American edge. Interestingly though, this new content and the popularity of Netflix have impacted on the production of original telenovelas in Mexico as well, with TV Azteca, Televisa’s main broadcasting competitor, announcing in 2016 it will no longer produce telenovelas, and with Televisa’s own telenovelas shown on its national broadcast channel containing less episodes per title.

Concluding remarks

This comparison demonstrates that it is irrelevant whether a local SVOD launches before Netflix (as Stan did) or after Netflix (as Blim did). Both Stan and Blim made a conscious effort to both associate with and distance themselves from Netflix. While there is an evident aspiration to develop quality content considered similar in style to that of Netflix, there is also clearly an appreciation for the futility of so doing, with these local platforms seeming to accept that their national productions will not be able to compare favourably with Netflix among national audiences. Of course, Stan and Blim are also in a state of transformation as they develop more and more original programming; thus, it will be interesting to see whether the perceptions of national audiences change in the short term. In the last year alone, Stan has signed exclusive distribution deals with Sony and Disney’s ABC Studios International (Lallo, 2018) (though these perhaps speak more to the financial requirements of a largely unsupported independent production sector), and both Netflix’s reputation in Australia and Australia’s screen presence internationally experienced a boost with the international distribution of Hannah Gadsby’s stand-up special, Nanette, in July 2018, and the subsequent inclusion of other Australian comics in Netflix’s The Comedy Club series scheduled for release in 2019 (Buaya, 2018). Similarly, Televisa recently announced that it would start producing ‘premium programming with an emphasis on multicultural characters’ for Amazon Prime (Love, 2018), although the implications and connections to Blim have not been fully revealed. In contrast, Netflix has taken a page out of Blim’s predilection for melodramatic narratives by releasing in mid-April 2018 the incredibly successful Luis Miguel, la serie at the same time as it aired in Telemundo.

Despite their significant differences, it is clear that both the Australian and Mexican television industries have historically relied quite heavily on content comparison from the United States, whether relying too heavily on it or in stark contrast to it. This is often at the expense of sustaining and developing a local industry that national audiences, across the board, can consume with unabashed pride. Future research needs to explore this issue, grounded in reflections of modernity, taste and quality, and specific socioeconomic classes. What’s more, further interrogation of the ‘global’ rhetoric that accompanies multinational services must look beyond the hype continuously self-propagated by these entities. The fact that Stan and Blim have experienced relative success by focusing on the production and distribution of content that is uniquely reflective of their geographical audience presents a new opportunity for local industries to connect with their national audiences. For this reason, we stress the importance of considering the perspectives, strategies, approaches and content development of the SVOD services of other semi-peripheral zones. It would be naïve to underestimate them simply because they do not outwardly appear to compete at the same level as Netflix.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Sofia Rios has received an Australian Government Research Training Program Award.

ORCID iD

Sofia Rios

Alexa Scarlata

References

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