Globoplay Brazil
May 2022
Key Takeaways
Globoplay’s success stems mostly from its parent company Grupo Globo’s intellectual property and the fact that TV Globo’s programming showcases the platform and its original or exclusive titles.
Globoplay has invested in localization strategies to differentiate itself in Brazil’s competitive internet-distributed television market. Telenovelas and reality shows are Globoplay’s main strengths in this regard.
Globoplay has initiated partnerships and alliances with other foreign platforms. It offers special bundle packages with Disney+ and co-creates original content with HBO Max.
Market
Brazil has one of the largest television industries in the global periphery. Yet, this industry is still centered on only a few ad-supported networks and less than 10% of the population has access to subscription-supported television services (approximately 14.9 million in 2020) according to the Associação Brasileira de Televisão por Assinatura (Brazilian Pay-TV/ Telecom Association). Thus, ad-supported television is still well ahead of subscription-supported television regarding penetration, with ad-supported television reaching 96.3 percent and subscriber-funded only 30.4 percent. The main reasons for this are the fact that Brazil has one of the world’s most expensive subscription-supported TV services, a strong ad-supported broadcast system, and Brazilians are also accustomed to pirating audiovisual content (ranked 4th in the world in 2017).
This market is monopolized by one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world, the Grupo Globo. The company owns newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, but its most important asset is the ad-supported network TV Globo. The network is the audience leader in the segment and, according to a recent campaign, it reaches approximately 100 million Brazilians every day. The Grupo Globo also has Globosat, the largest subscription-supported television service in Latin America. It boasts 6.1 million subscriber households and reaches an estimated 20.8 million viewers. The service is limited to television and does not offer internet services, though. While Grupo Globo had a monopoly on television consumption in the country, in recent years it has had its dominance challenged by the arrival of internet-distributed television services from the United States, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, and HBO Max, among others.
In 2019, there were 85 internet-distributed television platforms available (considering ad-supported and subscription-supported services) in Brazil (Lopes & Lemos, 2020). It is in this scenario that the Grupo Globo launched their own streaming platform called Globoplay. The platform has a freemium revenue model, in which users can consume the linear flow of TV Globo’s programming and a few clips or episodes from TV shows and telenovelas for free. Nevertheless, this model contains ads that are present at the start of every clip, usually 30 seconds long, and that can also be present throughout the video depending on its duration. In spite of this, the ad-load is smaller than on linear television. Complete access to the content library, on the other hand, is limited to paying subscribers. Globoplay costs $4.37/BRL 22.90 every month and gives access to 5 simultaneous screens. Subscribers can also choose a yearly subscription which costs approximately $45.54/BRL 238,8 or just $3,79/BRL 19,90 every month. The subscription gives access to a wide variety of content, from Brazilian movies and TV shows to foreign exclusive productions.
Globoplay was not Grupo Globo’s first experience with internet-distributed television. The media conglomerate started with a service tied to its satellite offering, Globosat, in 2011that was initially called Muu and then later renamed “Canais Globo”. The service is only available to Globosat subscribers. Its main difference to Globoplay is that it only offers content available on Globosat channels. In other words, its main appeal is catch-up viewing. Globo’s internet-distributed offering has grown steadily more ambitious. It first provided the Globo.TV service in 2012, which only offered access to excerpts from TV Globo’s linear programming and some content from other Globosat channels for free. A couple of months later, the conglomerate created a premium version, called Globo.TV+ that allowed paying subscribers to access the complete versions of TV Globo’s linear programming. In November 2015, Globoplay was created, a more ambitious platform with a library of content composed of national and international titles.
During Globoplay’s first years, it supplied both TV Globo’s linear programming and a library with several titles ranging from local TV shows and movies to foreign productions, mainly those from the United States. By making its linear flow available for free online, Globoplay attracts people who consume television content on a variety of devices, especially on smartphones. TV Globo’s library of content, chiefly its telenovelas, is Globoplay’s main advantage against its foreign competitors.
However, as of September 2020, Globoplay started to integrate several Globosat linear channels in its content library, such as Multishow, Globonews, GNT, SportTV, among many others. The company is promoting this premium service as “Globoplay + canais ao vivo” (Globoplay + live channels) and calling it an “all-in-one” service that integrates linear and non-linear content through streaming. Brazilian audiences considered this hybrid package a success especially during the 2020 Summer Olympics because subscribers could watch the full coverage of the event through access to sports channels as SporTV, SporTV 2 e SporTV 3. This service costs $8.18/BRL 42.9 every month, subscribers have access to 19 linear TV channels from ad-supported and subscription-supported television. Globoplay subscribers only need to upgrade their subscription to have access to this service on a variety of smart devices and computers. Considering that the average monthly cost of a subscription-supported television package is $24,70/BRL 130,00, Globoplay is making this content more accessible at an affordable price and finding a way out to Brazil’s dwindling numbers in the subscription-supported television market.
