Inside Latin America’s Unscripted Boom – Live from Conecta

This week on TellyCast, Justin is reporting from Conecta Fiction & Entertainment in Cuenca, Spain — the heart of Hispanic TV content innovation. He’s joined by two of Banijay’s top executives shaping the future of unscripted in Latin America: Frank Scheuermann, Chief Content Officer of Endemol Shine Boomdog, and Marie Leguizamo, Managing Director of Banijay Mexico and US Hispanic.

Frank unpacks why long-running formats are dominating in Mexico, the rise of celebrity-led content, and how digital-first strategies are reshaping audience habits. Marie reveals why LOL (Last One Laughing) has become Prime Video’s most successful unscripted show globally, how to pitch in the region, and teases her new dating-meets-superfan format Star Crush.

Recorded live among the lightning storms of Castilla-La Mancha, it’s a frontline insight into how Latin America is redefining global unscripted.

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Transcript

Hi, I'm Justin Crosby and welcome to another episode of TellyCast. This week I'm in Cuenca La Mancha, which is about two hours or so away from Madrid, and I'm here for the Connector and Fiction Entertainment's ninth edition, where the key Hispanic markets are all coming together to talk about the trends and buying and selling content in the regions.

My guests this week are two senior Banijay execs who are gonna talk about what's happening in Mexico and the Hispanic us. Hope you enjoyed the show. So my first guest on this week's connector, fiction and entertainment special here from ER in Spain, which is Beau, beautiful town. Frank Scheurmann from Endemol Shine.

Boom dog. Welcome to the show, Frank. Thank you, Justin. I'm very happy to be here and feeling very well. Good. Good. Well, I'm glad to hear it. And great to have you on the show. Lots of things I'd like to get through. But first of all let's talk about your company. Tell us about what you do at end of all Shine.

Spoon dog. And and I think it's you, you are more involved on the unscripted 

side, right? Yeah. I'm the chief content officer of, of the company. I'm responsible for curating the, the content that, that we acquire or develop or or. Just take from our big catalog and take it to our clients and understand what our clients need, what, what these key points are for them to, to buy something.

And that's where I'm very, very close having a very close relationship with our clients, with the one we we have now, and we with the ones we don't have now to understand what we. We're bringing them so we can, so we can keep on producing as we've been doing in the past years where last year we, we crossed the bar of 1000 hours of production in a year with more than 11 projects.

So. That, that's kind of like my job. 

Yeah. Well, you must be, I guess the, one of the biggest unscripted producers in Mexico, right? 

Yeah, probably in Mexico and, and in Latin America we've been doing a lot of, a lot, a lot of hours. Based a little bit on, on the long running of, of big Brother La Calo Famoso, which is like our biggest show.

And we do that show in a hub. So we, we do it for the US Hispanic market and for the Mexican market separately. 

I. Right. Okay. Well, let's talk about the Mexican market for unscripted. What, what sort of changes are you seeing for example, over the last 12 months or so? How's, how's the market developing?

What, what are the major changes you're seeing? 

Well, what, what's happening not, not only in Mexico, but in the Latin American market for years now, and, and it's, it's getting. More and more towards that is that, that the, the projects are becoming longer, you know, longer in a run, longer in, in, in the time span.

We did this year La Cas FAMs for 102 episodes, three hours daily from Monday through. Sunday without Saturdays. We do Master Chef for Te Azteca 18 episodes, three hours each episode. This is like the shortest one we do. But it's three hours in one episode. It's, it's tough to, to accomplish that.

So what's happening the biggest. Trend I, I would say for Latin America is how to adapt the exec existing formats from the European world or from Israel or from Korea, and make them sufficient, solid content to make it. A long, a long show, you know, a, a show with more content in it than, than what's normally used in, in other countries.

And you all already see it in Europe. There's already in France, they are already developing shows that are 50 episodes like the 15 in in M six in France. It shows that, that are, don't like. Our programming way in Latin America and that programming way comes a little bit from budget. And it's economist of scale, right?

It it's economy of scale for sure, but it's all, it's also story the, the, the way people are used to watch stories. We are at telenovela countries, so we are used to watch telenovela on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and that's what we did with the non-scripted world. We kind of like. Spread it out.

So every day there's a little story that, that carries on. 

Right. Okay. And so you talked about a number of formats, obviously Banerjee and nmo, shine, boom, doggy or, or adapting some of the world's best known formats and, and bestselling formats. What what is the, the secret ingredient for a format that's gonna particularly work in Mexico or the US Hispanic market?

