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Obitel 2017 -English.pdf
Rosario Sánchez VilelaRelated papers
TELEVISION FICTION IN BRAZIL: TOWARDS 360° PRODUCTION AND VIEWING
The year 2016 was marked by the deterioration of the economic crisis started in 2015 and the spread of corruption scandals at all political levels, culminating in the institutional breakdown represented by the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Running counter to the mood of uncertainty and political and economic disputes, free-to-air TV showed positive and unexpected dynamism in the production of fiction. Genres and formats were continuously explored, enhancing trends identified by OBITEL in previous years. Examples include the production, distribution and consumption of transmedia fiction and on demand content, the offer of mobile devices and the constant release of a host of series and miniseries over the year, not only on free-to-air TV, but also on pay TV and the internet. Such dynamism evokes a communication strategy from the early 2000s in which press services, web content management, editorial production, marketing, advertising and public relations no longer worked separately, but in an integrated manner that covered communications as a whole, called 360º at the time. With the convergence of different media, transmedia strategies in TV fiction and the outpour of UGC (user-generated content), we retrieve the notion of a comprehensive spread of content expanding in both production and viewing.
DYNAMICS OF THE BRAZILIAN TELEVISION FICTION IN THE MULTICHANNEL TRANSITION 1
Within a scenario of slow economic recovery combined with the worsening of the political crisis, the audiovisual overview in 2017 repeated the contradiction, and it even strengthened, the dynamics verified the previous year. Investments in the areas of creation, production, distribution, and marketing have led to a rapid and growing presence of fictional products and formats in different channels, whether in open television, paid, digital channels, streaming and mobile devices. It would be possible to call this a scenario of multichannel transition, which is characterized by the coexistence of television fiction (its genres and formats) in broadcasting/post-broadcasting channels and in network/post-network channels. We exemplify with the production of a series that premieres on Globo Play with a start allocation in out-of-network (or post-network) channel with all the episodes of the first season, which allows to watch it in a marathon or at the time the user wants to. After awhile, we check its reallocation in a narrowcasting network - Mais Globosat - a paid channel, already with a time slot, and some advertising breaks. Soon after, the same series has other open channel relocation (broadcasting) - Globo - with weekly frequency and extended commercial intervals. We observe this new production logic (Martín-Barbero, 2001), to be implemented in the country, based on the dynamics of the audiovisual context in 2017.
(Re)Invention of TV Fiction: Genres and Formats
This Obitel Yearbook 2016 is the 10th volume of a series started in 2007. Since then, the OBITEL established itself in the Ibero-American Communication studies field as an international research network that produces quantitative and qualitative analysis with the main objective to identify through comparative study, similarities, characteristics, adaptations, appropriations among the various national television narratives produced and displayed in the region. The theme of the year for this Yearbook is the (Re)Invention Gender and formats of TV Fiction, which attempts to analyze the changes identified in television narratives over time, concerning the serialization and the fictional genres. We observe that these narratives have become increasingly hybrids mainly due to advances in transmedia production and reception. The most important outcome is that the comparative analysis identified in all countries a greater diversity of formats and genres in TV fiction.
Transmedia Production Strategies in Television Fiction
The present Obitel Yearbook is the eighth of a series started in 2007 and it reflects the maturity of a methodology that combines quantitative study with the contextual analysis of television fiction, its transmediation into other screens and the sociocultural dynamics that are circumscribed to each of the different member countries. Obitel is made up of 12 national research groups that systematically monitor, throughout a year, fiction shows that are produced and broadcast through open television channels in their respective countries. The results of this monitoring are presented through the singularities and tendencies of fiction in each country and in a comparative chapter that provides a general overview of television fiction in the member countries. Fiction, as industry, genre, and format, is one of the most representative cultural and media products of television in Ibero-America. Its cultural and symbolic tradition is a place of agreement and disagreement that is now the setting not only of the main characters' loves and intimate secrets in the telenovelas and series but also that of public life, politics, and citizenship, since even more fiction has been anchoring its narrative on the multiple problems that affect us as a region and, at the same time, identify us as countries. The Obitel member countries chose as topic of the year for this 2014 Yearbook the study of the " transmedia production strategies in television fiction " , aiming to analyze how television networks have been incorporating transmedia strategies into their fiction productions, either through scripts that build stories, characters, products, and practices, which are characterized by the constant interaction with social networks, or through actions of transit and expansion of the original fictional universe to other screens and platforms. In other words, the analyses carried out in the Obitel Yearbook 2014 aim not only to map the transmedia productions strategies present in the 12 countries that make up the research team but also to address this current topic based on different theoretical and methodological approaches.
Gender Relations in Television Fiction
The ninth OBITEL Yearbook 2015 elects as topic of the year “gender relations in television fiction”. The main goal is to observe how fictions represent and incorporate in their plots the intense changes that have undergone sexuality and affection in our societies. The analysis addresses the construction of characters and the heteronormative and homonormative relationships, as well as the various nuances with which the feminine and the masculine are represented in TV fiction.
Spain: The internationalization of fiction
Obitel 2015: Gender Relations in Television Fiction, 2015
Ibero-American TV Fiction on Video on Demand Platforms.pdf
Obitel 2018 Yearbook follows the Ibero-American television fiction by scenarios that continually change. Multiple screens, transmissions, new formats, pay TV, user-generated content, among other topics, have been monitored and approached theoretically. In a global environment of intense transformation in the field of communication, Obitel faces a challenge: an exploratory study of the VoD panorama in each country based on the presence of its national fictions on these platforms.
SPAIN: Innovation and hybridization of genres and formats
Report OBITEL 2018. In: “SPAIN: Innovation and hybridization of genres and formats“, in Orozco, G. y Vasallo De Lopes, M.I. (eds.), OBITEL 2018: Ibero-American tv fIction on video on demand Platforms. OBITEL 2018. Porto Alegre, Editora Sulina, 2018, pp. 275-304 (http://www.obitel.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/15-08-208_Obitel_Ingl%C3%AAs.pdf) ISBN: 978-85-205-0824-4 “ESPAÑA: Hibridación e innovación de géneros y formatos”, en Orozco, G. y Vasallo De Lopes, M.I. (eds.), OBITEL 2018. Ficción televisiva iberoamericana en plataformas de Vídeo on Demand. Porto Alegre, Editora Sulina, 2018, pp. 197-228 (http://www.obitel.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/15_08-208_Obitel-bilingue_portugues-e-espanhol.pdf) ISBN: 978-85-205-0823-7
Spain: The boom of fiction set in the past
Obitel 2014. Transmedia production strategies in television fiction, 2014
Ibero-AmerIcAn observAtory
of televIsIon fIctIon
obItel 2017
one decAde of televIsIon fIctIon In
Ibero-AmerIcA: AnAlysIs of ten yeArs of obItel
(2007-2016)
Ibero-AmerIcAn observAtory
of televIsIon fIctIon
obItel 2017
one decAde of televIsIon fIctIon In
Ibero-AmerIcA: AnAlysIs of ten yeArs of obItel
(2007-2016)
Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes
Guillermo Orozco Gómez
General Coordinators
Morella Alvarado, Gustavo Aprea, Fernando Aranguren, Alexandra
Ayala-Marín, Catarina Burnay, Borys Bustamante, Giuliana Cassano,
Pamela Cruz Páez, James Dettleff, Francisco Fernández,
Gabriela Gómez, Pablo Julio, Mónica Kirchheimer, Charo Lacalle,
Pedro Lopes, Guillermo Orozco Gómez, Juan Piñón, Rosario Sánchez,
Luisa Torrealba, Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes
National Coordinators
© Globo Comunicação e Participações S.A., 2017
Capa: Letícia Lampert
Projeto gráico e editoração: Niura Fernanda Souza
Produção editorial e revisão do texto: Felícia Xavier Volkweis
Revisão gráica: Niura Fernanda Souza
Editores: Luis Antônio Paim Gomes, Juan Manuel Guadelis Crisafulli
Foto de capa: Louie Psihoyos. High-definition televisions in the information era.