Currently, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are Globoplay’s main competitors in this market. Netflix has attracted significant Brazilian consumers. According to an estimate released by Comparitec, Netflix reached an estimated 18 million subscribers in Brazil, its second-largest market in the world. Yet, as of September 2021, Netflix increased its subscription fee up to 21 percent. The company’s premium package now costs $10.66/BRL 55.90[i] and its cheapest is $4.94/BRL 25.90. Still, this price is roughly half of the cost in other markets. On the other hand, considering the aforementioned localization strategies, Globoplay can fulfill a complementary role to Netflix in Brazil. While Netflix’s content library consists mostly of titles from the U.S., Globoplay’s main focus is providing local content to Brazilians.
Globoplay has also established alliances with other video and music streaming platforms. Since November 2020, Globoplay has partnered with Disney+ and offers special discounted subscription plans. A yearly subscription plan to Disney+ costs approximately $53.39/BRL 280 and Globoplay’s is around $45.77/BRL 240, which would total nearly $100/BRL 520 every year. However, if users choose to subscribe to both services, they would receive a discount and only pay approximately $86.76/BRL 455 a year. In 2021, Globoplay announced that subscribers would receive a 12-month free premium subscription to the music streaming service Deezer and also 3 months of Apple TV+ for free. Overall, these strategies have increased Globoplay’s value as a service worthy of a monthly subscription in the Brazilian market. In November 2021, Globoplay announced a partnership with Discovery+ to offer another option for discounted subscription plans. In Brazil, Discovery+ costs approximately $4,16/ BRL 21,90 every month, however if a user subscribes to Globoplay and Discovery+ the cost is only $6,63/BRL 34,90. According to Erick Bretas, Globoplay’s Director of Digital, “the arrival of these contents to streaming allows us to make a combined offer with Globoplay and offer the consumer a package with complementary products at a generous discount.”
Regulation
Given Brazil’s market potential and the strong presence of foreign internet-distributed platforms, some audiovisual producers and politicians fear that major players as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video will overwhelm the local industry. Brazil began discussing the regulation of its internet-distributed television market in 2011, the same year Netflix arrived. Yet, it was only in 2016 that the Agência Nacional do Cinema (Brazil’s audiovisual regulatory agency) held a consultation of regulating this market. The agency released in 2019 a public regulatory impact study with proposals concerning: 1) taxes; 2) quotas of Brazilian content in the library; and 3) curatorial responsibility. There are currently legislative bills under debate in the Brazilian Congress and Senate. In 2021, the Ministry of Communications released a report for public consultation in which it reinforced that the Pay-TV Law (in which subscription-supported television networks have to broadcast at least 3.5 hours of Brazilian content produced by independent production companies every week during primetime) does not apply to internet-distributed platforms, such as Netflix, Globoplay, and Amazon Prime Video. Regarding Globoplay, most of the content available is already locally produced or co-produced with Brazilian independent production companies.
Viewing Habits
In contrast to the struggles Netflix faced when it first arrived in Brazil, when Globoplay debuted Brazilians already used several devices to access internet-distributed television. Currently, users access Globoplay through a variety of smart devices and computers. In May 2020, Globoplay started the Projeto Resgate (Rescue Project) releasing a remastered telenovela from TV Globo’s archive every two weeks, as Dancin’ Days (1978), Top Model (1989), and A Indomada (1997), among several others. Only the first few chapters of each production are available to non-subscribers for free. With the option of (re)watching a favorite telenovela on Globoplay, users began binging this content. Telenovela marathons have become widely popular on the service in spite of their 60 minutes runtime and the fact that some telenovelas have over 200 episodes, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, Globoplay revealed that a subscriber watched 115 episodes of the telenovela A Favorita (2008) in just two weeks, an average of 8-hours a day watching this production. Globoplay’s head of content, Ana Carolina Lima states that “telenovelas are a part of Brazilian life, they speak directly to the affective memory of the public as a genre enshrined in the national audiovisual sector. Today people have the option of watching telenovelas both on television and streaming, and these possibilities coexist”.
Another successful strategy has been the new seasons of the reality show Big Brother Brasil.
