The Connector Edition 10th Anniversary event, held from May 25th to 28th at the Melia Calvia Beach Hotel in Magaluf, Mallorca, featured stunning views of the turquoise Mediterranean Magaluf Bay, worthy of your laptop wallpaper.
Connector Magaluf Mallorca, which bowed to the all-in-one boutique model, was attended by 400 representatives, including executives from HBO Max, Prime Video, YouTube, France TV, RAI, RTVE, SkyShowtime, TVI, Atresmedia, Telemundo Studios, Mediaset Italia, Movistar Plus, 3Cat and Balearic Islands pubcaster IB3.
“Our new, more compact and all-in-one format focuses on facilitating connections and maximizing the value of time spent together, and we believe it is much more efficient for everyone,” said Géraldine Gonnard, Director of Connector Magaluf Mallorca, in the closing session.
Beyond the classic sea views, the Connector Magaluf Mallorca conference allowed participants to catch up quickly and often sharply on the current state of the international television business and how cutting-edge tourism concerns are a new driver for some in the film and television industry.
Mallorca’s emerging film industry also often took center stage. It needs to be taken seriously. According to the Cannes Marché du Film’s Focus Report, Spain will produce 426 feature films in 2025, an increase of 30% compared to 2024 and almost twice as many as France (228). According to the report, one of the factors is not only national but also regional support systems.
Points from Connector Magaluf Mallorca:
Longtail Wags the Dog: Watch Streamers Around the World
Conecta Fiction began with Plum Research’s Jonathan Broughton digging into the metrics of major global streamers. For example, SVOD started as DTC and accounted for 98% of business in 2014. Currently, it is increasingly becoming BTC, with DTC expected to account for 76% of sales by 2029, and ad-driven BTC expected to reach up to 24%. But most importantly, an astonishing 90% of views and 75% of titles viewed occur in the long tail. Think “Star Trek,” “Dark,” “Archer,” and “Primal.” It’s not an initial hit like “Squid Game.” This has created a new superclass that Broughton calls “neo-evergreen.”
mallorca rains
Conecta’s May 27 pitch session honored several local titles, including 2025 Toronto Fipresi Award winner “Forastera,” followed by RTVE Play Award winner “Mallorca Things to Do,” produced by Palma de Mallorca-based Bastera Films. Other winners have linked Mallorcan companies with major players in Catalonia’s film and television scene, and this is definitely one of the ways forward for the island’s industry. As a case in point, the Triodos Banka Prize-winning film Naked was co-produced by Empathic Films (Favariz, Rock Bottom) and Barcelona’s Corte y Confection de Periculas, which also produced Cannes Series winner Perfect Life and Cannes Film Festival winner Silato.
buzz title
One of Connector’s much-talked-about projects, “To Catch an Old Lady,” captures the mental deprivation of old age and attacks an old woman who attempts to commit a crime serious enough to be locked up with her only remaining friend. Some were impressed by the creative use of Mallorca to talk about the effects of its environment. Brains Narrative Studio’s Germany’s “Idyllic,” a cozy crime series set in Mallorca that won the TV Beats Forum Award in Tallinn, follows a retired British and German couple who investigate a murder and then discover they’re living in a VR retirement simulation. The film’s creators told Variety that they were inspired by a vision of Mallorca as “an idyllic but surreal place to end the day.”
Latin America: Leader in Microdrama
No queues were as long for any session at Connector Magaluf Mallorca as for May 27th’s micro-drama focused ‘The Game Is On – When to Take Action’. Omdia’s María Rua Aguete told Connector Magaluf Mallorca that the game is definitely on the way, pointing out that by 2025, the number of monthly active microdrama users in Brazil will reach 24 million, and in Mexico 20 million. “Brazil and Mexico have already demonstrated the scale this format can achieve outside of China,” Rua Aguete said. “What we’re seeing is not just the growth of new content categories, but a fundamental shift in how audiences consume entertainment on mobile devices,” she added, noting that 75% of video consumption now takes place on smartphones. Via Variety , Brazilian media giant Globo announced a new soccer-themed microdrama, “Quando o Coração Entra em Campo,” just before Rio 2C last week. Globo’s catalog of 25 microdrama titles includes five original productions, nine spin-offs of telenovela characters, and 11 internationally licensed titles. But it may just be the beginning.
The rise and rise of Spain
There are neo-evergreens in all major categories: serials (“Breaking Bad”), anime (“One Piece”), kids (“Victorious”), and procedurals (“Seinfeld”). The same goes for countries. For example, in 2018, “Money Heist” (“La Casa de Papel”) broke out as Netflix’s first true global blockbuster in a non-English language. So, was 2018 one of the best years ever for Netflix in Spain? Not at all. According to Plum Research, hours spent watching Spanish-language content in Netflix’s top 40 markets has increased by 73% from 2018 to date. Two factors appear to be at play. While there are still new hits, Netflix Spain is currently experiencing a long tail. And consumption is more diverse than ever. In other regions outside of export markets (US, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, France), hours spent watching Spanish-language content accounted for 35% of total hours viewed in 2018, but that number will rise to 45% by 2024.
