Telenovelas 
in
Latin America
Telenovelas
Nada Personal, a telenovela from TV Azteca, Mexico
This television program genre originated with the radionovelas of the 1940's under the sponsorship of U.S. soap manufacturers such as Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. Today, the Latin Americans have become the masters of telenovelas. Tremendous audience interest and advertiser support allow the programmers to generate big-budget, high-quality productions that can be seen all over the world.
Telenovelas are much more important in Latin American than in the United States, due to structural differences in the entertainment industry. In the United States, the pinnacle for an entertainment worker is to reach Hollywood and hence achieve fortune and worldwide fame; by comparison, television work, and daytime drama in particular, is typically not esteemed as much. In Latin America, the movie industry is small, whereas telenovelas (which are really 100-hour movies shown in 1 hour segments) form a booming multi-million industry with worldwide distribution. Telenovelas may be the pinnacle of the career of a Latin American entertainer. In some cases, such as that of Selma Hayek, that was in fact the springboard to Hollywood.
A typical telenovela is shown five or six days a week in the evening, and has about 75 to 150 chapters over the course of 3 to 6 months. Unlike American soaps operas which go on forever (or until they are cancelled), Latin American telenovelas roll to definite climatic, nation-paralyzing endings.
In the Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1998 study, 53% of Latin Americans between the ages of 12 and 64 said that they watch telenovelas regularly. Here are the geodemographic distributions:
| Characteristic / Class | % Watch telenovelas regularly |
| Country Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela |
40% 43% 73% 41% 43% 54% 26% 61% 44% 29% 52% 34% 25% 66% 52% 34% 32% 52% |
| Male 12-17 Male 18-24 Male 25-34 Male 35-44 Male 45-54 Male 55-64 Female 12-17 Female 18-24 Female 25-34 Female 35-44 Female 45-54 Female 55-64 |
40% 35% 44% 39% 35% 33% 68% 52% 65% 68% 68% 71% |
| Education Less than 6 years 6 years, but less then 12 years 12 years of more |
57% 54% 48% |
| Socio-Economic
Level Level A Level B Level C Level D |
51% 55% 53% 51% |
| TOTAL | 53% |
(source: Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1998)
The telenovela audience can be characterized as being female and less educated. But it is a mass audience, perhaps bigger than any other television program genre (if we discount movies shown on television, which are not explicitly the domain of television).
Within Latin America, not every country has the capacity to produce full schedules of telenovelas to fill the prime-time airwaves. The small countries especially will have difficulty to find the funds needed to compete against the expensive, high-quality imports coming from the large producing countries. If we make the distinction between telenovelas produced in one's own country and elsewhere, we find viewership data fitting this hypothesis:
| Country | % watch telenovela from own country |
% watch telenovela from other countries |
| Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela |
31% 33% 73% 49% 39% 25% 7% 37% 6% 21% 14% 32% 4% 13% 4% 30% 4% 46% |
27% 42% 9% 31% 23% 48% 25% 52% 39% 14% 51% 12% 24% 65% 51% 22% 29% 41% |
(source: Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1998)
We note that Brazil is the lone Portuguese-speaking country in Latin America, which means that foreign imports must be dubbed/sub-titled and therefore lose their essence. Still, that does not mean that Brazil is a completely closed market, as the good products (such as the María Mercedes-Marimar-María la del Barrio trilogy of Mexican actress Thalia) can still find a way in.
There is a huge export market for telenovelas, not only in the Americas, but also in western Europe, eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Telenovelas such as Globo's Escalva Isaura and Televisa's Los Ricos También Lloran and Simplemente María are worldwide hits, even in seemingly improbable countries such as Angola, China, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Poland and Russia. When Mexican actress Thalia went to the Philippines, she was greeted at the airport by the President as if she were royalty. The two Spanish-language networks in the USA do not produce their own telenovelas, but relies exclusively on imports from Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, in that order.