From 2002 to 2018 viewers who wished to have 24-hour access to the show had to subscribe to pay-per-view packages on subscription-supported television. However, in 2019 Grupo Globo decided to also make Big Brother Brasil available on Globoplay. The streaming service provides 24-hour access to 10 exclusive cameras spread throughout the house. While pay-per-view packages ranged from BRL60 ($11.44) to BRL80 ($15.26) per month of the reality, Globoplay users could have access just by paying the regular subscription price. The bargain deal and easy access to the reality show on mobile devices have attracted new subscribers to Globoplay during the reality’s first months. To avoid churn after the reality ends in May, Bretas reveals that the platform concentrates new releases in April and the beginning of May.
The reality show is structured to guide viewers from the daily linear transmission on TV Globo to the non-linear access on Globoplay. For example, on Monday nights of the 21st season of Big Brother Brasil (2021) contestants would participate in the jogo da discórdia (discord game) where the dynamics were solely designed to cause conflict and contention among the participants. The linear transmission would then end with a hook for viewers to continue watching the brothers fight it out on Globoplay. This migration of tens of millions of viewers at the same minute became a problem for the platform, which would present instability and not allow subscribers to access the content. The phenomenon was called “rajada” (blast) by Raymundo Barros, Globoplay’s director of technology. Barros explains that the problem is not maintaining millions of users on the platform, but the fact that over 2,5 million users tried to access the platform simultaneously. Globoplay would take 10 to 15 minutes to stabilize. In order to ease viewers’ transition from the linear to the non-linear and avoid instability in the platform, TV Globo’s feed of the reality show in the city of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populated city, would stay available longer in relation to other cities, therefore delaying the entrance of viewers from São Paulo to Globoplay.
This relationship between TV Globo’s linear television channel and Globoplay is very strategic. The Grupo Globo tries to take advantage of the channel’s large viewership to attract new subscribers. The channel regularly advertises the platform during commercial breaks and even has characters in telenovelas frequently watching something on Globoplay and commenting on new releases. In this sense, TV Globo uses its linear programming to promote the platform and showcase its original and or exclusive titles. Under the title “Cine Globoplay” the TV channel began airing content available on the platform in a Friday night timeslot, as the movie Loucas para Casar (2015) and the pilot episode of The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-). Yet, in 2019, they changed the name to “Sessão Globoplay” (Globoplay Session). TV Globo started airing just the pilot episode of its original TV productions, as Shippados (2019) and Aruanas (2019-). This strategy would function as a “free sample” in hopes to attract viewers to subscribing to Globoplay in order to gain access to the full seasons of these productions. Recently, the session has started to air complete seasons of licensed shows available on Globoplay, as Whiskey Cavalier (2019) and FBI (2018-).
Internet Pricing and Availability
Currently, Brazil occupies fourth place in the world ranking in the number of internet users, only behind China, India, and the United States and has over 149 million people connected. Although internet speed and overall availability have increased in Brazil during the last decade, the country still trails behind several others in the average internet speed. In July 2021, Brazil ranked 45th for fixed broadband speeds and 73rd in the world for mobile speeds. Regarding availability, according to the latest data released by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) in 2019 Brazil had approximately 72,4 million households, 81.2 percent of these had access to mobile broadband, while 77,9 percent had fixed-wire broadband. Only 59 percent had access to both. Most Brazilians access the internet on mobile phones (99 percent), only 31 percent access the internet through the television set. Nevertheless, according to a survey released by App Annie, Brazil ranks 6th among the largest consumers of internet-distributed platforms in the world. In App Annie’s 2020 report, Globoplay is the 4th most popular app used to stream video in Brazil, behind only Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime Video, respectively.
Content
Globoplay benefits from vertical integration to expand the distribution of TV Globo’s linear television programming as news, telenovelas, and sports. At first, one of the main challenges Globoplay faced was trying to transform the linear audience into paying subscribers. In this sense, telenovelas played a significant role since these programs are some of the highest-rated productions on Brazilian television. Although only paying subscribers have access to complete chapters, Globoplay does release highlights and excerpts from current telenovelas airing on TV Globo for free. Currently, the platform also offers a live feed to TV Globo’s linear programming to users in most Brazilian cities. It is even possible to rewind the feed in 1-hour. Bretas considers the relationship between Globoplay and linear television one of the platform’s main strengths.