Librarian: Denise Mari de Andrade Souza – CRB 10/960
D291
One decade of television fiction in Ibero-America: analysis of ten years of Obitel
(2007-2016) / general coordinators Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes
and Guillermo Orozco Gómez. -- Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2017.
456 p.;
ISBN: 978-85-205-0795-7
1. Television – Programs. 2. Fiction – Television. 3. Television programs
– Ibero-American. 4. Media. 5. Television. I. Lopes, Maria Immacolata Vassallo
de. II. Gómez, Guillermo Orozco.
CDU: 654.19
659.3
CDD: 301.161
791.445
Direitos desta edição adquiridos por Globo Comunicação e Participações S.A.
Editora Meridional Ltda.
Av. Osvaldo Aranha, 440 cj. 101 – Bom Fim
Cep: 90035-190 – Porto Alegre/RS
Fone: (0xx51) 3311.4082
www.editorasulina.com.br
e-mail: sulina@editorasulina.com.br
August/2017
Index
PRESENTATION ............................................................................................ 9
OBITEL NATIONAL RESEARCH TEAMS ............................................... 11
EDITOR’S NOTE .......................................................................................... 15
NOTE ON METHODOLOGY ....................................................................... 19
FIRST PART
TELEVISION FICTION IN THE IBERO-AMERICAN SPACE IN 2016
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016....................................... 25
Darwin Franco, Gabriela Gómez, Guillermo Orozco
1. Audiovisual context in Obitel countries in 2016 and
the highlights of the year .................................................................... 26
2. Comparison of television iction in Obitel countries in 2016............. 40
3. The top ten TV ictions of the year..................................................... 49
4. Transmedia reception in Obitel countries........................................... 51
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Ibero-America. Analysis of ten years of Obitel (2007-2016) ............
SECOND PART
FICTION IN OBITEL COUNTRIES IN 2016
1.
ARGENTINA: change of direction in national production.
Concentration and reinforcement of commercial logics .................... 69
Authors: Gustavo Aprea, Mónica Kirchheimer, Ezequiel Rivero
1. Argentina’s audiovisual context in 2016 ............................................ 69
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................... 76
3. Transmedia reception ......................................................................... 85
4. Highlights of the year ......................................................................... 88
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Argentina. Analysis of ten years of Obitel ..................................... 90
2.
BRAZIL: towards 360º production and reception ............................. 99
Authors: Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes, Clarice Greco
Team: Daniela Ortega, Fernanda Castilho, Ligia Prezia Lemos,
Lucas Martins Néia, Mariana Lima, Tissiana Pereira
1. Brazil’s audiovisual context in 2016 .................................................. 99
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 108
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 118
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 121
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction in Brazil.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel ......................................................... 123
3.
CHILE: the strengthening of private television................................ 131
Authors: Pablo Julio P., Francisco J. Fernández, Constanza Mujica H.
Team: Verónica Silva, Cristóbal Pozo
1. Chile’s audiovisual context in 2016 ................................................. 131
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 139
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 149
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 149
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction in Chile.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel ......................................................... 152
4.
COLOMBIA: a decade of searches, hybridizations and
experimentations .................................................................................. 163
Authors: Borys Bustamante Bohórquez, Fernando Aranguren Díaz,
Hernán Javier Riveros Solórzano
Team: Diana María Lozano Prat, Adriana Carolina Pérez Gutiérrez,
Olga Lucía Gutiérrez Romero, Luis Alejandro Corredor,
Fernando Guevara Amortegui
1. Colombia’s audiovisual context in 2016 .......................................... 164
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 171
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 179
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 182
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction in Colombia.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel ......................................................... 184
5.
ECUADOR: the national iction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating ......................................................................... 193
Authors: Alexandra Ayala-Marín, Pamela Cruz Páez
Team: Patricia Castañeda, Juan Camilo Molina, Andrés Valarezo
1. Ecuador’s audiovisual context in 2016............................................. 193
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 201
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 212
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 215
5 Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Ecuador. Analysis of ten years of Obitel...................................... 218
6.
MEXICO: between change and continuity ....................................... 227
Authors: Guillermo Orozco, Gabriela Gómez, Darwin Franco,
Francisco Hernández
1. Mexico’s audiovisual context in 2016.............................................. 227
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 232
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 242
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 245
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Mexico. Analysis of ten years of Obitel ....................................... 248
7.
PERU: fewer premieres, more reruns ............................................... 255
Authors: James A. Dettleff, Giuliana Cassano, Guillermo Vásquez
Team: Thalía Dancuart, Nataly Vergara, Brunella Bertocchi,
Wendy Ramírez, Mary Bustinza, María Isabel Ato, Lissi Torres,
Sarah Rueda
1. Peru’s audiovisual context in 2016................................................... 255
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 264
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 275
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 277
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Peru. Analysis of ten years of Obitel............................................ 278
8.
PORTUGAL: mass producing telenovela. Establishing
long-running iction as an alternative to the
current international trend ................................................................. 285
Authors: Catarina Duff Burnay, Pedro Lopes, Marta Neves de Sousa
1. Portugal’s audiovisual context in 2016 ............................................ 285
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 295
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 305
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 306
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Portugal. Analysis of ten years of Obitel ..................................... 307
9.
SPAIN: pay TV takes off .................................................................... 315
Authors: Charo Lacalle, Beatriz Gómez, Mariluz Sánchez
Team: Rosa Ferrer, Cristina Pujol, Carlos Sanandrés, Berta Trullàs,
Marta Albújar, Deborah Castro, Alexander Lazarev, Karina Tiznado,
Raquel Crisóstomo, Tatiana Hidalgo
1. Spain’s audiovisual context in 2016 ................................................. 315
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 322
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 334
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 337
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Spain. Analysis of ten years of Obitel .......................................... 339
10.
UNITED STATES: the year of the “super series” .......................... 345
Authors: Juan Piñón, María de los Ángeles Flores
1. The audiovisual context of the Hispanic TV
in the U.S. in 2016 ............................................................................ 345
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 351
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 362
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 365
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in the United States. Analysis of ten years of Obitel........................ 367
11.
URUGUAY: national iction with public funds:
outbound port or refuge? .................................................................... 373
Authors: Rosario Sánchez Vilela
Team: Lucía Gadea, Tania González, Sabrina Torterollo
1. Uruguay’s audiovisual context in 2016 ............................................ 373
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 382
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 392
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 395
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Uruguay. Analysis of ten years of Obitel ..................................... 399
12.
