Colombia’s Caracol, Brazil’s Formata team up for unscripted format hub

Colombian broadcaster Caracol Televisión has partnered with Brazil-based production company Formata Produções to create a new hub for producing unscripted formats.

Daniela Busoli

The Caracol-Formata Hub sees the two companies seek to combine Caracol’s experience developing large-scale formats and building audiences in Colombia with Formata’s production skills to help third-party producers reduce their costs.

The two companies said the hub can take advantage of “the geography and financial benefits that Colombia offers.”

These include the country’s mountainous regions, its beaches, deserts and Amazon rainforest, which the two said “are perfect places to develop formats that will excite viewers across the continent.”

Colombia also offers a tax rebate of up to 35% of the total expenditure of the production of audiovisual projects, which will “ensure the cost-effectiveness of the alliance,” the two companies added.

São Paulo-based Formata is a leading independent producer in Brazil and having produced reality shows such as Fábrica de Casamentos and Adotada, while Caracol Televisión has been behind shows such as El Desafio and La Descarga.

Formata was set up by Daniela Busoli, former chief of Fremantle and Endemol in Brazil, in 2015.

“This is another step towards the internationalisation of the company, an important part of our growth strategy,” said Gonzalo Córdoba, president of Caracol Televisión.

“In addition to back-to-back non-fiction productions for different countries and clients, the alliance will attract coproduction projects in multiple viewing formats,” said Busoli, founder and CEO, Formata.