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NATPE Miami would hardly be the same without a splashy, big, packed and convivial Globo showcase, a fixture for buyers. But, held totally online, this year’s NATPE Virtual Miami, whoch kicks off on Jan. 19, is hardly the same. So it’s heartening to see Globo going for broke with its Jan. 15 Upfront, which catches the Brazilian TV giant, as so many large players in Latin America, with new structures, management and content. Following, five quick takes on what to expect from the event.

All Together, Right Now

Already hosting Brazil’s biggest linear TV network, its leading satellite-cable operator and its biggest Brazilian Ott service, Globo has now brought all three under the same roof. “There’s Only One Globo,” its Upfront slogan reads. That has multiple upside as Globo. “With Globo being unified, our [lineup for international licensing gains more structure, more diversity of content to serve partners and audiences from different regions of the world,” says Paulo Marinho, Globo exec director of networks. Globo ’s domestic viewership now spreads over mobile,...

Brazil’s Grupo Globo and Sony Pictures Television have closed a milestone multi-title production-distribution alliance to co-develop and co-produce two English-language scripted dramas, with a third project forthcoming, all aimed squarely at global markets.

The pioneering alliance was announced Friday at this year’s La Screenings.

Brazil-based and Spt-backed Floresta, is set to co-produce the ambitious new drama series with Globo Studios. Spt will have global distribution rights outside of Brazil.Spt will most probably mix own distribution on Sony channels and sales to third party networks. “We are blessed with some great networks and I’m sure some of them will be excited by these projects, but in other territories we’ll also be looking outside of the Sony networks,” said Wayne Garvie, president international production, Sony Pictures Television.

Globo plans to broadcast the dramas on its free-to-air channel in primetime and on Grupo Globo’s platforms.

At Globo,...

Globo’s new telenovela “Orphans of the Land” (Orfaos de Terra) drew wild applause at its La Screenings sneak peek showcase this week. Debuting in Brazil just last April 2nd, the slickly produced soap about refugees in Brazil, was written by Intl’l Emmy-winning showrunners Duca Rachid and Thelma Guedes (“Rare Jewel”).

Since its April 2 debut on Globo in Brazil, the telenovela has scored an average primetime audience of 27 million people a day. The telenovela of some 150 episodes turns on two refugees, a Syrian woman fleeing from her country’s civil war and her Lebanese lover who seek to restart their lives in Brazil as do many others displaced by war, religious or political persecution, or economic crises.

Filmed at Globo Studios where backdrops featuring Damascus, Beirut, London, and Sao Paolo were recreated, “Orphans of the Land” leads the vanguard of productions from a media giant that has some 90 writers...

Along with Germany and Spain, Latin America is fast emerging as one of the biggest growth regions for high-end fiction in international, Ott, premium pay TV and co-productions.

Ott is experiencing a second-phase expansion. Netflix released its first Latin American original, “Club of Crows,” in August 2015. Two years later, it had 50 new or returning productions in various stages of development. That number has risen yet again. On Sept. 20, for instance, Netflix announced its 11th original to date in Brazil, supernatural thriller “Spectros.”

There are now other new kids on the digital block. In May, Amazon Prime Video’s first original series “Diablo Guardian,” produced with Televisa production unit Tao, bowed to critical acclaim.

“We are open for business. We are not trying to hit a specific volume,” says Pablo Iacoviello, Amazon Prime Video content director for Latin America.

Other series announced include Gabriel Ripstein’s political thriller “Un Extraño Enemigo,...

It’s not only pay TV operators in Latin America that are launching and cultivating Ott services. Globo, the biggest broadcast network in Latin America, has just bowed one of its banner new Mipcom titles, “Harassment,” on Globoplay, its digital platform. A series in the social-issue line of “Jailers” and “Under Pressure,” it is not digital first but currently digital only: When it will air on Globo’s core free-to-air channel has yet to be determined.

“Harassment” will soon be joined on Globoplay by “Under Pressure” Season 2, which will double down on corruption in Brazil’s hospital system, released simultaneously on Ott and free-to-air channel Globo.

Though a fictional work, “Harassment” is freely inspired by the book “A Clínica: A Farsa e os Crimes de Roger Abdelmassih”, itself based on a notorious true-life case of a Brazilian gynecologist sentenced to 181 years for sedating and raping 30 clients.

“This topic knows no...

For years, Latin American TV dramas have centered on the same old stories of passion, betrayal and revenge. Rich old men woo humble young beauties, and prodigal sons return home to childhood sweethearts and troubled families in melodramatic sagas spanning as many as 200 episodes.

A change, however, is under way. Competition from online platforms and growing familiarity with award-winning series from abroad are prompting Latin America’s TV giants to up their game and make shorter, tighter, more sophisticated and increasingly topical dramas to complement their famously lucrative — and famously long — telenovelas.

“Players like Netflix and Amazon are starting to produce their own programs, and that has increased the demand for locally produced content here in Brazil,” says Andrucha Waddington, producer and director of “Under Pressure,” a hospital drama that won four Fipa d’Or awards in France in January. “Creatively it is very good news.”

Brazil, Latin America’s biggest country,...