VENEZUELA: fracture of democracy .............................................. 409
Authors: Morella Alvarado, Luisa Torrealba, Pedro de Mendonca,
Verónica Fuenmayor, Zicri Colmenares, Erick García
1. Venezuela’s audiovisual context in 2016 ......................................... 409
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American
premiere iction................................................................................. 419
3. Transmedia reception ....................................................................... 427
4. Highlights of the year ....................................................................... 431
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television iction
in Venezuela. Analysis of ten years of Obitel .................................. 433
APPENDIX: TOP TEN TV FICTION
IN OBITEL COUNTRIES ............................................................................ 441
PresentAtIon
This Yearbook is a result of a partnership started in 2008 between Globo and the Ibero-American Observatory of Television
Fiction (Obitel). The Observatory, which this year publishes its 11th
yearbook, aims to monitor and analyze TV fiction production, audience and sociocultural repercussion in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, throughout publications and seminars.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Publications:
Obitel Yearbook 2007: cultures and markets of Ibero-American
television fiction
Obitel Yearbook 2008: global markets, local stories
Obitel Yearbook 2009: television fiction in Ibero-America: narratives, formats and advertising
Obitel Yearbook 2010: convergences and transmediation of the
television fiction
Obitel Yearbook 2011: quality in television fiction and audience’s transmedia interactions
Obitel Yearbook 2012: transnationalization of television fiction
in Ibero-American countries
Obitel Yearbook 2013: social memory and television fiction in
Ibero-American countries
Obitel Yearbook 2014: transmedia production strategies in
television fiction
Obitel Yearbook 2015: gender relations in television fiction
Obitel Yearbook 2016: (re)invention of TV fiction genres and
formats
Obitel Yearbook 2017: one decade of television fiction in IberoAmerica. Analysis of ten years of Obitel (2007-2016)
About Globo:
In addition to publications, Globo supports researches and promotes courses and seminars in partnership with Brazilian and foreign institutions on topics considered relevant to society in the areas
of communication, arts, management, technology and citizenship.
obItel nAtIonAl reseArch teAms
General Coordinators
Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes
(Universidade de São Paulo)
Guillermo Orozco Gómez (Universidad de Guadalajara)
ARGENTINA
Gustavo Aprea (Universidad
Nacional de Buenos Aires
and Universidad Nacional
de las Artes) and Mónica
Kirchheimer (Universidad de
Buenos Aires and Universidad Nacional de las Artes),
national coordinators;
Ezequiel Rivero (Universidad
Nacional de Buenos Aires
and Universidad Nacional de
Córdoba), collaborator.
BRAZIL
Maria Immacolata Vassallo de
Lopes (Universidade de São
Paulo), national coordinator;
Clarice Greco, Daniela Ortega,
Fernanda Castilho, Ligia
Maria Prezia Lemos, Lucas
Martins Néia, Mariana Lima,
Tissiana Pereira (Universidade de São Paulo), research
associates;
Anezio Fidalgo, Patrícia Ribeiro, Pedro Dantas, Vanessa
Souza (CETVN – Centro de
Estudos de Telenovela da
Escola de Comunicações e
Artes da Universidade de
São Paulo), research assistants.
CHILE
Pablo Julio Pohlhammer (Pontificia Universidad Católica
de Chile), national coordinator;
Francisco Fernández (Pontificia Universidad Católica de
Chile), national vice-coordinator;
Constanza Mujica (Pontificia
Universidad Católica de
Chile), research associate;
Verónica Silva, Cristóbal Pozo
(Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile), collaborator.
COLOMBIA
Fernando Aranguren Díaz
and Borys Bustamante
Bohórquez (Universidad
Distrital Francisco José de
Caldas), national coordinators;
Hernán Javier Riveros (Universidad Distrital Francisco
José de Caldas), research
associate;
Diana María Lozano Prat,
Adriana Carolina Pérez
Gutiérrez, Fernando Guevara
Amortegui, Luis Alejandro
Corredor, Olga Lucía Gutiérrez (Universidad Distrital
Francisco José de Caldas),
research assistants.
ECUADOR
Alexandra Ayala-Marín
(Universidad Tecnológica
Equinoccial), national cocoordinator;
Pamela J. Cruz (Universidad
Tecnológica Equinoccial),
national co-coordinator;
Patricia Castañeda, Juan Camilo Molina, Andrés Valarezo
(Universidad Tecnológica
Equinoccial), research associates.
SPAIN
Charo Lacalle (Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona),
national coordinator;
Beatriz Gómez, Mariluz Sánchez, Rosa Ferrer, Cristina
Pujol, Carlos Sanandrés
(Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona), research associates;
Berta Trullàs, Marta Albújar,
Deborah Castro, Karina
Tiznado, Raquel Crisóstomo,
Tatiana Hidalgo (Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona),
collaborators.
UNITED STATES
Juan Piñón (New York University), national coordinator;
María de los Ángeles Flores
(University of Texas at El
Paso), research associate.
MEXICO
Guillermo Orozco and Gabriela Gómez (Universidad
de Guadalajara), national
coordinators;
Darwin Franco, Francisco
Hernández, Adrien Charlois,
research associates.
PERU
James A. Dettleff and Giuliana
Cassano (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú),
national coordinators;
Guillermo Vásquez F. (Pontificia Universidad Católica del
Perú), research associate;
Thalía Dancuart, Nataly
Vergara, Brunella Bertocchi, Wendy Ramírez, Mary
Bustinza, María Isabel Ato,
Lissi Torres, Sarah Rueda
(Pontificia Universidad
Católica del Perú), research
assistants.
PORTUGAL
Catarina Duff Burnay (Universidade Católica Portuguesa),
national coordinator;
Pedro Lopes (Universidade
Católica Portuguesa), national co-coordinator;
Marta Neves de Sousa (Universidade Católica Portuguesa),
research associates.
URUGUAY
Rosario Sánchez Vilela (Universidad Católica del Uruguay), national coordinator;
Lucía Gadea, Tania González,
Sabrina Torterolo (Universidad Católica del Uruguay),
research assistants.
VENEZUELA
Morella Alvarado Miquilena
and Luisa Torrealba (Universidad Central de Venezuela),
national coordinators;
Pedro de Mendonca, Verónica
Fuenmayor, Zicri Colmenares, Erick García (Universidad Central de Venezuela),
research assistants.
edItor’s note
This Obitel Yearbook 2017 is published simultaneously in three
languages by Globo/Editora Sulina (Brazil): in printed and digital
form bilingual (Portuguese/Spanish), and in digital form in English.
Previous Obitel Yearbooks:
•
Obitel Yearbook 2007, published in Spanish by Editorial Gedisa, Spain.
•
Obitel Yearbook 2008, published in Portuguese and English by
Globo Universidade, under the seal of Editora Globo, Brazil.
•
Obitel Yearbook 2009, published in Spanish by the European
Children’s Television Observatory (Oeti); in Portuguese and
English by Globo Universidade/Editora Globo, Brazil.
•
Obitel Yearbook 2010, published in printed form in Portuguese
and Spanish by Globo Universidade/Editora Globo, Brazil.
•
Obitel Yearbook 2011, published by Globo Universidade/Editora Globo in printed form in Portuguese and Spanish, and in
digital form in English.
•
Obitel Yearbooks 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, published
by Globo Universidade/ Editora Sulina in printed form in Portuguese, and in digital form in Spanish and English.
Since its inception, in 2005, in Bogotá, Obitel elected the centrality of television fiction production in Ibero-America due to the
growing interest of different countries in conflating distinctive policies of media, cultural, artistic and commercial production and creation, which has led to the constitution of a major geopolitical and
cultural zone. Based on this scenario, Obitel performs not only the
quantitative record of fiction production in the 12 countries, but also
the analysis of programming trends, broadcast television and, since
2010, the analysis of television fiction transmedia reception.
16 | Obitel 2017
Throughout these 12 years of existence, Obitel has consolidated in the field of Ibero-American communication as an international research network, which has been producing quantitative and
qualitative analyses with the main objective of identifying, through
comparative study, both the similarities and differences, the adaptations and appropriations among the national television narratives
produced and exhibited in the region. It is, therefore, an intercultural study that allows to identify and interpret points such as: the
representations these countries make of themselves and of others in
the fiction television productions; cultural indicators through which
people build and rebuild daily elements of their cultural identity.
These approaches facilitate the Observatory building, at the same
time, a comprehensive overview about the economic strength that
fiction has gained in the television and in the life of these countries.
On the other hand, it is necessary to note the construction and
improvement over these 12 years of a unified methodological protocol adopted by all Obitel research teams. This protocol integrates
techniques of observation and data collection, procedure and patterns of quantitative and qualitative analysis, which provide the researchers and practitioners of communication with both synchronic
and diachronic view of the transformations that come through the
television industries in the Ibero-American context.
