Launched in 2023, few physical markets have come together so fast as Miami’s Content Americas. Attendance stood at 2,278 delegates in 2025. This year, all exhibition space has sold out.
Yet just as it has fast consolidated as the No. 1 international TV meet and mart for Latin America and U.S. Hispanic those regions – and global TV markets at large – have increasingly suffered radical turbulence and buffeting headwinds.
“The market has really contracted. There’s fewer buyers and less willingness to take risks,” says Erik Barmack, at Wild Sheep Content. “These are convulsive times,” adds Ezequiel Olzanski at EO Media. Few would argue with either judgement.
“If you were a production company with massive overhead or just getting started in production, it would be awfully difficult,” he adds. Some smaller more niche players in Latin America and the U.S. have indeed gone to the wall. Multiple projects in development have been pulled. Sales to free-to-air broadcasters have declined, according to distributors.
Content Americas’ carefully curated 2026 conference will offer guidance in troubled times. The recipient at Content Americas with a honorary Rose d’Or Latino for career achievement, Oscar winner Juan José Campanella will deliver a keynote, speaking with the authority of a creative who has directed in Argentina (“The Secret in Their Eyes”), Spain (“Vientos de agua”) and the U.S. (“House,” “Law and Order”), working an independent (“Underdogs”) and for Paramount+ (“The Envoys”) and now Netflix (upcoming movie “Parque Lezama”).
Of regional giants, Brazil’s Globo will host a Showcase drilling down on its telenovela strategies, Banijay a panel on its expansion in Latin America. CEO Darío Turovelzky will forseeably explain plans at his newly-fledged Telefé Studios, after local holding Televisión Litoral bought top Argentine broadcast network Telefe from Paramount-Skydance last October.
Content Americas will also stage its now traditional and popular CoproPitch and Rose d’Or Latinos awards.
The big question at Content Americas, however, looks set to repeat Mipcom’s: How to reinvent the international TV business?
“These are convulsive times but also times to be active and creative. It is our clear goal and intention to be an active player, along with others in the international area, regarding the reconstruction of a damaged but still very alive industry, working on the creation of a new model for the industry towards stronger times to come,” says Olzanski.
This process, however, is already ongoing.
10 takes on the how the international TV business is exploring new other paths, the likely main conversation driver at Content Americas 2026, which unspools as ever at the Hilton Miami Downtown, this year over Jan. 19-22.
The Crunch
67 in the first half of 2022, global streamer first-run orders in Latin America halved to 32 same period 2025, according to Ampere Analysis. Outside Brazil, they may not recover in a very short term.
“It’s still a very challenging market, driven, in part, by elements that are out of producers’ hands,” says Christian Gabela, at Gaumont USA. “The price of everything has gone up, including production costs, felt most acutely in Mexico where there is still not an incentive for television production in place. Also, we’re still going through highest-level industry consolidation– the Netflix, Skydance battle for WBD – and, at a Latin American level, changes in management teams. I anticipate there will be a let’s hold steady, wait and see approach until everything sort of shakes out,” he added.
Zig as Others Zag
So the tough have got going. Companies with stellar track records with global streamers have turned to the open market. Their new projects should drive new business announcements at Content Americas. And some companies zig as others zag. In Latin America, global streamers are moving very successfully into telenovelas, such as HBO Max Latin America’s first original novela, “Scars of Beauty,” a big Brazilian hit, and now “Madame Beja,” bowing Feb. 2. Both are just 40-episodes. Meanwhile Globo, still Latin America’s telenovela queen, announced at Mipcom succulent international standard length minis and series with, respectively, the BBC and Ron Leshem and Janeiro Studios. But Globo is also experimenting, returning to the “novelão,” “big novela” in literal translation, doubling down on melodrama, as in its biggest Content Americas bet, “Three Graces.” It is also partnering with L.A.-based international entertainment studio MFF & Co to reformat Globo mega hits for the U.S. market as English-language, multi-season series.
Addiction TV
Another big question is how fast Latin America will ramp up producing its own microdramas. In one of Content Americas’ earliest sessions on Tuesday, Omdia’s María Rua Aguete looks set to unveil could-you-show-that-slide-again? stats suggesting how microdrama daily minute watched on mobile devices is already overhauling most global streamers last quarter in parts of Latin America. Featuring impossible love between impossibly handsome leads, with regular soapy twists every 90 seconds, “with microdramas you’re not reinventing the wheel, you’re inventing a Gen Z telenovela,” says Caroline Servy at The Wit. So it’s logical that Latin America, a novela heartland, will not only see a microdrama feeding fever but take to a fish like water in producing them. Globo has already begun, for example. TelevisaUnivision’s ViX is integrating microdramas into its scaled AVOD/SVOD ecosystem, Rua Aguete notes.
While International Streamers Are Focusing on Local, Local Broadcasters Are Moving Ever More Into International
Equally, once courted by producers for their international reach, one of streamers’ market focus, as they evolve towards traditional broadcasters, is ever more local. Olzanski, for example, is shaping potential streamer projects which are “local to and particularly strong in a market, because of their story or topic, IP, real-life origin, as in true crime, or has a great cast and talent from a territory.” Broadcasters, once far more local players, are being forced to become more international, forging cross-border co-productions to face off with higher-budget streaming fare. That is especially the case of Latin America.
