At NEM Dubrovnik, CEETV’s Stanislav Kimchev caught up with Rodrigo Nascimento, Globo’s Head of International Business Hub for EMEA. Operating from Portugal, Nascimento oversees partnerships and international advertising across a sprawling and diverse territory. With a 30-year professional trajectory, including a decade at Sky Brasil and 20 years at Globo, Nascimento brings a deep understanding of commercial strategy and media evolution to the table. In this exclusive interview, he discusses how the Brazilian media giant is tailoring its approach to the Central and Eastern European (CEE) market, moving beyond traditional ready-made telenovelas into premium scripted formats, unscripted content, co-productions, and the fast-evolving world of micro-dramas.


How strategically important is Central and Eastern Europe for Globo’s international expansion today compared to more established Western European markets?

We view all EMEA markets as highly strategic for Globo, though we approach and understand each one differently. We face unique challenges in Western Europe, just as we do in the CEE region. Historically, we have distributed a significant amount of content, particularly telenovelas, to countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, and Serbia.

We are continuously bringing new content to this market, which is why an event like NEM is so important. It offers a great opportunity to connect with our regional partners and show them that we are still producing exceptional telenovelas. While that genre continues to hold strong historical and current opportunities here, we are also expanding our regional slate to include premium series, documentaries, and other types of content.


What does your current international slate look like in terms of priorities for our region? Are you leaning more into telenovelas, premium series, factual formats, or perhaps hybrid scripted models for CEE buyers?

It really depends on the country. Our go-to-market strategy is tailored market by market. In some territories, we see a higher penetration of ready-made telenovelas or series. In others, we see strong opportunities for scripted formats, and we are now even exploring unscripted formats.

Rather than targeting a single type of content that we want to distribute in CEE, we prefer to present our entire portfolio so our partners can evaluate what works best for them. Beyond the content itself, it's about how we can support their specific strategy, a point I highlighted during yesterday's panel. For example, we can provide consultancy through our creative and content creation teams, sharing the knowledge and insights we gained while navigating similar challenges and developing successful initiatives in Brazil. It is a comprehensive package, but we always look at it country by country and partner by partner.


This approach addresses how you resonate with CEE audiences, whose viewing habits and platform ecosystems are quite different from what you might be used to in Brazil. Which genres or formats in Globo’s slate do you believe have the strongest potential to travel across CEE, beyond the traditional telenovela audience?

Even within the realm of telenovelas, there are interesting developments. We recently had two major hits in Brazil. One is Anything Goes (Vale Tudo), a highly anticipated remake featuring Odete Roitman, one of our biggest TV villains. The other is Three Graces (Três Graças), which just wrapped its primetime run.

What is amazing about these projects is their ability to connect with younger generations. This is incredibly important for broadcasters. In Brazil, younger viewers became curious about what the adults were talking about, which reunited families on the sofa to watch these telenovelas together. We are actively listening to our audience to enhance the genre even further, and we have another upcoming title that will be incredible.

Beyond telenovelas, we are putting a lot of effort into developing Globoplay Original series. Globoplay is celebrating its 10th anniversary and stands as the largest Brazilian streaming platform. We've developed incredible series for it; a prime example is The Others (Os Outros), which just premiered its third season in Brazil. It’s an amazing story, and we have already partnered with players in Germany and Greece to adapt the format for their local markets.


Does that interest go both ways? If you found a compelling story or a successful scripted format created and produced in Central and Eastern Europe, would Globo take the risk of producing it for your own audience in Brazil?

We are absolutely open to any kind of opportunity. Globo has a specific team dedicated to acquisitions and co-production opportunities. We are always open to receiving and analyzing new ideas based on the content strategies of Globoplay and TV Globo, our free-to-air channel, to see if they fit what our platforms are looking for.


What are the most significant changes you are seeing in demand from broadcasters and streamers in CEE right now, particularly regarding budget pressures, licensing models, and content risk appetite?

We are seeing a shift where broadcasters must strike a delicate balance between tradition and innovation; they need to experiment as audiences become fragmented. While safeguarding your core programming remains essential, capturing and retaining modern viewers demands a willingness to venture into new creative territories.

This is where the true power of our diverse catalog comes into play. It empowers us to provide highly flexible, tailored business models that champion our clients' strategic experiments and tests.


To what extent is Globo exploring co-productions or local partnerships in EMEA and CEE as opposed to traditional finished program sales?

As a follow-up to our focus on scripted and unscripted formats, we created a dedicated international co-production team. This area is responsible for mapping out, identifying, and receiving project suggestions to bring to Globo for strategic analysis. We view co-productions as a core business driver and are open to collaborating with players worldwide.


Given your extensive background spanning Sky Brasil and two decades at Globo, how has the commercial mindset of international distribution evolved, especially in fragmented markets like ours?

The industry has changed dramatically. Three years ago, the big conversation was around FAST channels. Today, we are talking about micro-dramas. The pace of change will only accelerate. We have to look at these trends, invest time and resources into researching them, understand their commercial impact, and then test them quickly.

Take micro-dramas, for example. It’s a brand-new phenomenon for our Western markets, though not for Asia. We started experimenting with this format in the final two quarters of last year. We created original, highly edited shorter versions of our content where we utilized main characters to tell a condensed story. It wasn’t just a simple re-edit of a telenovela; we built a specific narrative arc around that character. This year, we launched Loquinha, a spin-off of Three Graces, as part of this initiative. We are experimenting heavily and plan to have 50 micro-drama assets in our portfolio by the end of the year. Nobody knows exactly what the market will look like in five years, but you have to be part of the trend.


If you cannot set the trend, you have to follow it as quickly as possible.

Exactly. We have to be flexible and agile. We must recognize what we don't know, maintain a learning mindset, and move quickly to develop and deliver. You have to learn along the way; you cannot afford to wait until you have fully mastered something before you implement it. That is the mindset the industry requires from all of us today.


CEETV actually helped pioneer the CEE market and played a major role in introducing Turkish drama series to Latin America. Recently, Globo’s title Avenida Brasil was adapted in Turkey as Leyla, turning into a major hit both locally and internationally. Do you have other projects with Turkish producers in the pipeline?

Leyla has been an amazing experience and a fantastic partnership with Ay Yapım. We were incredibly impressed by how well that content traveled globally, and we learned a lot from the experience. We certainly intend to do more with these types of formats and Turkish adaptations. We have several conversations ongoing at the moment—nothing finalized just yet, but we hope to share some news soon.


Looking ahead, what is your long-term ambition for Globo in EMEA? Are you aiming to be primarily a content supplier, a co-development partner, or a broader multi-territory IP player in the region?

Everything. All of the above. We have already distributed our content to 160 countries, translated into more than 70 languages, and we currently license over 19,000 hours of programming annually. However, we believe there is still significant room to grow.

Globo views itself fundamentally as a storytelling company. We believe there are many different ways to tell these stories, and plenty of space to build partnerships that showcase our Brazilian narratives worldwide.

The format business is a beautiful way to adapt a story with a proven track record and tailor it to local or regional market requirements. Audiences today are looking for local content. Formats give you that localized execution alongside a battle-tested narrative structure. While ready-made content remains highly important and continues to expand into documentary series, formats and new ventures like micro-dramas allow us to address the evolving needs of the market. We are open to discussing all models and, as we discussed, we are learning piece by piece, partnership by partnership along the way.