The main result of all these continuous and coordinated efforts
has been the historical series of data and analysis, which is rarely
achieved in the field of research. Another equally important result
of Obitel has been the collaboration between the university and
the productive sector, a relationship that is renewed every year,
demonstrating that, if desired, the alliance of interests around the
study of our main TV product is possible, which is the telenovela
and its derived formats.
For all this, throughout 12 years of Obitel, the general and national coordinators and the research teams reaffirm their commitment with the improvement of knowledge on television fiction, with
the qualified formation of its researchers and professionals, with the
Editor’s note | 17
application and intervention of this knowledge in the promotion of
TV fiction, which increasingly speaks as the narrative of the IberoAmerican nations.
General and national coordinators of Obitel once again wish
to express our appreciation to Globo for its continued support over
these years and its decisive involvement in this publication and the
realization of our annual seminar. We also reiterate our appreciation
for the cooperation received from the institutes Kantar Ibope Media (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay),
Nielsen-Ibope-México (Mexico), GfK/CAEM and Marktest (Portugal), Barlovento Comunicación/Kantar Media (Spain), Nielsen
Media Research (United States), AGB Nielsen Media Research
(Venezuela). Finally, our deepest gratitude for the support and cooperation from all universities and research centers of the countries
members of Obitel.
note on methodology
The IBERO-AMERICAN OBSERVATORY OF TELEVISION FICTION – OBITEL, since its foundation, in 2005, works
as an intercontinental project for Ibero-America, including Latin
American and Iberian countries, besides the United States Hispanic
population. As at the time, it is considered important to speak of
an Ibero-American context due to the growing interest of different
national states in conflating policies of production, of exchange and
commerce, and of media, cultural and artistic creation, which could
cooperate to constitute a major geopolitical and cultural zone.
The studies that have been carried out by Obitel comprise at
least five dimensions of the television fiction as its vast object of
analysis: production, exhibition, distribution, consumption and thematic content. To these dimensions has been added, since 2010, the
transmedia phenomenon, which, while emerging, carries a high potential for understanding the TV production and the expectations,
distribution and consumption of TV fiction. With this analysis we
intend to explain the new forms in which the audiences relate with
television fiction – now also watched and consumed on the internet
or on mobile devices, such as cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc.
The methodological work for the Obitel Yearbook 2017 has
been mainly:
1) Systematic annual monitoring of the fiction shows that
were broadcast by free-to-air TV channels in the 12 Obitel countries.
2) Generation of comparable quantitative data from these
countries: rating and share, premiere shows, number of hours, titles
and chapters, audience profiles, and the central fiction themes.
3) Identification of plural and bilateral flows of fiction genres
and formats, translated in the ten most viewed productions, its central themes, rating and share.
20 | Obitel 2017
4) Analysis of trends in the audiovisual context of each country: data of consumption of other media, such as internet, and other program genres, investments in advertising, legal and political
events of the year, as well as what each national research team considers the highlights of the year, especially regarding to changes in
production, narratives aesthetics and thematic contents.
5) The analysis of transmedia reception and the interactions
of the audiences with fiction in every country; case studies considering the TV shows that, due to its singularity, have had great repercussion on the internet or on social networks.
6) The proposal for a study theme that takes the 12 groups to
a theoretical and methodological integration around it. The result is
intended to be a unique contribution of Obitel to television fiction
studies, under the title of the theme of the year.
7) The publication of the results of the systematic monitoring
as yearbook, with special attention to the theme of the year, which
for the Obitel Yearbook 2017 is: one decade of television fiction in
Ibero-America. Analysis of ten years of Obitel.
Our monitoring was developed by research teams from 12
countries and different universities from the Ibero-American region:
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, United States,
Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The main sources of audience data have been granted in the
different countries by: Kantar Ibope Media (Brazil, Argentina,
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay), Nielsen-Ibope-Mexico
(Mexico), Caem, GfK and Marktest (Portugal), Barlovento Comunicación/Kantar Media (Spain), Nielsen Media Research (United
States), AGB Nielsen Media Research (Venezuela).
The work is also being done with the data generated by the
proper research teams from other sources, such as press releases,
websites information (clippings), audio and video materials, as well
as those derived from direct contacts with agencies and agents of the
audiovisual media in each country.
Note on methodology | 21
The data statistical treatment was carried out according to
productive typologies (programs bars, time slots, duration of each
fiction, chapters or episodes) and measuring typologies (audience
ratings and share). It makes possible the creation of comparative
tables on the offer conditions and the production profiles of television fiction in each country, which include categories such as: programs data, formats, producers, scriptwriters, creators and exhibition strategies.
This Yearbook is divided into three parts. The first is a chapter
which contains a comparative synthesis of fiction in the Obitel
countries. This comparison is made from a quantitative and qualitative point of view that makes possible to observe the development of
fiction in each country, highlighting their main productions, as well
as the theme of the year.
The second part consists in 12 chapters, one for each country,
with an internal structure of fixed topics, but with new additions
every year. The sections that compound each chapter are the following:
1) Country’s audiovisual context: this section presents general information about the audiovisual sector regarding the production
of television fiction: history, trends and relevant events.
2) Analysis of premiere fictions: it is made through quantitative tables that show specific data about national and Ibero-American TV fictions released in each country. In this section the ten
most watched titles of the year are highlighted. From this year on,
the Yearbook also brings the five most watched national productions of the year, in an effort to enhance and deepen the issue of
national identities in each country.
3) Transmedia reception: this section presents and exemplifies what channels offer to the audience on the internet, as well the
description of the audience’s behavior when watching, consuming
and interacting with their fictions through websites, social networks
and other platforms.
22 | Obitel 2017
4) Highlights of the year: the most important productions not
only in terms of audience (rating) but also for their sociocultural
impact and for generating innovation in the television fiction production or reception.
5) And, finally, the theme of the year, which this year is one
decade of television fiction in Ibero-America. Analysis of ten
years of Obitel. The objective was to analyze the main tendencies and events that have emerged in national fictions in the last ten
years (2007-2016), the period of existence of Obitel, and to compare
them in their evolutionary diversity in Ibero-American space. This
analysis, carried out in each of the Obitel countries, seeks to present
the tendencies of national fiction and some of the most significant
events that affected these trends in the following areas: rating and
share, audience, communication policies, narrative themes, narrative forms, transmedia production and reception, and transnationalization.
The analyzes are based on a selection made by each country of
fictions and events that marked trends over the last ten years, both
for their thematic content and production, reception or for any other
reason, to highlight what they brought different and new and how
the broadcast modified the local fiction scene.
In regard to rating and share data, the national fictions that occupied the top ten positions in the last ten years were recovered to
analyze their evolution: trends and ups and downs of national television fiction audiences in the last decade.
The third part is an appendix that brings the technical specifications of the ten most watched titles in each country, with the
basic information about these productions.
fIrst PArt
televIsIon fIctIon In the Ibero-AmerIcAn sPAce In 2016
comPArAtIve synthesIs
of obItel countrIes In 2016
Authors:
Darwin Franco, Gabriela Gómez, Guillermo Orozco
This first part of the Obitel Yearbook presents a comparative
and synthetic panorama of the main data concerning the monitoring made during the year 2016 in the 12 countries that make up this
Observatory about the production and circulation of premiere television fiction programs in Ibero-American countries. For the present
Yearbook, programs from 80 open television channels were recorded (55 private and 25 public channels), all of them with a national
coverage in the countries that make up the Obitel geocultural area.
Table 1. Obitel member countries and channels analyzed in 20171
Obitel
countries
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
1
Private channels
América 2, Canal 9,
Telefe, El Trece
Globo, Record, SBT,
Band, Rede TV!