Spanish comedy boom
More than half of the Connector’s pitch awards, announced on May 27, went to comedies, including “The Rookies,” directed by Jose Luis Ruggerez from Colombia’s Rayuela Film, and “Breakdowns,” from Argentina’s Rabo Productions. RTPA’s Lucia Herrera, head of programming at RTPA, the national television network of Asturias, Spain, spoke to Connector about the country sitcom “Coworkinos,” which is her first co-production with RTVG of neighboring Galicia. RTVE executive producer Mar Diaz said Spain’s national broadcasters are looking for comedy. Comedy is on the rise. What is the reason? “Spain has had some surprising hits in the comedy genre, such as Netflix’s ‘Animal’ and ‘Macho Alphas,’ which reinvented comedy to the point where it could be sold in large format,” The Wit’s Caroline Cervi said earlier this year. It also provides a light approach to modern problems.
TV Talent to Track: Victoria Martin
It was no coincidence that Mallorca’s Connector Magaluf culminated on May 27th with a special screening of “There are many people to die for”. Few comedies have tackled millennial anxieties with such chilling realism. The band members’ burning dissatisfaction with the lives imposed on them by the older generation clearly shows how they lead to acts of outrageous and hilarious egoism, such as the disappearance of pious Elena, who is married to a 60-year-old billionaire. Barbara, a benzo addict, was a lifelong friend and offered to come with me for a day as a junkie. The world premiere of the Cannes series, a Movistar Plus original, once again co-produced with Corte y Confectión de Periculas, has certainly caught the attention of YouTube podcast comedian Martín as a talent to watch.
(LR) Macarena Garcia (Elena) and Anna Castillo (Barbara) in “Many People Need to Die”
spanish pain
However, Spain has been hit hard, especially public broadcaster RTVE. In the world of non-fiction, Spain stands out as the world’s second largest format importer after the US, suggested The Wit’s Caroline Servy in her keynote on the format business. She announced that in 2025-2026, Spain will release 19 new adaptations, 12 of which will be led by RTVE and six by Atresmedia and Mediaset. Of course, format adaptation is very cost-effective. But it’s sad that public broadcasters have to count the huge costs.
Tourism: The growing AV driver
Brazilian tourism agency Embratur has launched eight initiatives in film, television, games and YouTube to support the sustainable development of the tourism industry. Connector Magaluf Mallorca hosted the world premiere of Mallorca Confidential, a noir-inspired gypsy drag queen thriller produced by Mallorca’s Cinética. Similarly, this year’s Connector, held in conjunction with Calvia City Council, was funded through the Balearic Island’s Sustainable Tourism Levy (ITS). “The investment of ITS funds in the Connector perfectly embodies our tourism strategy, which aims to reduce consumption costs to zero for the territory and support high-quality off-season tourism that generates returns throughout the year,” said Jaume Bauza, Balearic Islands Councilor for Tourism, Culture and Sport, at the closing ceremony of the Connector.
Lolita Flores “Mallorca Confidential”
Credits to Lolita Flores and Lucia Faraig in “Mallorca Confidential”.
artificial intelligence
Conecta’s focus on AI was organized not as a panel but as a discussion with speakers gathered in a practitioner and stakeholder camp. Some required larger protocols. The European Union has already enacted an AI law, which will come into force from August 2024. On May 26, the Spanish government approved a bill to implement AI in Spanish law. Meanwhile, on May 29, “The Book of Life” director Jorge Gutierrez withdrew from Amazon’s genAI animation initiative, days after announcing his involvement. A backlash against important animators who appear to support AI, risking ostracism from the fandom, is expected to unfold at the Annecy Festival in late June.
Shocks that have occurred in the past decade or are likely to occur in the future.
The Connector Magaluf-Mallorca conference concluded with a panel discussion in which analysts and journalists confessed what has surprised them in the past decade and suggested some of the next big challenges.
“We’re talking about globalization, but we’re seeing more local companies than ever before. What’s shocking now is that the US dominance in original content programming is actually decreasing, with more local and regional content circulating around the world,” said Omdia’s Rua Aguete.
Brazil, Flanders and Indonesia are now hotspots, said another speaker, expressing concern over the future of national TV operators, which will account for 56% of all telenovela titles produced in Europe in 2024, compared to 14% of global streamers.
As long as regulations ensure that big events such as sports and Eurovision are exclusive to public broadcasters, public broadcasters will gather people in front of their television screens, Laure Steinbill-at-Grance said.
Often what’s most shocking is what isn’t happening. Audiovisual 451’s Irene Jiménez said Spanish companies were still struggling under financial pressure: “A lot has happened[in Spain]but in a sense, at the same time, it is as if nothing has changed.”
“I have access to 45 billion data points about viewers and audiences around the world, which really doesn’t help me that much in terms of program design,” says Plumb Broughton. “What remains true is that machines can help people understand what works, but they still cannot produce anything authentic, authentic, and creative.”
With the advent of global platforms, what’s happened, at least in Latin America, is “a cross-pollination of storytelling between the more plot-driven British storytelling and, in the case of Latin Americans, more character-driven storytelling,” Manuel Martí of Conn Duprat told Variety during Connector Magaluf Mallorca. We are still living in that reality.