The existence of the export market allows the major producers to budget for expensive (and presumably high-quality) telenovelas. A top-notch production may cost as much as US$100,000 per episode. However, a good series may be able to draw $30,000 to $40,000 in foreign revenues per episode. This sum may come from as many as forty different countries, at an average of $1,000 per episode. Smaller countries may pay as little as $250 per episode and larger countries pay $10,000 and up. Within the country of origin, the telenovelas are extremely popular, with ratings usually in excess of 30% of the population. Advertising rates on the top telenovelas are usually set at a premium. Even so, the advertising spots are always sold out months in advance.
The telenovela is not a homogeneous genre. Rather, distinct national styles have evolved. In the following, we will attempt to characterize the telenovelas from the leading telenovela-producing countries.
BRAZIL
The telenovelas from Brazil usually feature Brazilian themes, cultures, characters, historical and contemporary events and glossy on-location scenery. For example, Escarva Isaura is about a slave on a Brazilian coffee plantation around 1875. Gabriela, Cravo e Canela stars Sónia Braga and is based upon Jorge Amado's novel about life in the cacao-growing region of Bahia. Malu Mulher is about a divorced woman trying to come to terms with her life in São Paulo. Beto Rockfeller is about a ruthless climber in Rio de Janeiro, and features a parade of characters from different social classes. Pantanal is set among the natural beauty of the southeastern swamplands. Thus, the telenovelas are an important source from which the Brazilian receive information about their history, land and people.
Terra Nostra, telenovela on Rede Globo, BrazilBrazilian telenovelas are often very racy, with ample female nudity, which makes it difficult to transplant to certain countries. For example, Angel Malo could not be shown in Chile as is. Instead, a sanitized version was produced by Univesidad Católica TV to suit Chilean sensibilities. The hot Brazilian telenovelas Renacer had to be scheduled in Chile for late night showings, where it held the highest audience share.
TV Globo Production Studio at Jacarepagua, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
(photo credit: Samantha Merton)
The TV Globo telenovelas have the biggest budgets, and the production values show through. TV Globo has a Department of Analysis and Research to conduct detailed audience research analysis and routinely modifies telenovela scripts along the way according to audience reaction. When actress Daniella Perez was killed by the jealous wife of her on-screen boyfriend in De Corpo e Alma, the screenwriter Gloria Perez (who happens to be Daniella's mother in real life) continued the story of the character with previously shot film and in flashbacks.
COLOMBIA
Many Colombian telenovelas feature the diverse peoples, cultures, musical forms (such as the vallenato and Afro-Colombia forms) and geographies of its many regions. For example, Café Con Aroma de Mujer was set in the coffee-producing region of Colombia, and the local people, environment and music are featured prominently. Eternatamente Manuela is about the story of a female radio disc jockey in Valle del Cauca.
La Viuda de BlancoFor additional revenues, the program producers must look outside of Colombia. To enhance international appeal, the casts are often multinational. For example, María Bonita features two well-known young handsome Mexican leads: Adela Noriega and Fernando Allende. La Potra Zaína features the Colombia-born, Mexico-bred Aura Cristina Geithner and the transplanted Argentine Miguel Varoni. Colombian telenovelas, with stars such as Margarita Rosa de Francisco, are refreshingly different from the standard Mexican-Venezuelan fare.
MEXICO
Mexican telenovelas are characterized by weepy, heartbreaking and highly improbable characters, coincidences and twists of events with somber, baroque sets. The subjects are universal: love, betrayal, jealousy, seduction, violence, revenge, passion, oppression, sexism, corruption, incest ...