Can you give us a sense of, you know, what, what is it that makes. Specific formats work in those, in those territories? 

Well, there, there is something now that I don't like that much, but it, it's key is that most of our formats are celebrity driven. So we use the Master Chef VIPs and we have the La ca los OSAs Big Brother celebrities.

We do the 50 with celebrities. We do a lot of shows reality shows with celebrities. So this is a key ingredient right now where people definitely want to watch the extraordinary people, extraordinary people in a maybe normal situation, you know? And or not so normal like Big Brother, but you want to see the inside of, of the celebrities.

And this is, this is something that's key right now. I said I don't like it because one day it's gonna be, I. There's gonna be no celebrities anymore that you can watch. So we can, we have to come up with new celebrities. And new celebrities and, and 

that's, well, that's the influencer market really, isn't it?

I suppose you're looking at, at, is that what you are, you are looking at now is bringing in, you know, social media stars and Exactly, because that it, it also plays the, you're talking about, you know seeing a different side of them or in different situations. Authenticity is really the key, isn't it?

Is seeing definitely a different side of them and that. That plays well to the influencer market. 

Definitely. There's some, some, sometimes people that they say, why are these people famous anyway? And it's because maybe they have in a niche, 2 million followers, but no other people or, or, or television viewers, they don't know them.

And we had Wendy, Eva, who was our first LA winner in 2023 she, she had 2 million followers, but it was. Digital. Celebrity. And after that she became a huge celebrity. All over the world, all over the place. All over, at least the Latin American continent. 

And, and, and so some of the reason for, for you casting them is obviously to maintain a younger audience, right?

And bring in a, a younger audience. Is that working? Are you seeing that that, that these social media stars are actually. Genuinely bringing their audiences from from, from their platforms? Or is it, or is it more a case of you exposing them to an existing TV audience? Is it a new audience for them?

I'm really not sure about that because for example, in, in like Ca Pharmac, we have characters like raso. She's 73 and she's a huge. Young people Magnet, they started making mem about her and a lot of digital content, but she's 73. So this younger audience connected with somebody who's 73 or Mario Es last year.

He's also a 65-year-old guy and, and it's more about the content that they give that and where the content is. The content is in the digital space, so that's why it's not. It's not only young people want to see young people, I don't think. I don't think so. Okay. I think it's more how you bring it to them and where you bring it to them.

And, and we've seen a lot of streamers and broadcasters or particularly streamers looking for authenticity when it comes to country specific commissions, for example. Is that something that you're seeing a lot of in, in, in the Latin American market in general? Do you think that the streams are really, really going.

Country specific and, and, and really sort of tailoring their, their commissioning strategies to specific audiences rather than perhaps a spreading a wider net over a particular region. 

It's definitely a, a trend, you know, a trend of bringing content that can be seen in Korea or wherever with local people, with local stories.

And that's definitely the, the way to do it. They, they have this glocal term, you know? Yeah. Definitely there is a story. It is a different story when it's told with different people or when with the local people. There is actually a, a show that we are producing that was produced somewhere else and now we're producing it with, with Mexican people and it's gonna be a whole different show with the same a DN.

Yeah. Okay. But definitely that, that gives you a little bit of security for the, for the buyers who, who, who need something to hold on, you know? 

Yeah. So tell, coming back to a little bit about social video and these new audiences and. Obviously it's a huge demand of popularity for, for social video stars and, but but also social video formats and content.

Is that something that you are focused on end of all shine, boom dog? Is that something that you are looking to create content specifically for social video channels? Is that something you're 

exploring? Completely. We have, we have, our development team is now and we have our digital team together working specifically on the target of bringing to life digital content.

And, and we are working on, on, on how to produce this content in a, in a cheaper way or in a mo most effective way that we can. Really bring the, the, the, the brands because it's, it's gonna be a lot with brands content that they can afford. And that is specifically done for them and that goes quicker to their.

Clients, you know. 

So this is more a branded contact, rebooting brands branded yes. TV brands. With brand with brands. I think it's 

the way to get there that, that you get a brand to put the money for, a cooking show. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Because a cooking show, wherever it is, is it on tv, on digital or whatever, it's a very good place to put brands on, you know?