In order to compete with Netflix and other foreign platforms, Globoplay employs three main strategies to compose its content library: 1) licensing TV Globo’s content; 2) licensing TV shows and movies from foreign media conglomerates; and 3) commissioning original content. Since Globoplay belongs to the Grupo Globo, most of the content available on the platform is from TV Globo’s linear content library, such as movies, reality shows, talk shows, series, documentaries among several other productions. In honor of Brazil’s national cinema, Globoplay has also added 50 classic Brazilian films to its library under the tag “50 essências do cinema brasileiro” as Vidas secas (1963), Macunaíma (1969), and Bacurau (2019).
Nevertheless, the library’s greatest advantage has been the rescue project and the inclusion of classic telenovelas. Currently, there are more than 120 telenovelas available. In May 2021, journalist Patrícia Kogut[ii] released the top 10 most-watched telenovelas on the service.
Figure 1
Kogut’s ranking considered how many hours a telenovela was streamed during its first 30 days available on the platform. At the time, Mulheres de Areia (1993) topped the ranking with 4.965 million hours, followed by Laços de Família (2000) with 4.956 million and Tieta (1989) 4,739 million.
Despite the popularity of local programming, Globoplay has licensed popular titles from Disney, Warner, NBCU, Sony among other U.S.-based studios and media conglomerates to bolster its library. The platform initially invested in TV shows that were already popular in Brazil, for example, The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019) and Grey’s Anatomy (2005-). These productions have aired or are still airing on ad-supported and subscription-supported television channels and have amassed Brazilian fanbases. Despite being available on other streaming platforms, when Grey’s Anatomy debuted on the platform in September 2020 it shattered Globoplay’s most-watched records with more than 1 million hours consumed in just three days. Next, Globoplay started to license titles exclusively, as Hulu’s acclaimed drama The Handmaid’s Tale. According to Bretas the most-watched drama currently on Globoplay is the U.S. medical drama The Good Doctor (2017-). But it’s not just U.S. content, Globoplay has also added some Turkish dramas as Yeni Hayat (2020) and Fatmagül (2010-2012). The latter had already aired on Band TV, an ad-supported TV network between August 2015 and April 2016. Both productions are dubbed and subtitled in Brazilian Portuguese.
In 2021, Globoplay announced new partnerships with the Mexican network Televisa and the U.S. network Telemundo to add more Latin-American content, mainly telenovelas, to its library. Some of these telenovelas, as Marimar (1994), María la del Barrio (1995-1996), and La Usurpadora (1998), were very popular in Brazil during the 1990s and early 2000s. They aired on another ad-supported TV channel, the SBT network. In this same deal, Globoplay announced that the Colombian telenovela La Nieta Elegida, currently being produced by the RCN channel, will be available on Globoplay in 2022.
Although it licenses content from many other media conglomerates, Globoplay has also been commissioning original content since 2016. Among Brazilian streaming platforms, Globoplay is still one of the only ones commissioning original productions. Globoplay has released 10 dramas, as Arcanjo Renegado (2020-) and Desalma (2020-), and more than 12 comedies, as Além da Ilha (2018) and Filhas de Eva (2021-). But it’s not just scripted content, Globoplay also commissions variety productions, such as Cada Um no Seu Quadrado (2020), the game show Casa Kalimann (2021) and documentary series, as Você Nunca Esteve Sozinha - O Doc de Juliette (2021) – about the life of the winner of the 2021 edition of Big Brother Brasil – and É Ouro! O Brilho do Brasil em Tóquio (2021) – about Brazilian athletes who won the gold medal during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. In some cases, productions are released all at once, while others have new episodes released every week. This reveals that Globoplay is still experimenting with distribution models in order to find the best fit for its original productions. According to Bretas, Globoplay currently has 82 shows in the development or production phase and original content is the “most important piece of our strategy now”. These productions are tagged as Originais Globoplay (Globoplay originals) in its content library.
Even though most original productions are produced through the Grupo Globo and other Brazilian audiovisual production companies, Globoplay has established deals with Disney and Warner Media to co-produce and distribute original content. One of the most anticipated works is Theodosia, a children’s live-action adventure series produced by Cottonwood Media, a French content producer, and the German public broadcaster ZDF. Theodosia will be co-produced and distributed by Globoplay, HBO Max and ZDF Enterprises. In Brazil, the 26-part half hour series will debut new episodes exclusively on Globoplay. Only after it’s completed will it be available on HBO Max’s Brazilian library and will air on TV Globo’s linear programming.