Three Graces
Three Graces Courtesy of Globo
Consider Very Carefully Where You Shoot
“You need to look at territories where budgets make sense,” says Gaumont USA’s Gabela. “Spain is probably the prime example in the Spanish-speaking world for having successfully incentivized productions around the world to shoot there,” he notes. “Spain, alongside Colombia, Uruguay, and others, offer the opportunity to optimize budgets with soft monies that are critical to compensate the higher costs driven by inflation. We, at Gaumont USA, are considering shooting in these countries despite the stories taking place elsewhere – as are the streamers we’ve talked to.” One case in point: Gaumont USA and Argentina’s Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat (“Official Competition,” The Boss”) are adapting Argentine novel “Instructions on How to Rob a Supermarket,” by Haidu Kowsk, looking to set the project in Spain for narrative reasons and to secure the best budget and incentives possible.
Or Look to Europe
“The challenge with Latin America has always been that there are fewer strong, local broadcasters who can initiate co-productions in a similar manner that European broadcasters can do through co-productions. There’s fewer options to form partnerships, which makes alternatives to the streamers more challenging,” says Barmack. So many Latin American players at Content Americas will be looking to Europe, especially in meetings with Spanish players, out in force in Miami. Olzanski, just arriving from meetings in Madrid, says he is pursing an “older traditional model of co-production that has naturally become the actual future model,” including different windows and territories and taking in “organic Spain-Latin America” partnerships.
Soccertainment
Players are also tapping into the world’s global events and passions, such as soccer and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, held in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Gaumont USA and Netflix are finalizing post-production on the Diego Luna-headed “Mexico 86,” on the country’s long-shot bid to host the 1986 Cup. Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content is co-producing “Raza Brava,” about Chilean soccer-club Colo Colo’s rabid fan group, selected at the upcoming 2026 Berlinale Series Market Selects. And “Pioneers,” about Argentina’s first women’s national team which trounced England at a little known female World Cup in Mexico in 1971, looks like a potential standout at Content Americas’ CoPro Pitch, held on Tuesday. “These types of national events act as a type of IP we can mine to bring about entertaining stories that have relevancy and parallels to what is transpiring today – the return of the World Cup to Mexico in 2026,” says Gabela.
Raza Brava
Courtesy of Mediapro
Or Explore New Trade Routes
For his part, Barmack is targeting a model of “premium series that we think can travel from small markets,” made with directors and writers who punch above their weight and who don’t get the looks that, say, Mexico or France and Germany get,” he says. “Raza Brava,” for example, is showrun by Chile’s Hernán Caffiero, who scored an Intl. Emmy Award for “The Suspended Mourning.” “Chilean filmmakers are taking slightly bigger risks than a lot of other parts of Latin America and doing very high quality productions on low budgets that are allowing them to get made and then hopefully get distribution around the world,” he adds.
Brazil Leads the Way for Global Streamers
For global streamers, “Brazil has currently most momentum in Latin America,” says The Wit’s Caroline Servy. Global streamer orders doubled from 7 in 2H 2024 to 14 in 1H 2025 in Brazil, according to Ampere Analysis. HBO Max’s “Scars of Beauty,” a major hit, and its upcoming “Madame Beja” last just 40-episodes. Netflix’s hybrid novela/series“Desperate Lies,” a global non-English No. 1 in 2024, came in at just 17. “In telenovelas, global streamers have made major recent moves, shortening formats,” says Caroline Servy at the Wit. “Brazil is building the biggest in terms of production volume with true crime drama the big, big thing for streamers. A significant number of recent streamer productions in Brazil have also proved hits,” she adds, citing Netflix Brazil betting thriller “Rulers of Fortune,” a non-English global No 1 over Nov. 3-9, and Prime Video’s event true crime “Tremembé,” tracking the inmates of a prison for celebrity criminals.
Marina Ruy Barbosa in “Tremembé”
Courtesy of Prime Video Brazil
Blue Sky Crime Still Flourishes
Some things aren’t changing. In such an alarming real world, post-pandemic blue sky entertainment shows little sense of dimming. Three of the six Copro Pitch finalists to be pitched on Tuesday – “Dr. Sex,” “José Piedra, a Guy With Bad Luck” and “Sexorcism” – are feel-good second-chance comedies or dramedies. Another example, 2026 Rose d’Or Latino contender “Until You Burn” delivers a Netflix/Caracol blue sky Caribbean rendering of “I Spit on Your Graves,” a Boris Vian 1946 bestseller so dark that it was used by a French killer to explain what he felt when he murdered his mistress. Some of its origin’s acidic wash remains in a scathing put-down of city elite racism and its nuanced view of character. But this is sugar-candy coated by gorgeous leads, Caribbean blue sky, waterfront high-rise apartments and chic clubs. Vian’s novel ends with his Black anti-hero lynched, his erect penis hanging out of his pants; “Until You Burn” climaxes as a tale of belated female empowerment.