So if you get the money from there, and then you have to be just creative. And if it's good and if it, if, if it travels, it will be viral and it will be. Maybe bigger than something on tv, you know? Yeah. It, it depends, obviously, a lot on the characters that you put in those, in those contents. Yeah. 

So you hear from Mexico, we're here at connector fiction and entertainment.

Tell us about what you are, what you're doing here in in Zo over the next couple of days. 

I was invited because Connecta started like this new division of entertainment, which is becoming more powerful and more powerful every day, more, more relevant for the industry. It's, it's like the new brother is growing because, because.

I think for every streamer or for every platform or, or network, the, the non-scripted content became very handy. You know, it's, it's quicker. It, it, it brings quick returns and it works, and you can do more and more seasons. So it's happening everywhere that the scripted says, okay, we're gonna open a non-scripted division.

And it's happening in the agencies. It's happening with the shows, it's happening with the markets because we are becoming more and more relevant these, these days. And it, it has to do with shorter budgets or with quicker results or. Whatever the, the, the buyers need. Right. Okay. And you are, you are part of a jury for the pitch here as well?

I think, yeah. I'm part of the jury for the Novo formats competition. We saw 19 formats from different parts of the world and today there is gonna be the. The celebration of that. Yeah, I mean the pitches of that. Yeah. I think 

there's a big prize at stake as well. I think that's there's, there's gonna be some, there's some quite a bit of funding in place.

Yeah. Yeah. There's some funding. I don't remember exactly the price. I think there's three. 1, 2, 3 Place. One three will have some, some money 

incentives. Fantastic. Yeah. And, and you're also presenting to students and helping them how to pitch. Right. What's gi give, give, give me one tip on pitching that, that we can leave our audience with.

I think the 

biggest pitch always is to know your audience or who you are pitching to know your buyer is you. To know your buyer, know what he needs, because sometimes, you know. More than what they need. I always compare it to like a doctor, you know, you know that, that you're aching here or this, this is, this is not working, but you don't know what to do and I'm the doctor and tell you, no, you have to do this or you have to take this and this is a little bit what we have to do to.

Get to know what they, what they program, where they program it, how they program it, how much it costs for them, what it, what works for them, what doesn't work for them, what works for their competition, what would they like to have? And if you know those things, then you come a little bit more prepared with something that they say, okay, yeah, this is what I need.

That's good advice. Empathy. Yeah. Understanding your buyer and knowing that what their job is and what challenges they've got and helping them solve those. Exactly. Frank Showman from end. Shine bulldog. Boom. We are Banerjee. Yes. Great, great, great to meet you. And all the best for the rest of connector fiction and entertainment.

Thank you, joie. Thank you very much for having me here. And let's see. Together each other, wherever we will, we'll meet 

along another market. We'll meet another market one day, I'm sure. Thanks. Thank you. Cheers. So my next guest on this week's special show from here, connects to fiction and entertainment in nces, Spain.

Is Marie Zemo. Marie, how are you doing? 

I am fantastic. How are you? 

I'm really well. It's lovely. Warm day. Lots of action going on here. Lots of delegates chatting with each other. Meeting with each other. Tell me about what you are doing there. 

Lots of buzzing. I really love that energy that you feel at these conferences.

Right. I, I really love coming internationally because I don't get that exposure to the other production companies or to the other you know, creatives that are here. So I love when I get the opportunity to come to Spain or internationally to really. Interchange ideas and see what's happening here across the globe.

Right. Yeah. Maybe take some back with me. 

Yeah. Well, well, let's, well, well let's talk a little bit about Mexico and US Hispanic market, which you oversee. Yeah. In your role. So two really big markets in terms of the slates that you are developing at, at je. How do you approach that? I mean that's, they're obviously two connected markets, but very different markets.

I mean, how do you develop slates for both? Do you, do you look at those individually or, or as a whole, 

we make it a point to make sure that every one of our shows feel tailormade. That they feel that they're for not only that territory or for that fire, for that client. So we do have things that work for both territories that we could say, okay, well we have this format and we're able to adjust it mildly so that it works in the US Hispanic market or in Mexico or Latin America.

We do always make it a point to make those feel localized, because if not, then it feels like copy, paste, and we never wanna do that. 

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, well, well let's talk about those markets in terms of buying, I mean, what's, what's, what's selling at the moment? What are, what are streamers, what are networks looking for?

Are there any trends that you are seeing in terms of, you know, that's, t content that's hot, particularly from your catalog. 

