NETFLIX, AMAZON, MOVISTAR VIDEO... DUBBING IN LATIN OR EUROPEAN SPANISH?
The growing reach and demand of online streaming services in Latin America require internet channels to evaluate the format in which their content is being delivered.
625 million Spanish-speaking people in the Americas prefer their content localized in Latin Spanish rather than European Spanish (spoken only by some 46 million people). In addition, Latin Americans prefer dubbed content over subtitles.
Available data from the leading internet channels shows that a surprisingly low percentage of titles are being dubbed into Latin Spanish compared to the market demand.
And many in the industry are under the impression that one accent will fit all markets -- both American and European -- and that viewers will always tune into a channel they want to see. But without a doubt, those viewers need the content localized for their territory and tastes.
In this sense, there are only two countries in the Americas providing international quality dubbing into Latin Spanish: Mexico and Colombia.
Here's how they vary.
Mexico has a longer tradition of dubbing, but the Mexican accent is immediately recognizable to most native speakers. It's necessary to break the myth that everything dubbed in Mexico is neutral and accepted in all of Latin America. In addition, the few studios that do provide Hollywood-quality "neutral Spanish" are extremely expensive compared to the alternative.
In the other corner of the ring is Colombia, which has had a thriving dubbing industry for the last 30 years and has an accent of its own. Most studios in Colombia are not working in "neutral Spanish," but even so, the Colombian accent is more widely accepted in South and Central America than dubbing from Mexico.
Colombia’s dubbing industry is concentrated in one city, Bogotá, and there is only one studio that works in a neutral Spanish which is able to compete with the best Mexican studios: DLM Internacional.
In addition, dubbing in Colombia is less expensive than dubbing in Mexico and Spain.
The question the industry should be asking itself is: Why is such a small percentage of online content being localized into Latin Spanish?
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