A program families love today changes into a 24/7 live format
TV Azteca shifts flagship shows like MasterChef to continuous 24/7 live formats, breaking traditional broadcast boundaries with real-time audience engagement. Strategy emphasizes immersive 360-degree multiplatform experiences designed to deepen viewer connection beyond traditional television screens.
- MasterChef debuts in the new 24/7 format on Sunday, May 17
- TV Azteca partnering with EndemolShine Boomdog and Disney
- Strategy emphasizes 360-degree multiplatform immersive experience
- Adrián Ortega is director general of Contents at TV Azteca
TV Azteca announces strategic transformation toward 24/7 live programming and multiplatform experiences, starting with MasterChef, prioritizing audience-centric immersive content across all touchpoints.
At LA Screenings this week, Adrián Ortega, the head of content for TV Azteca, laid out a vision that amounts to a fundamental rethinking of how the Mexican broadcaster makes television. The company is moving its most beloved shows into a 24/7 live format, starting with MasterChef, which debuts this Sunday. It's a bet that audiences no longer want to tune in at a scheduled time and then wait a week for the next episode—they want to live inside the show, continuously, across every platform the network can reach them on.
Ortega spoke with the kind of clarity that comes from having real backing. Benjamín Salinas, the company's leadership, has given him room to reimagine what these programs can be. "I have the freedom to create and conceptualize things based on Benjamín's vision," Ortega said. "A program that families in Mexico love today is changing into a 24/7 live format." The shift is not incremental. It's a wholesale transformation of how the network thinks about production, distribution, and the relationship between the show and the person watching it.
What TV Azteca is building is not simply a livestream. The strategy is explicitly 360-degree and immersive—designed to break down the wall between content and audience. Ortega described it in almost sensory terms: the goal is to let viewers experience the narrative directly, to feel present in the moment it's happening. He even joked about the ambition: "I think we're going to be able to smell what's being cooked." The point beneath the joke is serious. Every element of the production, every platform, every touchpoint is being orchestrated around a single principle: put the audience at the center.
This kind of transformation doesn't happen in isolation. TV Azteca has brought in key partners to strengthen its production muscle. Alejandro Rincón from EndemolShine Boomdog and Luis Arvizu from Disney are now working with the network, lending expertise and resources that allow a traditional broadcast company to compete in a market that increasingly demands digital sophistication and real-time engagement. The partnerships are strategic—they allow TV Azteca to maintain its identity as an open-access broadcaster while adopting the innovation standards of global competitors.
Ortega was careful to frame this not as a departure from what TV Azteca has always been, but as an evolution of it. "This is good television," he said. "It's television we feel deeply proud of because it will accompany families in a beautiful, honest, true, and inspiring way." The language matters. He's not claiming to invent something entirely new. He's claiming to take the things that made these shows work—the warmth, the stakes, the human connection—and extend them across time and space in ways that weren't possible before. MasterChef becomes not a weekly event but an ongoing presence in viewers' lives. The question now is whether audiences will follow the network into that new shape, or whether the 24/7 model will feel like saturation rather than intimacy.
Citas Notables
A program that is loved in Mexican families today changes to a 24/7 live format— Adrián Ortega, TV Azteca
This is good television that will accompany families in a beautiful, honest, true, and inspiring way— Adrián Ortega, TV Azteca
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why move to 24/7 when traditional television has worked for decades?
Because the audience has already moved. People aren't waiting for Sunday anymore. They're checking their phones constantly, expecting to be part of things as they happen. TV Azteca is trying to meet them there instead of asking them to come back at a fixed time.
But doesn't constant access risk exhausting the format? Won't people get tired of MasterChef if it's always on?
That's the real gamble. The difference is that 24/7 doesn't mean the same content repeating. It means behind-the-scenes footage, contestant interviews, cooking tutorials, live challenges—the universe of the show expands. You're not watching the same thing; you're watching different angles of the same world.
How do the partnerships with Disney and EndemolShine change what TV Azteca can actually do?
They bring production infrastructure and global standards. EndemolShine knows how to make shows at scale. Disney brings digital expertise. Together, they let a Mexican broadcaster compete with streaming platforms without abandoning the open-television model that's kept TV Azteca relevant for decades.
Is this about money, or about something else?
Both. The money follows engagement. But Ortega kept saying the goal is to put the audience at the center. That's not just marketing language—it's a different way of thinking about what a show is for. Not a product you deliver once a week, but a space you invite people to inhabit.
What happens if it doesn't work?
Then TV Azteca learns that some audiences still prefer the old rhythm. But they're not betting everything on it—they're starting with MasterChef, a show people already love. That's smart. You test the format with something that has gravity.