I can tell you that the trend is changing all the time. That's the change. The trend is it's going to constantly change. Our job is, is to be in communication with our partners, with our friends, with our colleagues, to, to understand what's happening.

Right? There is always a trend for family co-viewing for some reason. And I, I love that because that just means that families are together and families want to spend that time together. And I have noticed and read a lot recently about. Appointment based programming, appointment based, like I need to be here on Sunday night at this time, which is what we grew up with, which is what we're used to.

Right? So having that in mind as we're creating these programs and as we're pitching these shows, I think is really important so that we create a show that wants you to come back, that wants you to say, I wanna be there at 8:00 PM on Sunday, or whatever your time slot is. I, that, that seems to be the trend that I pound.

So how do you how do you define that? Because, I mean, I guess you could say sports is, is appointment of view programming, but other than that it's gonna be noisy and it's gonna be, you know, something eye catching and that, that. The family wants to watch together. So gimme some examples of what, what that would be.

I think the shows like, you know, we have starstruck that's on our, on our catalog, which is, you know, it's a music show, right? And there's cliffhangers that can be created and there's things that are created that you want to say, oh, well, what happened? What's going to happen now? Who's going to get eliminated?

What's the next step? What's the next creative twist that they're gonna, that the producers are gonna come up with that you're gonna surprise me with? And that's our challenge. Our challenge is to constantly take these formats that already exist and make them so that you wanna come back and you wanna say, well, what, what, but what's gonna happen?

And not feel like, oh, obviously this is a guy who's going home and he is gonna, no, I need to keep surprising you. I need to keep surprising the viewer. And that's, that's part of what we're, we're focusing on as well. 

Yeah. Now you've been involved with, with some huge format adaptations temptation Islands.

Yeah. Tell me about some of the others that you've you've been working on recently. 

Well, I'm really proud of Temptation Island because boy, oh boy, that was a difficult joke to do. A little salacious, I must tell you. But LOL last one laughing is. Our, our biggest pride and joy at Ban j Mexico and US Hispanic because we produce the versions for Mexico, Columbia, and Argentina.

Oh, wow. And Mexico is the most successful unscripted format on prime video across the globe. So I, I could not be prouder of that format. What we've taken the evolution of what that program have become. You know, we, I started as a showrunner in season two, and now I run the company that produces it. And we're now on season seven, seven successful seasons.

Banerjee has produced 13 seasons of LOL. So it's just, it's fun, you know, it just gets to be fun now. And, and it's going back to what I had said, surprising the viewer, you know, the format is loved and a lot of people already know what the show is. So I we're constantly having to like, oh, well what are we gonna do now to make sure that those viewers wanna stay?

You know, we have LOL on our catalog, temptation Island. We produce a show called Hala Rajas, it's called Crank Tank for Prime Video as well. We had two successful seasons. It was an original that came out of my office, and I'm so proud of that as well. So and more to come. We have a lot more to come and a lot more announces later this year.

Alright, fantastic. And so tell us about what you are doing at the market. I mean, obviously you're doing lots of easy, so you, are you in part of any juries or you're presenting anything? Are you on stage or what? Tell me what you're doing. 

I'm being nosy is what I'm doing. I just wanna know what's going on now.

I am very excited to announce that I'm on a panel on Thursday for women and women in this industry. I'm always such a proud advocate. To be a woman in this industry, to be a woman leader and to pave the way for the next generation. That's what Banta J is about for me, where Je Mexican, Hispanic is about for me, and that's what my role is for me, right?

So not just thrive on the successes, but also thrive on knowing that I'm opening the doors for so many people that are coming behind me. So. 

So just, I mean, thinking of while you were talking, I was thinking about your role. I mean, it's a big role, isn't it? I mean, if you think about the populations of the US Hispanic market and, and Mexico as well.

I mean, I dunno what there is, but that's gotta be getting towards a hundred million or something like that. There's a lot of us. Yeah. 

There's a lot of us Hispanics in us, 

which is and, and I mean, do, is there anything that you would say that. Particularly resonates with, with those markets, you know, is it that that's, that's particular to, to those markets that, that might not particularly work in, in other territories around the world?

A hundred percent. I think US is US Hispanic and me being a consumer of US Hispanic, being a US Hispanic in the United States, I understand it so well. I understand that we are not just one. Hot of people. We are just, we are a plethora of different people that need to be represented constantly. It can't just be, oh, well, you know, it's a little Hispanic child, so we're just gonna make it Latino and blah.

