Atresplayer: the house of ‘Veneno’ and ‘La ruta’ turns five

Five years ago, Atresmedia pivoted its digital platform. Atresplayer It had already been underway for a few years, but it was not until 2019 when, driven by the advance of global services and inspired by experiences of American free-to-air channels, the communication group decided to raise the stakes. It added the name Premium and, since then, offers a subscription version with access to exclusive original content, previews and other benefits. This summer marks five years since that relaunch. In recent years, they have gone from the 75,000 subscribers they had then to more than 600,000, they have released more than 40 original productions and accumulate more than five million unique users per month.

The home of award-winning series such as Poison, The route either Thistle has had enough agility to adapt to the changes imposed by an industry as variable as the audiovisual industry. Although they were born with a single subscription option, last year they introduced two plans, Premium Family (7.99 euros per month), which allows sharing with up to three different households, and Premium (4.99 euros), with the same content but only for one home and with a reduced amount of advertising. Thus, they joined the global trend of advertisements in paid subscriptions, but distanced themselves from the trend that tries to fight against shared accounts. As José Antonio Antón, General Director of Atresmedia Televisión, explains to EL PAÍS, approximately between 15 and 20% of new subscribers opt for the package that allows sharing. “In market studies that we did, we realized that when you took away the option of sharing an account from people, they were not so bothered by the fact that it was going to cost them more, but rather that they shared it almost for social use, to share it.” with his grandmother, with his friends… That’s why we promote that package,” he explains.

They also distance themselves from other platforms in their firm commitment to the release of one chapter a week. “We are very TV-oriented,” summarizes the manager. “If you do something in chapters, it makes perfect sense to consume it in chapters. It improves the viewing experience,” he adds. The team that works on Atresmedia fiction does so both for the series that will be seen openly (and previewed by the platform) and those that will be exclusive to Atresplayer, and the same goes for those who are dedicated to entertainment formats. When they launch a project, they are clear from the beginning what its destination will be: “There are projects that we think have a generalist, more open television approach, to reach a broader audience, and other more risky projects, which address issues that They may interest many people but not in such a massive way that we direct them to the platform,” explains Antón. For example, they were clear that The route, with a risky formal bet by telling the story in reverse order, would go to Atresplayer. In other cases, as happened with Christ and King, Although it was born as a production exclusively for the platform, in its development they realized that it could have a pull on free-to-air TV due to its themes and characters.

Having five million unique users per month and 600,000 subscribers allows Atresmedia to know much better the behavior of viewers regarding its content, which helps them make decisions. Atresplayer’s audience is younger than Antena 3’s, explains Antón: if the average age of the traditional television viewer in Spain is very close to 60 years old, that of the Atresmedia platform is in their thirties. However, both end up opting for the same content and programs like The voice either Your face is familiar to me They are hits on both Antena 3 and Atresplayer.

More production

The platform war has entered a new phase in the last two years: after the continuous growth and explosion driven by the pandemic, it is now in a moment of stabilization and containment. The particular features of Atresplayer allow you to be in a different situation. The Spanish platform has not considered reducing the amount of production, but in recent years it has increased it to reach around 12 releases per year. “Now we can diversify the exploitation cycles of our programs: we preview it on the platform, then it broadcasts on the linear channel, then it is on demand on the platform, then in the subscription catalog, then a lot of content is sold abroad… All of these Windows allow us to increase the performance of the content and produce more,” describes José Antonio Antón. “We are a very unique proposal because it is a combination of our television programming with an approach to streaming very specific, of doing things hand in hand with the creators here while they are here,” he adds.

The platform celebrated on Monday, with a party in Madrid, five years since its relaunch. And he did it with several titles in his portfolio for the coming months, from the recently released series Eva & Nicole (which will be seen in Antena 3 later) to the formats of Flooxer —your young content brand— Hunting season and If my mother says sowith La Pija and La Quinqui, and the original series for the platform The big jumpwith Óscar Casas playing Gervasio Defer, What are you waiting for?, adaptation of the novel by Megan Maxwell, and The shadow of the earth, where actress Elvira Mínguez directs the adaptation of her own novel.

What new challenges does Atresplayer have ahead of it? “We still cannot add another 600,000 subscribers, but we can work to give the subscriber the differential value of Atresplayer and take care of the traditional free television user, and that the platform is in as many places as possible,” Antón concludes.

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