Hollywood, CA — In 2012, Hollywood talent agent George Salinas and Mexican actor Jaime Aymerich co-founded Crossover Entertainment, a production company that specializes in identifying and reformatting Mexican TV programs that are a perfect fit for the U.S. for both American TV viewers and the 55 million Latinos, of which 62% are English-speaking or bilingual.
Crossover Entertainment now joins the handful of leading companies that handle creation and sales of this programming format, which includes ITV Studios, Talpa (Netherlands), Endemol (UK/Netherlands) and FremantleMedia (U.K.)-companies which brought us hits like: Sweden’s Survivor; UK’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, American Idol and The Office;Netherlands’ Master Chef, Deal or No Deal, and Big Brother or on Netflix, UK’s House of Cards, among many others. However, Crossover Entertainment is the only company which specialize exclusively on Mexican TV programs to recreate into world class content for all U.S. platforms.
(L-R) George Salinas, Carolina & Jaime Aymerich
In the same vein that Ben Silverman (Colombia’s Jane The Virgin, Venezuela’s Ugly Betty) and Silvio Horta (Ugly Betty) successfully repackaged these two foreign properties to great success for the ABC and the CW networks, Crossover Entertainment is specifically targeting Mexican TV properties to convert into American programming.
In 2015 the company repackaged and sold La Hipocondriaca, a popular Colombian telenovela to FOX Broadcasting Company (20th Century TV). They partnered with Executive Producers Julie Bowen (Modern Family) to also star and Robin Shorr (The Middle) to write the pilot Hypochondriac, a single-camera comedy. To date, Crossover has sold two properties to FOX and one to CBS, with several others in development.
Crossover Entertainment principals carefully study and dissect each of the selected programs for repackaging. “We keep the basic premise but add original features to enhance its commercial appeal and reinvent the original humor and/or drama in a sensitive way that fits American audiences,” said Salinas.
Carolina Aymerich states that the key divergence between the original Mexican show and the U.S. adaptation lies in Crossover’s principals’ extensive knowledge of both markets. “And, because we are both Mexican and American,” added Salinas, “We are keenly aware of both cultures because we are deeply immersed in both.”
The company has studied many of the foreign TV properties sold into the U.S. market that have failed. “No doubt about it,” said Salinas, “The low-cost factor of reformatting foreign shows is appealing to networks, and while they have become the new norm, if the reformat version is not sensitive to the cultural nuances of Americans and not just English-speaking Latinos, but mainstream, it will fail.”
“The relationship we are building with FOX and CBS so far,” added Jaime Aymerich, “Gives rise to several innovative reformat programs we have in place to add all genres aside from sitcoms-dramas, game and reality shows.”
While, the U.K. and the U.S. have become two of the largest global exporters of television programs and each other’s biggest customers and most frequent co-production partners, Crossover Entertainment is one leading Mexico content provider to U.S. networks.
Crossover Entertainment although a production company, operates more like a studio. In addition to the reformatting of Mexican shows, they plain on adding original programing of all genres and films to their slate. The company also has a talent management division and produces live events like the recent Hollywood Walk of Fame Star event for Mexican superstar Eugenio Derbez.
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