No, it doesn't work that way. It's always con making sure that you're representing each one of those voices, each one of those territories that represent what is the melting pot of the United States. That's why that works so well there. Right. In, in, in a big parallel difference to what, you know, Mexico is, Mexico is a different audience.

So it's, it's, it's tailor making these shows. It's understanding these territories, and I'm not Mexican and I'm super grateful to have the opportunity to run a Mexican company, but what I do is con it's, I'm always relying on my team and my staff to, to guide me because I know what feels right in my gut, but I don't know what works in that territory unless I've listened to the people of that territory.

It's really interesting because I think over the. And and this was something I was speaking to Frank Schuerman earlier on. Yeah.

My wonderful colleague, by the way, at end of l SHINee Bulldog, so That's right. I'm glad you she to talk to, I mean, dope. 

Yeah. And, and and, and, and we were talking about, you know specific content for specific countries, you know, is, is, is, has become something that a lot of the streamers have been focusing on, whereas perhaps, you know, 10 years ago or, or a few years ago, you know, they might have been looking, looking at the Hispanic market as a sort of a one.

Huge mass as opposed to, you know, being very specific to, because there are, you know, many, many markets and many, many specifics. You, you talked about last one laughing and the number of different shows you're creating for each, you know, a number of different territories. Do you think that's the key to success then is, is, is really making sure that you are super serving those.

Very distinctive country audiences. 

It has been part of our success. A a, a ginormous part of a ginormous part of our success. You know, not only ha do we do that for last one laughing, but we also produce Temptation Island for Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. And those hub models are also part of what has been successful.

Whereas for us, in the efficiencies from the production part of it, you know, but having the opportunity, having the streamers give us pr, proco the opportunity to produce that. It's literally a dream come true. I really cannot complain that, you know, I have Colombian roots in my wildest dreams that I think that I was gonna be able to produce shows for that territory.

I have Argentinian friends in my wildest dreams that I think I was gonna be producing a show specifically for Argentina and that it's successful and it works. Yeah, so that's, it's, it's wonderful that the streamers are giving us that opportunity and giving the viewers the opportunity to see the shows that they love.

Feel like they're theirs. Yeah. Yeah. 

And so tell us about you've got a new show called Star Crush, I believe I do. Tell me about that. 

Star Crush is our newest show. It's a development that we ban J and Mexico and US Standard we did together with Carlos Ponte, who is like the heartthrob of everywhere.

By the way, anytime that I tell people I'm working with him, they're like, oh. I'm like, stop it. Stop it. Stop it. But

he's 

a good looking man. I mean he is a very good looking man. I know. And I'm friends with his wife so you didn't hear that. So we developed a show, it's basically a dating kind of competition to see who's really the biggest fan of all of these artists.

'cause everyone seems to claim that they are. Really is. 

Oh, so it is a search for the super fan, right? 

Basically, yeah. Yeah. With a little dating component. And also having the component of Carlos who not only is an executive producer, but he's gonna be part of the show. So, I mean, what else can you ask for?

You have that sexiest man alive on one of my shows. Like you gotta watch. 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, they, by the way, for everybody who's listening to this they, they, they're not sound effects. It is real thunder and lightning that's that's happening. So we, we've probably got a couple of minutes before the, the heavens open here 

produced this Actually.

We did, we did. We wanted to cool it off a little bit. Set the mood. Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. It's, yeah. Put a bit of drama into this interview. So yeah, just tell us about the slate that's coming up. Any, anything new that we should be watching out for, or anything that that, that we is gonna be the next, you know, big hit for you.

Well, we have some really excitement, exciting announcements a little bit coming up later this year. We've tapped into our Banner J catalog, so we have some shows that we are now currently. Localizing for the territory, so we're working on that. Yeah. And I have a couple of new developments I'm gonna be announcing soon, so I'm pretty excited about that.

But lots of really cool, fun stuff. 

All right. Well, I, I, I think we're getting rained. 

Yeah. 

And I can tell, I'm not gonna tease any, any interesting any interesting news lines here from you. Marie, thank you so much for joining ManTech. It's been lovely meeting you and such a pleasure. And as best of luck with everything you're doing here.

Thank you. Stay dry. 

Yeah. Well, that's about it for this week's show. I hope you enjoyed it. TellyCast was shot here in Ker Castile, LaManche Ni imagery. We'll be back next week with another show. Until then, stay safe.