General Director of the Mexican channel, Mario San Román, says that the prices of telenovelas will soon recover, while he predicts an increase in format sales. He speaks about the challenge and responsibility involved in television business and how they will achieve better results in the United States.

	Mario San Román, General Director of TV Azteca.

V Azteca rose and gained position in its local market –Mexico– and the international ones. The Mexican network makes an increasingly bigger impact in the markets and fights for the first place with the best players of the world industry. He dared to innovate with formats like Los Sánchez, Lo que callamos las mujeres, La academia and La academia US, remaining at top positions throughout the whole of 2005 and winning large audience shares. This year they have other several aces up their sleeves, among them: Amor en custodia, a format bought from Argentinean Telefe.

The United States market
The company started competing against the United States’ big leagues and attempts to conquer not only the audiences but also the advertising market. “Our scheduling strategy for Azteca America is clear because we want Mexican production to remain the king. We know from our own experience that most part of the ratings come from the Mexican market. That is in fact because we’re in a very good position to develop the right contents, not only for the United States but for the rest of the world.”

Local production vs. international sales

	Lo que callamos las mujeres

The telenovela business is becoming increasingly important to TV Azteca, and Mario San Román mentions that they are in constant renewing and are completely devoted to turning to High Definition so they can deliver the highest-quality products. Last 2005 they achieved success with productions like the telenovela Cuando seas mía, which was a complete success in Africa subtitled into English and the first Latin telenovela broadcasted in Thailand after twenty years. It got 40% share in The Philippines and reached up to 43% in Malasia.
La academia was another huge success from the producing company: under the name of Akademi fantasia, it is going on its third season in Malasia, its second season in Thailand and a third season will be produced in Indonesia.
Lo que callamos las mujeres is being aired on primetime in Malasia as a local production called Dilema wanita, but is also broadcasted as a finished dubbed product on open TV, as well as subtitled on paid TV. Machos was another product they are proud of, which went well both in Asia and Latin America. To top it all, in Asia the first telenovelas from TV Aztecas in VOD format have been launched.