International magazine covering the business of television and film

Viewpoints: Sales Strategies

Michelle Wasserman
Head of International Distribution Programming, Formats & Production Services
Telefe International
Argetina

Can you tell us about the most important changes in your company's activities in 2009?

Being able to get into the American English Speaking market and try to generate projects in this territory has been a daily focus of our activities.

Nini

To concentrate on license contracts directly and not so much in options, because we consider they block a product. Even if, as the old saying goes: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", we believe that blocking a product with unattractive conditions as those in the market today is not the best deal, especially when we trust the product and its potential.

We have focused on a market where before, we only had aspirations, but due to our efforts, it has already given us plenty of satisfaction. Today, we have set foot in the Eastern market with ready-made products, productions under development and others that are already on the air.

We are working hard in emerging markets that are the same as Asia, and we hope to consolidate in the mid term, such as the Middle East, Australia and Africa.

What are your sales strategies for this autumn?

Out strength is to keep focusing: Europe and Latin America, to deepen our presence in Spanish and English Speaking America, to consolidate in Asia, and to work very hard on emerging markets.

In one word, to work hard to consolidate what we have achieved and keep focusing in the different areas of the industry, and developing our multiplatform of services all over the hemisphere.

What are the most important countries for your sales?

Literally speaking into what the phrase "most important" means, my answer is simple: "The whole world. Large and small countries. Emerging and non-emerging. Scale economies or not. Basically, countries with whom we had worked in the past, are currently working with, we have the potential to work in the future and with the ones, we do not see a light in the short term, but mean a constant threat to our strategies, and are treated with the same respect and enthusiasm.

I can mention some territories where we currently have a very important presence such as Latin America, the US, and in Europe. In all, both programming distribution (ready-made content), Formats and Production Services are very welcome. We had been particularly working with formats and production Services in territories such as Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain, Italy, France, Russia, USA, Portugal and in India, while in ready-made content in the rest of the countries including the US, Russia, Chile, Spain, France and Italy. As far as our production service offers, they are very attractive because of our know-how, background, and pricing to countries with scale economy, which come down to BA looking for our services + locations. Additionally, we provide on site consultancy by sending our executives to several countries in Latin America such as Mexico and Chile. Colombia and the US, and lately more and more European countries rely on our expertise as well. As a matter of fact, Asian countries such as Malaysia, China and Vietnam had been a surprise. We are currently discussing the provision of our services in their own fields.