Open television faces a great challenge: capturing the attention of users in the face of the wide variety of content that is generated daily and the large number of platforms that distribute it.
One of the strategies that companies have opted for to face this challenge is to add ‘nostalgia content’, that is, programs and series that were previously successful within audiences.
For example, HBO Max added cartoons such as Batman, Johnny Bravo or Courage, the Cowardly Dog , among others, to its programming grid, as well as series such as Sex and the City or Friends to capture the attention of consumers.
Open television did not want to be left behind with this strategy. TV Azteca, one of the open signal television stations, has opted since August of this year to add programs that were successful in the 90s and that even became endearing to Mexican audiences such as Los Caballeros del Zodiaco or Dragon Ball Z , whose rights of transmission belonged to Televisa for 20 years.
Adrián Ortega, general director of content for TV Azteca, explained that the company opted to broadcast Japanese anime franchises to connect with different generations, from millennials to generation Z.
“We love nostalgia because it allows us to take our audiences to relive emotions from their childhood and youth, which now they can even share with their entire family and children,” Ortega told Expansión in an email.
The broadcast of Dragon Ball Z has generated expectation within the audience and even the news has been a trend on Twitter.
Claudia Benassi, a specialist in restricted television and digital platforms and a researcher at La Salle University, sees the strategy used by TV Azteca to connect with audiences as a success and even considers that it will allow it to reach an audience interested in accessing to classic content such as cartoons or series from the past but do not have the financial resources to pay for a streaming platform.
HBO Max recently added the Dragon Ball Z Kai cartoon to its catalog.
“It seems to me that it is a bet to recover this public that does not have access to streaming because they do not have the income. We may think that it is very cheap to subscribe to Netflix or any platform, but that does not mean that everyone can pay for it and we want to recover part of the content and make it available to people who do not have the possibility of acquiring or accessing a platform”, Benassini points out.
Another advantage of rebroadcasting old content is that contracting broadcasting rights for already established programs is cheaper than developing new content, which involves hiring a scriptwriter, editing and curating a program.
