The market for the television industry in Latin America has been growing for several years and will continue to grow, thanks to digital television that expands the capacity of channels and will allow them to grow.
By Richard Santa S.
With great success, the fourth version of TecnoTelevisión concluded, which was held on August 31 and September 1 in Bogotá, Colombia. The Congress is postulated as one of the best showcases of the industry for the North zone of Latin America.
The general feeling among the exhibitors and attendees, both to the Commercial Exhibition and to the Academic Programming, was that of a Congress that exceeded expectations in every way.
Its success was reflected with the massive attendance of professionals from the Latin American television industry to Academic Programming.
The Commercial Exhibition also had a good flow of experts and allowed exhibitors to publicize the main novelties in equipment and technological developments for the television industry.
This was expressed by the exhibitors who accompanied us during the two days in which TecnoTelevisión was held: Instelec, Seel, AJA, La Curacao, VCR, Harris, Sony, Daga, Kramer Electronics, Digital Signage Media, Newtek, Vitec Group, Arrow Media Tech, Linear, Television and Digital Video.
Exhibitor satisfaction
The attendance of a large number of people specialized in the television industry to the Commercial Exhibition was one of the factors that most highlighted the exhibitors of TecnoTelevisión.
Engineer Aldo Buenahora, director of the technical department of the company La Curacao de Colombia, said that "The level of attendees has been good, we have seen a mixture of important and well-known old customers with new people, which for us has been very positive because these events are mainly held to reach people we do not know."
For his part, Daniel Amaya, Broadcast Division Manager of the Daga Group, a company that represents about 40 manufacturers in the television industry for Colombia, highlighted the growth possibilities of TecnoTelevisión for next year.
"Of the four versions of the Congress, this has been the one that has had the highest participation of visitors in the Commercial Exhibition and can grow the most if for next year all regional channels are taken into account."
Breaking the way
There were also several companies that participated for the first time in the Congress. Some of them were the Brazilian company Linear and Arrow Media Tech.
Carlos Henrique Ferreira, deputy director of international business of Linear, said that "It is our first participation in TecnoTelevisión, in which we have been able to observe that the national television of Colombia has great potential and our company wants to participate in the market with solutions for transport and signal transmission."
He added that TecnoTelevisión is very well focused and that visitors went in search of their goals. "In addition, we have taken advantage of our stay in Colombia to visit several channels to which we invited to the Commercial Exhibition and here we saw them."
The case of Arrow Media Tech is very particular. Its president, Juan Carlos Mejía, explained that this is a new company, has been in the market for two months and took advantage of TecnoTelevisión to make itself known in the broadcast industry.
Market grows and can grow more
We took the opportunity to the professionals of the television industry to ask them how they have done this year in terms of market and what are the expectations.
All were confident that the industry in Latin America has been growing for a couple of years and with the implementation of digital television the expectations are higher
For Juan Carlos Mejía, so far this year the market has been a bit slow, partly because there was a lot of football (referring to the Copa America in Argentina and the U20 World Cup in Colombia) and the summer holidays.
"However we are in the high business season, September, October and November. In addition, the process of implementing digital television in Latin America is very good, although it will take time, it will not be overnight. It's something that's still under discussion in some countries."
In the case of La Curacao, its expectation is focused on the transition to HD, 3D and emerging sectors, which are the producers that were previously small and that are accessing increasingly important technology.
Engineer Aldo Buenahora indicated that "the appearance of new channels that are in the making in Colombia is good news for the industry, and the growth of audiovisual production in industries that were not mainly audiovisual is for us always an opportunity."
For his part, Daniel Amaya said that "the market this year has had ups and downs, but in general it has behaved well. The events that took place in Colombia such as the U20 World Cup and digital television have generated some movement, although it was not what was really expected because the fall of the third channel slowed down the investments of many companies. In addition, with the October elections and the entry into force of the law of guarantees, the purchases of the government, which is a great buyer for this sector, are stopped."
He added that he hopes next year will be much better. They expect large investments because it will be the digitization of television, which requires the change of all equipment.
VCR fortunately can't complain. Hernán Suescún said that during this first semester the market has been good, but it is definitely an industry that has to grow more. "That is why events such as TecnoTelevisión are important, that there are more television channels and more opportunities for audiovisual media production."
He concluded that "In Colombia we should not have only a third channel, we should have four or five and more. There are countries with a population and economy smaller than ours, as is the case with Uruguay, and they have many more national television channels than our country."
Finally, Carlos Henrique Ferreira, indicated that in the Latin American television market, Colombia is one step ahead because it is in the second part of the adaptation of the digital television model.
"The rest of the countries are in the adaptation of their legislations and next year is very promising because purchases begin with the stage of technical adaptation in which everything must be changed."
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Echoes of TecnoTelevisión
"The Commercial Exhibition was quite crowded, both by users and manufacturers. People were very interested in new technologies, so it is important to show them in our country because many do not have the opportunity to attend international fairs, but here we could see a complete compendium of what you see outside, "Joaquín Varela, general manager of Instelec.
"This fair was very important for us because it allowed us to know the technology that is being used in Latin America, a market that has been growing significantly in recent years," Manny Rosado, Aja.
"It is the first time we have participated in TecnoTelevisión and we are very happy because we have had a very good attendance. We brought a small sample because we are representatives of many brands and it was impossible for us to bring them all." Hernán Suescún, manager of VCR
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