UCV TV, Canal 13, Telecanal, Red, Chilevisión, Mega
Colombia
RCN, Caracol, Canal Uno
Ecuador
Teleamazonas, RTS, Ecuavisa, Canal Uno
y Televicentro
Public channels
Total
Televisión Pública
5
TV Brasil
6
TVN
7
Señal Colombia,
Canal Institucional
ECTV
5
6
Spain
Antena3, Tele5, Cuatro, LaSexta
La1, La2
61
USA
Azteca America, Estrella TV,
MundoFox, Telemundo, UniMás, Univisión
V-me
7
Spain has 30 autonomous TV stations, which were not analyzed in this comparative
chapter, since it includes only stations with a national coverage in each country. The most
remarkable element about these regional autonomous local channels can be found in the
chapter about Spain in this Yearbook.
26 | Obitel 2017
Mexico
Televisa, TV Azteca, Imagen TV
Portugal
Frecuencia Latina, América Televisión,
Panamericana Televisión, ATV, Global
TV
SIC, TVI
Uruguay
Montecarlo TV, Saeta TV, Teledoce
Peru
Venezuela
Total
Canal I, Globovisión, La Tele, Meridiano,
Televen, TV Familia, Vale TV, Venevisión, Tvepaco
55
Once TV, Conaculta,
TV Unam, Una Voz
Con Todos
7
TV Perú
6
RTP1, RTP2, RTP3
Televisión Nacional
(TNU)
ANTV, Tves, C.A.
Telesur, VTV, Vive
TV, Colombeia,
Ávila TV, Conciencia TV
25
5
4
17
80
In most Obitel countries, private channels prevail over public ones. In 2016, the number of television networks analyzed increased, since Ecuador and Mexico incorporated Televicentro and
Imagen TV (private networks) respectively. In addition, public
channels Conciencia TV, in Venezuela, and Una Voz Con Todos,
in Mexico, joined in.
1. Audiovisual context in Obitel countries in 2016 and the highlights of the year
1.1. Panorama of the audience
The technological changes that have been promoted by media
convergence and the new audiences’ dynamics, above all among
the youngest ones, modified the Ibero-American media panorama in
multiple ways. The most reiterative change in Obitel countries was
the decline of rating on TV screens and the increase of viewing fiction on TV on demand platforms, mainly Netflix, just as it happened
in Spain, Brazil and Mexico.
Another incidence that also influenced the audiovisual and
fiction panorama in the Obitel area was undoubtedly the political
context not only in the reference countries, but also with respect to
the presidential succession in the USA, since the “Donald Trump”
factor partly conditioned investment in the field of telecommunica-
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 27
tions due to the continual fluctuations in the price and value of US
currency.
Countries such as Argentina, for example, witnessed a decline
in the production of news segments, despite the fact that the country
experienced presidential elections. In Chile, following the same line
of cutbacks, the public witnessed the end of university television,
which was privatized.
In Mexico, the US elections had an impact on the growth of the
TV duopoly in such a way that both Televisa and TV Azteca faced
one of the greatest economic and rating crises in their history, and
all of this situation was compounded by the emergence of a third
national network, Imagen TV, which – despite the audience’s hopes
– did not mean a refreshing proposal in the Mexican TV palimpsest.
Another factor that doubtlessly had an impact on the IberoAmerican audiovisual industry was the generalized economic crisis
the region had to endure; for example, in Brazil, as a result of this
same economic crisis compounded by a political crisis following
the corruption scandals in the country’s politics, there was a 4.7%
increase in television viewing, mainly in the news segments, which
at certain moments managed to surpass both fiction and entertainment programs.
In Venezuela, the worsening of the social, economic and political crisis was so severe that the people had to suffer food, medicine
and staple product shortages, which brought about at least 5,772
protests and 711 acts of looting, according to records of the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS, 2017). Though
inflation rates surpassed 550%, according to unofficial figures, it
unleashed a media crisis, since the pro-government media censored
this reality while independent media were harshly criticized and
sanctioned by the State.
Colombia, with a more encouraging panorama, witnessed the
definite blossoming of the production of fiction series, which have
taken over not only the national TV scene, but also the international
one, by positioning itself in the programming of both Mexico and
28 | Obitel 2017
the USA, two countries with which it made most of its co-productions in 2016. Unlike what happened in Peru, where the presence
of series and miniseries that had headed the rating ended to retake
the telenovela.
The Turkish telenovela phenomenon, already strongly present
in our Yearbook 2016, continued its expansion and consolidation in
countries like Uruguay, Chile and Mexico, where it became a profitable model. The same phenomenon appeared in Portugal, where
some of these telenovelas vied for the rating with the traditional
Brazilian telenovelas.
In the USA the phenomenon was the implementation of a new
TV format called “super series”, which made a narrative and thematic remix of the series and the telenovela to present stories where
violence and politics stand as two important thematic axes, intended
for the young audience. This proposal by company Telemundo was
so successful that it surpassed the hegemony Univisión had kept
in the broadcast of fiction for the Latin audiences who live in the
American union.
1.2. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
Despite the fact that the generalized decline in ratings appeared
in most Obitel countries, this did not hinder altogether the growth
of advertising investments both in television and in fiction, since
many countries registered a growth that, though it does not surpass
the profit registered at the beginning of this millennium, confers
dynamism to the sector.
Countries such as Argentina showed an 11.9% increase in advertising on open television, despite the devaluation of its currency.
In Peru, according to data provided by company CPI, advertising
investment in television increased in 2% with respect to the year
2015, while the internet increased in 11.9%.
Other nations that also reflected a growth were Brazil, Portugal
and Spain. In Brazil, the impact of the political and economic crisis
was reflected immediately in the advertising market, where there
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 29
was a rise of 1.5%, obtained largely thanks to Rio 2016 Olympic
Games. In this sense, open television continued to dominate advertising investment, with 55.1%, followed by paid television (11.2%).
Meantime in Spain advertising investment grew 7.4%, which positioned it a considerable distance ahead of the median in Western
Europe (3.9%) and even worldwide (5.7%). Television continues to
be the leading medium in this area, with a growth of 6.2%, although
the internet continues to shorten the distance, with 26.9% and a 23%
growth with respect to the previous year. Portugal was also way
ahead of the European average, registering a 76.8% increase.
In Mexico, the restructuring that the TV industry is undergoing has diversified advertising investment and, although television
continues to concentrate 49% of advertising expenses, it is losing
strength due to the fact that advertisers prefer to invest less in open
TV in return for strengthening their interest in paid television and
the internet. Colombia presents a scenario that is similar to the
Mexican one, since there was a growth in advertising investment
in digital advertising. The tendencies that marked said trend were
video marketing and display ads, which are sought after much more
than text advertising.
However, Chile, as it has been happening since 2012, has experienced a decline of 1.6% in advertising investment in open television. Still, it continues to be the medium with the most participation in advertising investment, with 37.4% of the total, but far from
the 47% it enjoyed ten years earlier. In Uruguay the same thing
happened, since television continues to be the strongest investment
area, although, with respect to 2015, it has dropped 3% in terms of
winnings. Hispanic TV stations in the USA also showed a tendency
to decline; for example, Univision Communications Inc. reported
losses in the third quarter of 2016 amounting to 8.7%, partly due to
low ratings, which set off the alarms in the company at a time when
a report was being drafted to go into the stock market.
In Ecuador, advertising investment is not always made depending on the rating the channels reach, except in the case of Ecuavisa,
30 | Obitel 2017
which is leading the ratings and share levels and has a 27.89% advertising investment, the greatest among open television channels.
In Venezuela, after the complicated political and social situation it
is undergoing, there was a decline in advertising investment, since
one of the main advertisers on open television is the food industry
and, due to the shortage in raw material and products to offer, some
clients reduced the number of commercials.
