Telefónica to ‘maintain’ content spend

Ángel Vilá Boix

Telefónica plans to maintain rather than grow its current level of expenditure on original content and will assess the benefits of its investment in content generally in the light of rights inflation “in a rational way”, according to Ángel Vilá Boix, the Spanish telco’s chief operating officer.

Answering an analyst question after Telefónica released strong third-quarter results, Vilá said that, regarding original content, the figures it had released to the market for its investment “are the ones that will stay”. He said that the telco’s “limited figure” for original production was one of several parts of its wider TV strategy.

Vilá said that if there was inflation in rights, Telefónica would “analyse the cost-benefit equation in a rational way” and “decide accordingly”.

He said that the original series in which Telefónica had invested had received “quite a successful reception” both critically and in terms of attracting an audience.

Vilá said that investing in original drama and acquiring content was one of “three legs” of the company’s TV strategy, the others being to provide TV in tandem with a high-speed connection to the home and other being to provide a superior functionality.

“We have the most complete and widest content offering in the market, including movies, series and sport,” said Vilá. “None of our competitors have a similar level of content to what we have.”