The investment in children and teen programming is significant. Since 2018, Globoplay’s library has added titles from Gloob, a Grupo Globo’s subscriber-supported channel aimed at children, like Detetives do Prédio Azul (2012-) and Valentins (2017-2018). The partnership has led to the production of the original series Escola de Gênios (2018-2020), which was released exclusively on Globoplay. Only after the production’s second season became available on the platform did it air its first season on Gloob. The investment in children’s programming became paramount after the arrival of Disney+ in Brazil in November 2020, in which Globoplay’s library lost several Pixar and Disney movies, as Ratatouille (2007), Wall-E (2008), Big Hero (2014), among several other TV series and movies.
Since December 30th, 2020, Globoplay has also added podcasts to its content library. Users can access for free more than 80 titles through their smartphones and tablets and listen to news, entertainment, sports and variety podcasts. Some are Globoplay originals, as A república das milicias (about Rio de Janeiro’s militias) and Caminhos intuitivos (about real-world entrepreneurship experiences), while other podcasts are produced by other arms of Grupo Globo’s media conglomerate as Multishow and GNT, subscription-supported channels part of Globosat. According to Bretas “We talk to almost 110 million people every month on our digital platforms. We need to have something to talk to all these people, who have very different tastes and interests”. The inclusion of podcasts reveals Globoplay’s ambition to diversify the content produced and available on Globoplay in order to reach different audiences. The production of podcasts is also an attempt to rebrand the Rádio Globo, Grupo Globo’s main radio network.
Consumer and Press Reaction
Despite Grupo Globo’s investments in Globoplay, the platform still lacks the recognition Netflix has achieved in the Brazilian press and cultivated with its consumers. In the early days of the platform, users would poke fun at Globoplay’s limitations, the lack of a “continue watching” function, or the ability to make personalized lists. However, several investments in Globoplay’s technological infrastructure were made in order to allow the platform to better compete with Netflix. Subscribers can continue watching a program from the moment they stopped, add them to lists, and even download episodes to watch offline. Still, one of the main issues consumers point out is that Globoplay only allows 3 profiles on a single account, despite allowing 5 simultaneous screens. Because of this limitation, users have to share profiles which inadvertently affects their personalized experience of the library. Another issue is the instability experienced during the episodes of Big Brother Brasil. From January to May 2021, consumers recurrently complained and made jokes on Twitter concerning Globoplay’s instability during crucial moments of the reality show. In spite of this criticism, Globoplay’s executives tend to use this instability to highlight the reality show’s success and that of the company and the platform. Nevertheless, the telenovela rescue project did bear positive recognition, especially from consumers who could now rewatch their favorite old productions on demand.
Subscriber Estimates
Similar to its main competitors in Brazil, Globoplay does not disclose total subscriber numbers. Rather, it discloses the total number of users considering its paid and ad-supported tiers or the number of hours the average consumer watches every month. According to Bretas in January 2021 Globoplay had 30 million users and streamed over 200 million hours a month. Bretas also stated that in the first quarter of 2021, each subscriber watched an average of 35 hours a month. This number has progressively increased since 2018 when it was 9.6 hours, 20.0 hours in 2019, and 33.4 hours in 2020. The executive also revealed an 89 percent increase in subscriptions in 2020, which he attributes to the global Covid-19 pandemic and also to the success of Big Brother Brasil.
Broader Reach
Since 2020, Globoplay has been available in the United States. The subscription fee is $13.99 per month. In addition to downloading the app on Google Play Store, App Store, and through smart TVs, users can also access Globoplay via Roku devices since 2021. The decision to expand the service was largely motivated by the number of Brazilians residing in the U.S. According to estimates by Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are over 1 million Brazilians living in the United States. Due to copyright restrictions and licensing deals already established, Globoplay’s content library in the U.S. is mostly limited to Grupo Globo’s original Brazilian productions. In this sense, the content is spoken in Brazilian Portuguese and the service has few dubbed or subtitled options in English. Globoplay’s U.S. library has over 900 titles available and offers live streaming of Globosat channels as GloboNews, VIVA, SporTV, and Globo’s international channel. Recently, Bretas disclosed that Globoplay should be available in Europe by the end of 2021. Despite this international expansion, the executive acknowledges that Globoplay’s overall focus still is to cater to Brazilian expatriates.
Suggested reading
Lopes, M. I. V. & Lemos, L. (2020). “Brazil: time of streaming”. In Lopes, M. I. V. & Gómez, G. O. (Eds.). Melodrama in times of streaming, (pp. 77-108). Porto Alegre: Sulina.
Notes
[i] For all the values mentioned, I used the exchange rate from the third week of September 2021. 1 Brazilian real was approximately 0.19 cents of the dollar.
[ii] The journalist had access to internal Globoplay data since she is a columnist for the O Globo newspaper, Grupo Globo’s most prestigious newspaper in Brazil.