1.3. Merchandising and social merchandising
The use of fiction for commercial and social merchandising
strategies experienced different shades in Obitel countries, since
while some countries remain uninvolved with this strategy in their
production processes, others have found in it a niche to sell brands
and products, but it has also been used to further a social agenda
through fiction, that was the case of Argentina, Mexico, Brazil,
Portugal and Spain.
Argentina, through youth fiction Esperanza Mía, continued
selling merchandising from the social networks and promoted the
musical career of its star, Lali Espósito. Social merchandising was
absent from national production. Meanwhile, Brazil innovated
through transmedia and multiplatform strategies, such was the case
of Globo telenovelas A Lei do Amor, Totalmente Demais and Haja
Coração. These fictions took advantage of the narrative theme to
show products related or linked with the fiction characters’ actions.
Their proposal is 360º fiction.
In the social area, telenovela Velho Chico (Globo) promoted
environmental organization Conservação Internacional, and that
is how environmental marketing was promoted from fiction, putting emphasis on sustainability and support to small farmers. Another outstanding example is that of historical telenovela Liberdade,
Liberdade (Globo), which showed the first scene of homosexual sex
in Brazilian telenovelas.
In Spain, fiction continued to exploit the pull of its most popular titles, with initiatives aimed at expanding the universe of the sto-
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 31
ries beyond the TV narrative. TVE has launched a novel about El
Ministerio del Tiempo (El Tiempo Es el que Es), by Anaïs Schaaff
and Javier Pascual, and a radio fiction (El Diario Sonoro de Julián
Martínez), aired by RNE after each TV episode, exploring thus the
transmedia possibilities of Spanish fictions, which has turned out to
be not only successful, but also innovative.
The inclusion of social messages within fiction in Mexico was
implemented mainly by public television. Canal Once produced a
children’s series entitled Yo Soy Yo, which was made jointly with the
National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) and whose
narrative axis turned around bullying, but not only within the context of the school, but also on the social networks. Subject matters
such as racism, the relation with the former national territories and
the wounds that remain open due to racial diversity were topics that
fiction in Portugal tried to put emphasis on in 2016, by means of
titles such as A Única Mulher and A Impostora.
In turn, Peru, which had showed little interest in social merchandising within its fiction productions, was present in two different ways during 2016. On one hand, series Amores que Matan
was dedicated to cases of domestic violence in each of its chapters.
On the other, telenovela Mis Tres Marías, weeks prior to the march
#Niunamenos of August 13th, issued messages through its leading
actors rejecting violence against women and inviting to participation in the march. A similar action occurred in Venezuela, where on
Entre tu Amor y mi Amor renowned Venezuelan actresses reflected
on gender violence and women’s rights.
Network Univision in the United States continued with a series of campaigns in an initiative to support Hispanic viewers. In
the case of Telemundo, the campaign “Yo decido” sought to promote participation by Hispanic citizens in the presidential elections,
which would eventually be won by Donald Trump. In countries
such as Colombia, Chile, Uruguay and Ecuador, there were no
clear-cut examples of commercial or social merchandising.
32 | Obitel 2017
1.4. Communication policies
Several Obitel member countries experienced changes in their
legislative and normative framework when new laws were implemented or when new regulations of legislations that had been passed
in 2014 and 2015 went into effect.
In Argentina, as the result of the December 2015 elections, a
series of amendments were introduced in the regulations connected with the audiovisual media. Mauricio Macri’s government, by
means of decree 267, published in January 2016, amended several
key aspects of the acts on Audiovisual Communication Services and
Digital Argentina. These changes allow better concentration and expansion of the current predominant providers towards other markets, and they include the elimination of the limits to concentration
on paid TV.
In Venezuela, there were recurrent threats to apply sanctions on
the grounds of the Act on Social Responsibility in Radio, Television
and Electronic Media and the Telecommunications Organic Law on
independent media for broadcasting contents that are critical of the
national government’s administration. As a result, on Venezuelan
TV, there was very limited or no coverage of events connected with
insecurity, food and medicine shortages and the high inflation rates
afflicting the country.
In Uruguay, two events affected communication policy issues:
the Act on Audiovisual Communication Services and the implementation of digital terrestrial television. The act, which was passed in
December 2014, had been suspended due to the fact that several
appeals were lodged at the judicial power. The Supreme Court of
Justice resolved and declared that some of the articles were unconstitutional, among them the one that referred to the regulation of
contents and compelled the daily broadcast of two hours a week of
national TV fiction or cinema between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., besides
demanding that 30% of the national production come from independent production companies.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 33
In Ecuador, the regulations for the Organic Law on Communication was promulgated. In its provision 6, second paragraph, which
refers to article 102, on the promotion of national production and
independent and national production, there was a mistake for which
11 radio stations had to pay a dear price, since it should have referred to article 103, on the broadcast of musical contents.
On the subject of digital terrestrial television, Chile, Uruguay,
Peru and Mexico experienced different changes; for example, in the
Andes country, after the promulgation of Act n. 20,750 on digital
TV, in 2014 and 2015, on the regulations that would implement it,
digital terrestrial television is making very slow progress.
In Mexico, on the subject of communication policies, digital
terrestrial television was implemented and, thus, they put an end to
analog television. This change entailed not only a millionaire investment on the part of the Mexican State (approximately US$ 386 million for the purchase of 53,000 digital TV sets), but also a veritable
change in the national TV palimpsest, since it was the first time that
TV networks were able to fully implement the digitalization of their
signals, and now each of them has five mirror channels, which practically quintupled the number of open channels nationally.
The same process occurred in Peru, where some regulations
were slowly implemented focused on attaining greater diffusion
on digital television and, thus, achieving the announced (and long
awaited) analog blackout. In Uruguay, the governments have had
difficulties and failures in the execution and implementation of digital terrestrial television. The term stipulated for the analog blackout,
November 2015, was suspended without definition of a new date.
In Colombia, the update of the Integrated Management Model
of the Ministry and the Fund for Information and Communication
Technologies were the main changes when it came to the obligation
on the part of the service providers to guarantee the television services of regional channels at the national level under the supervision
of the National Television Authority.
34 | Obitel 2017
The regulations for the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet
was the most important change in the regulation of the media and
the telecommunications for Brazil. This act works as a constitution of sorts on the use of networks in the country and it establishes
guaranties, principles, rights and obligations for both the companies
and the internet users. This is one of the most important legislations
on the subject in the world; its main value revolves around the “net
neutrality”.
A similar process is being constructed in Spain, since the current government’s interest in the public policies of the digital society
became apparent in November, with the disappearance of the State
Secretariat of Telecommunications and Information Society, whose
competences were integrated into the Ministry of Energy, Tourism
and the Digital Agenda. The Telecommunications and Networks
Plan heads the new Ministry’s Digital Agenda and its objective is to
promote the deployment of broadband ultra-rapid access networks,
both landline and mobile networks, and promote its adoption by the
citizens, companies and administrations.
The changes that occurred in Spain were also reflected in Portugal through the proposal Audiovisual Media Services Directive,
passed on May 25th, 2016 by the European Commission. This measure reinforced the regulatory entities on communication policies
among the EU member countries. In Portugal, that entailed modifying Act n. 33/2016 and it clarified the stipulations relating to the
development and future of digital terrestrial television.
Finally, in the USA, in January 2017, the Federal Communications Commission granted permission to Univision so that Televisa increased its shares within the company. Televisa will be able
to increase its participation in Univision from 10% to 49%, which
would give the Mexican company operational control over the other
company.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 35
1.5. ICT tendencies
The progress made by internet coverage in Ibero-America has
remained steady, although its objective of reaching the majority of
the population is still far, which becomes specifically apparent in the
Latin American countries that are Obitel members. The following is
an account of the highlights on the subject of telecommunications.
