Telefónica preps in-house production portfolio
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Juan Fernandez Gonzalez
| 18 January 2017

With Telefónica’s Movistar+ gradually losing Netflix, HBO and Amazon production rights, it is preparing 13 in-house series to premiere through to 2018.

Following a roadmap announced last year, Movistar+ will premiere three in-house series in Spain late in 2017, two of which will be filmed in 4K.

La Peste, Movistar+’s spearhead project, directed by Goya-award winning Alberto Rodríguez and starring Paco León, will be a short series of six episodes on which the telco has spent over €10 million.

This year will also see the premiere of the post-apocalyptic drama La Zona and the comedy Vergüenza, both filmed in Ultra HD.

During 2018, Movistar+ intends to add ten more in-house series to the portfolio, but no details have as yet been unveiled.

With the arrival of Netflix in 2015 and HBO and Amazon Prime in 2016, Movistar+ has managed to retain rights over some of their hits, but this won’t last long. Therefore, the telco’s pay-TV company is exploring ways to beef up its portfolio, such as the recent deal with CBS Studios and Showtime.

“We’re not playing in the same league; we are not a vertical catalogue of content, we are a platform which adds the best content offering, connectivity, technical functionalities and customers’ knowledge,” said Luis Miguel Gilpérez, president, Spain, Telefónica.