Perhaps the all-time worldwide hit telenovela is Los Ricos También Lloran ("Rich People Cry Too"). Here is a summary of the plot: Poor Marianna marries rich Luis, over the objections of his family. Later, in a fit of rage, Marianna gives away their first born Beto. Luis and Marianna then adopts a girl, Marisabel. Years later, Beto is dating Marisabel. Marianna realizes that Beto is her son, but dares not tell anyone. Marisabel discovers the truth and, not realizing that she had been adopted, is totally distressed. Meanwhile, Luis is filled with jealousy because of the attention that Marianna lavishes on the young man Beto, and is ready to take drastic action to defend his honor. In the last episode, all is revealed and everyone is happy. However, improbable this story seems, it clearly struck an universal chord everywhere.
For a long time, the Mexican telenovela was synonymous with Televisa. Being the dominant producer, Televisa can afford to invest in providing the production values that will protect its position. Televisa is also a multimedia conglomerate that can leverage all its assets. For example, the titles songs to the popular telenovelas become hit songs almost automatically. These title songs are often sung by the lead actresses, or by established Televisa-contracted singing stars, released under Televisa's Fonovisa label, played extensively on its radio network and its stars are covered in its newspapers and magazines.
María MercedesThe other telenovela producer in Mexico is TV Azteca, which has mixed results in recent years. Some of its telenovelas have received critical acclaim for attempting to deal with serious issues. Nada Personal was the first telenovela that dealt with political issues, including many incidences that parallel real-life events such as assassinations and official corruption.
VENEZUELA
The export market for Venezuelan telenovelas is estimated to be more than the national exports of automobiles, textiles or pulp/paper products. When Cristal was shown in Spain, it ruined that country's after-lunch siesta habits and routinely got audience shares greater than 80%. When Kassandra was shown in Indonesia, the government had to warn the populace that absenteeism from work for the purposing of watching telenovelas is not acceptable behavior.
The television environment in Venezuela is markedly different from those in Mexico and Brazil. Mexico and Brazil are each dominated by a single television network which has the resources to outspend and outdo its competitors. In Venezuela, there are two powerful telenovela producers/exporters (Coral Pictures and Venevisión). An intense rivalry exists between the two groups, which makes things so much more interesting.
It is too easy to dismiss telenovelas as crass commercial opiates that are designed to reach the largest possible audiences with the most mind-numbing content for the financial benefits of their corporate advertisers. But telenovelas have served significant social functions by raising awareness and participation in adult literacy improvement, family planning, environmental protection, minority rights, feminist issues and so on.
Arvind Singhal and Everett Rogers (see Reference at the bottom of this page) have described entertainment-education as the process of designing and implementing media messages to both entertain and educate, thereby increasing the audience's knowledge about educational issues (such as family planning, adult literacy, political participation, economic self-sufficiency, etc), creating favorable attitudes and changing overt behavior. The example that Singhal and Rogers examined was the Peruvian telenovela Simplemente María. This was a television soap opera broadcast in black-and-white shown on weekdays for 21 months from 1969 to 1971, consisting of 448 one-hour episodes. This telenovela was enormously successful in its time. At the episode of María's wedding, a crowd of about 10,000 people gathered in the plaza outside the Church of Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús in Lima, dressed in their best clothes and carrying gifts for the couple. The newspaper El Comercio reported, "Last Saturday, fiction became reality for many viewers: María wed Maestro Esteban in a real Church, with real people, with guests, with a real priest, with a reception, with champagne, with gifts for the bride and groom People were dressed in their best outfits; several people fainted, gripped by their emotions. Women cried when María finally said 'yes' to Esteban."
Singhal and Rogers list the major effects of Simplemente María. The central character María Ramos was a rural-to-urban migrant from the Andes to Lima. She worked as a maid during the day and attended adult literacy class in the evening. She worked as a seamstress using a Singer sewing machine, launched her own fashion business, lived in a large mansion and moved to Paris. It was observed that (1) sales of Singer sewing machines soared wherever this telenovela is shown; (2) enrollment in adult literacy classes rose; (3) rural-to-urban migration rose; and (4) provided concrete proof of the potential of the entertainment-education strategy.
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(posted by Roland Soong on 11/8/99)
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