Argentina reached, through its household broadband, 7.1 million connections, with a penetration in 16% of the population and
an average speed of up to 6 Mbps. This positions the country among
the first in Latin America, behind Uruguay and Chile, but far from
the figure reported by OECD countries in keeping with the global
tendency. Landline telephony is in decline, with a drop of nearly
0.54% with respect to 2015.
Chile is among the Latin American countries with good internet use via smartphones, with 7.9 million users, corresponding to
45% of the population. Access to audiovisual content by means of
these mobile devices is boosted by the use of networks with greater
bandwidth and data transmission speed.
The data available reveal that computer penetration in Uruguay’s households reached 94%, and the composition of the household technological equipment shows the decline in the percentage of
desktop computers, while that of notebooks (51%) and tablets (31%)
is growing. The most important increase is among smartphones: 2.2
million people have one (in four years this number multiplied 18fold) in a population of a little over three million.
Brazil maintains a steady growth regarding internet connectivity, since 57.7% of Brazilians is connected to the web. Ecuador
shows similar figures because the internet reaches 56.8% of the
population; of this percentage, 47.04% of the connections are mobile, which enjoyed a 12.07% increase with respect to 2015. In turn,
Mexico remains below the countries that we have just mentioned,
because only 51% of the population has access to the internet. Countries such as Peru and Colombia reached 40% of coverage of web
access for their populations in 2016.
36 | Obitel 2017
A special case is Venezuela, where, despite its internet penetration of 62%, there is a context of censorship and self-censorship
that limits the free and plural flow of information. The social networks, in particular Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, have become
channels to access the news. Moreover, digital communications
media continue to consolidate, which foster the daily coverage of
newsworthy events with the use of tools for the transmission of live
video to cover public-interest events.
Spain, Portugal and the USA present a different scenario,
since in these countries the debate does not revolve around penetration, but distribution of the networks and the radioelectric spectrum.
It is due to the fact that their digitalization processes, by being more
advanced, are posing new challenges; for example, the regulation of
digital terrestrial television and the TV on demand services, such as
Netflix – a relevant subject because the acquisition of the latter has
set in motion a tendency to the decline in cable television contracts
in the United States.
1.6. Public TV
The growth and consolidation of public television in Obitel
member countries was a constant, since while Mexico, Portugal
and Ecuador witnessed the birth of new channels, countries like
Chile witnessed the end of university television.
In 2016, in Argentina, the institutional redesign of public
media administration materialized with the creation of the Federal
System of Public Media and Contents at the ministerial level, with
jurisdiction over audiovisual public media and other public projects of a cultural nature. At the end of 2016, it held the control of
educational signals Encuentro, PakaPaka and DeporTV – hitherto
dependent on the Ministry of Education – and Bacua, Acua Mayor
and Acua Federal. A similar process took place in Mexico, where
the Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State managed to attain national coverage for channels 11 and 22 and its own television
signal Una Voz Con Todos.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 37
Public TV in Colombia showed a paradoxical feature in that,
on the one hand, it evidences a remarkable creative character that
allows its productions to be recognized by the critics and regarded
as referents to make good-quality TV products at documentary level
from the cultural perspective, but, on the other hand, its viewership
is small compared with private channels, and investment from the
contributions connected with the Fund for the Development of Television is not enough to boost marketing campaigns and processes
that mobilize spectators and have their audiences grow.
In 2015, in Chile, President Michelle Bachelet announced the
creation of a public cultural TV channel. Almost one year later, in
2016, she retook the issue again and informed that US$ 100 million
would be allocated for the creation of this channel and for the modernization and restructuring of TVN. This calls for an indication to
the legislative project that amends Act n. 19,132 on TVN, which has
not been promulgated yet.
Something similar is happening in Brazil, where, amidst a
cloudy political context, it was announced that Empresa Brasil de
Comunicação is to be restructured by means of a draft that, justifying a cutback in expenses, would modify TV Brasil, the only public
network in the country. The regulations have not been approved yet
and the channel’s future is still uncertain.
Beginning on January 1st, 2016, in Venezuela, the unilateral,
unlawful liquidation of National Assembly’s TV station took place,
which had been administered under the name Fundación Asamblea
Nacional Televisión. This liquidation was carried out by the previous board of directors of this legislative body, which had a pro-government majority. That is how the legislative power was deprived of
its television channel; the assembly’s composition had changed in
the December 2015 parliamentary elections, and the majority of the
elected representatives belong to opposition political parties. The
channel’s equipment and assets were removed from the parliamentary premises and transferred to a group of the channel’s workers
who were supporters of Nicolás Maduro’s government, who created
38 | Obitel 2017
a new TV station with the name Fundación Audiovisual Nacional
de Televisión.
In turn, Peru maintained its inertia in the production of fiction
for public television, which had started four years previously, when
it resumed its fiction production with Conversando con la Luna.
In 2016 it continued with Nuestra Historia, a telenovela set from
the late 70s to the year 2000. Fiction production from the public
media also took place in Uruguay, where the two public television
channels were the broadcasters of two national fiction titles. In Ecuador, the State maintains a strong presence in the production of
fiction; through the Ministry of Education it makes the production
of Educa: Televisión para Aprender. Moreover, the Ministry of Interior, to which Ecuadorian Police belongs, financed a miniseries
called Tierra de Serpientes, with which the State tried its hand at
producing TV fiction.
In Spain, public television continues to be showing the adverse
effects of the crisis in financing in both state-run and autonomous
channels. TVE celebrated the 60th anniversary of La1 and the 50th
of La 2 without incurring in large expenses. Still, recovering the
leadership by its news shows (Telediario 1 and Telediario Fin de
Semana), which had been lost 37 months ago, reveals that it is in
tune with its viewers. In Portugal there was a very similar scenario,
since after the structural changes in its public media, which took
place in 2015, RTP managed to articulate better in the digital context and, in 2016, it launched one more signal: RTP 3.
In the United States a cycle appears to have finished, since the
agreement signed by PBS and network Vme in its launch ten years
ago expires in 2017. This agreement ensured that Vme would have
its signal on air in all the markets where PBS had a TV station. However, the trade restrictions imposed on this network with a hybrid
private model have posed a number of financial challenges that have
prevented it from growing.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 39
1.7. Paid TV
On the crossroads of growth in view of the rising demand for
TV on demand services, such as Netflix and Claro TV, paid television in Obitel member countries maintains a growth that, though
steady, is slow, just as we will see in this summary.
Penetration of paid television in Argentina in 2016 reached
80.9% of the households, showing a 2.5% decline with respect to
the previous year, that is some 70,000 households less than in 2015.
This was the second year in a row where there was a decline in the
number of subscribers, a tendency that is also reported by developed
markets with high levels of audiovisual consumption on the internet.
The same effect was felt in Brazil, where the number of cable
television subscribers fell 2%, although at the same time video on
demand grew mainly due to the transmission of Rio 2016 Olympic
Games.
Paid television subscription in Ecuador also decreased 1.03%
with respect to 2015, and it represents 30.52% of the market. In
Chile it reached 54% of the households, managing to capture 38%
of the total television viewership and over 15% of advertising investment in television. Though slower and slower all the time, it
carries significant weight in the Chilean audiovisual panorama.
Paid television in Mexico, as its tendency has shown since
2012, continued to grow and it has managed to do so because it
offers other digital services jointly, such as landline telephony, the
internet and video on demand, which are offered by means of package deals called Triple Play.
The drive of paid television in Spain has been remarkable.
Firstly, because consumption of some of its modalities represents
20.4% in 2016, with a penetration of almost 16 million individuals.
