Nextv CEO Latin America yesterday had its first day at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Miami. After a presentation made by Ariel Barlaro, VP Americas of Dataxis, the event began with the first panel, entitled ‘The transformation of pay-TV operators’, in which Bruno Pruneda, General Director at Star TV; Javier Ruete, CEO at TCC; Fabiana Orlotti, CEO at Montecable, and Mauro Peluso, Co-Founder & Broad Director at Toolbox.

‘We are all integrating ourselves into the OTT world, but I think we are forgetting the linear channels and the quality of those channels, which are our income today’, said Pruneda.

Later, Orlotti said that Montecable is focused ‘on online content, in taking it to other devices’, and that ‘the app of Montecable (Montecable GoLive) has to evolve. We are passing it to the cloud and we will launch our Android TV platform’, she anticipated. In turn, when asked about the migration to Android TV, Ruete said that ‘it has advantages over other technologies because it is more flexible’. Peluso, on the other hand, also assured that Toolbox is working with Android TV.

‘Technology expands the optics of contents that customers can access at all times. If there is relevant content, it is not a matter of subscribers, as it is the case with Facebook with the Copa Libertadores. It was not a good experience, but it had a lot of impact. We are in talks to incorporate Facebook Watch’, said Ruete. Referring to programming models, Orlotti said that this model ‘no longer works’, and explained that ‘subscribers ask to hire certain channels that are not available, and the bargaining power has changed’.

Regarding the gambling, Orlotti said that ‘it requires a license and in Uruguay there is an additional one, and we cannot sell bites; we have to continue in this world of pay TV, and streaming is a hope to improve business profitability’.