Secondly, because this group of channels accumulates 7% of the
total viewership, with a daily coverage of 6.3 million and an average of 117 minutes per spectator. Thirdly, because of the majority
male profile of its spectators, whose ages range from 25 to 64 years,
a relevant fact considering that paid television presupposes 3% of
40 | Obitel 2017
advertising investment per type of network. Finally, because 8% of
the viewing refers to prerecorded broadcasts (vosdal + AD1-7), a
modality that is on the rise.
Portugal, as it has been showing since 2014, has maintained a
steady growth in paid television, where 145 subscribers were added
in 2016 to amount to an approximate figure of 3.67 million viewers. In 2016, it grew 4.1%. The same happens in Uruguay, where
this service reached 731,753 services, distributed as follows: 40% in
Montevideo and 60% in the rest of the country. In Venezuela, penetration of paid television reached 66.36%, for a total of 4.964.358
subscribers. The percentage of subscribers that access the service in
the satellite modality is 68%, while 32% access it via cable.
Paid television in Peru showed little novelty in 2016 in what
regards national programming. Telefónica’s offer is quite similar,
with the same exclusive Peruvian channels from previous years
(news, cultural and talk shows mainly) and the national and international channel packages. The transformation processes of the tendencies and the possibilities of watching television promoted by the
emergence of OTT platforms, such as Netflix, have caused the panorama of paid television providers in Colombia, such as DirecTV,
UNE, Claro, Movistar and ETB, to start changing towards exploring the idea of TV everywhere. Despite the cutbacks in subscription and the decline in television audiences in paid television in the
United States, the cable television offer for the Hispanic population
has continued its tendency to grow in the last few years, reaching
around 150 channels offering paid television.
2. Comparison of television fiction in Obitel countries in 2016
The comparative synthesis of the monitoring of TV fiction
among the 12 Obitel member countries is based on production indicators established in our Methodological Protocol. The main data
that we present herein refer to the total yearly number of hours of
fiction, the total number of titles, formats, time slot, number of chapters and episodes, in addition to data about circulation (importation
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 41
and exportation) and co-productions. We also make an analysis of
the triennium 2014-2016, seeking to position the data on the time
plan and mainly identify and analyze the most important tendencies
in Ibero-American TV fiction.
Table 2. Offer of hours of national and
Ibero-American iction in 2016
2014
NaIberoGlobal
hour offer tional American
10,180
20,750
TOTAL
30,930
2015
Na- Ibero-Amertional
ican
9,242
20,186
29,428
2016
NaIberoTO
tional American
TAL
9,818
20,766
30,584
The global hour offer dedicated to national and Ibero-American
fiction in 2016 was the second largest in the triennium 2014-2016,
with a 3.8% increase with respect to the previous year. This increase
is explained by the increase of 574 hours in the transmission of
national fiction in all the Obitel member countries; the number of
hours of Ibero-American production – as it can be observed in Table
2 – has increased steadily year after year. On the other hand, in this
table on global offers we see the tendency towards greater IberoAmerican fiction offer, in terms of percentage, in relation to the national one, as well as one reflecting growth in that offer, which accounted for 68% of the total number of transmission hours in 2016,
as opposed to 68% in 2015 and 67% in 2014. The countries that
contributed the most to this result were Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador,
the United States and Venezuela.
42 | Obitel 2017
Table 3a. Hours of national iction offered by country
(triennium 2014-2016)
Source: Obitel
The countries that produced the most hours of national fiction
in 2016 were Brazil (1,434), Spain (1,328) and Portugal (1,232),
which, according to the graph, have maintained a steady flow of
production. However, countries like Uruguay (8), Venezuela (436)
and Peru (491) appear as the ones that produced the least, therefore,
they are the ones broadcasting the largest number of hours of IberoAmerican production.
It should be underscored that the cases of Mexico and Colombia, key countries in the production of Latin-American fiction, this
year increased the number of hours of national production, but they
are still very far from the production levels they had attained, for
example, in 2014. Regarding the triennium, in 2016 there was a
generalized recovery in the transmission of national fiction when it
reached 9,818 hours; nevertheless, in the last two years, it has been
impossible to surpass 10,000 hours, as it had happened in the years
2011 and 2014.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 43
Table 3b. Hours of Ibero-American iction offered by country
(triennium 2014-2016)
Source: Obitel
The countries that broadcast and import the most hours of fiction are Ecuador (3,676), Chile (3,469), the United States (3,336),
Uruguay (2,457), Venezuela (1,891) and Peru (1,527), while other
countries have a very low percentage, such is the case of Spain
(503), Brazil (606), Portugal (460) and Colombia (416). Countries
like Argentina and Mexico maintain a balance in the origin of their
fiction transmissions, although they broadcast more hours of IberoAmerican fiction.
Table 4a. Number of national iction titles offered by country
(triennium 2014-2016)
Source: Obitel
44 | Obitel 2017
Regarding the number of premiere national titles, countries
like Brazil, Spain, Mexico and Portugal remain at the forefront
and they concentrate 56% of all the national titles premiered in the
Obitel member countries in 2016. The countries with the least number of premiere titles were Uruguay, Venezuela, Peru, the United
States and Ecuador. It was noteworthy that in 2016 there were
fewer titles, since while 2015 saw the release of 225 titles, this year
there were only 202.
Table 4b. Number of Ibero-American iction titles offered by
country (triennium 2014-2016)
Source: Obitel
During 2016, Obitel member countries showed 308 IberoAmerican titles on their screens, 14 more than in 2015. The countries that depended on title imports the most were Chile, the United
States, Ecuador and Uruguay; whereas, Colombia, Portugal and
Brazil had fewer than ten titles in the TV programming. Spain
stands out because it has not exhibited any foreign production for
two years in a row. At a similar level, Argentina and Mexico released 25 and 27 Ibero-American titles respectively, while Peru
premiered 20, a number that is double that of the productions they
made in 2016.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 45
Table 5. National iction formats and number of titles in 2016
Source: Obitel
It should be highlighted how well the production of series is
faring in Obitel members. In some countries like Spain and Portugal it has already displaced the production of telenovelas, which
continues to be the main format; however, their superiority is no
longer so overwhelming, since, in 2016, 97 telenovelas and 65 series were produced. Another format that is also on the rise is miniseries, which ranked third, with 16 productions, only above unitarios
and sitcoms, with 12.
Table 6a. Number of national iction chapters offered by country
(triennium 2014-2016)
Source: Obitel
46 | Obitel 2017
Regarding the number of episodes or chapters, in 2016 a larger
number of them were produced when compared to 2014 and 2015,
which reflects two things: 1) greater number of chapters due to a
larger number of series, such was the case of Spain, Portugal and
Brazil; and 2) expansion of chapters after the success of some productions, as it happened in Mexico, the United States, Chile and
Argentina. The total number of premiere national episodes this year
was 13,267.
Table 6b. Number of Ibero-American iction chapters by country
(triennium 2014-2016)
Source: Obitel
Just like with national premiere chapters, those from IberoAmerican countries attained a new record when they amounted to
24,947 chapters or episodes during 2016. The countries that made
the greatest contribution were Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, the
USA and Uruguay; while countries like Brazil, Colombia, Spain,
and Portugal transmitted few chapters of Ibero-American fiction.
Argentina, Mexico and Peru were the median and aired fewer than
2,000 chapters, but more than 800.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 47
Table 7. Co-productions between Obitel
countries exhibited in 2016
Source: Obitel
A total of 27 co-productions were made between Obitel member countries in 2016. Mexico and the USA were the ones that made
the most fictions jointly, with a total of seven, among the relevant
ones El Chema, La Señora Acero and El Señor de los Cielos, all of
them aired in the USA by Telemundo. Another commercial partner
for these countries was Colombia, since they produced jointly with
this country one series, Hasta que te Conocí. Other co-production
relations were established between Argentina-Peru and Argentina-Colombia, as well as between Mexico and Venezuela.
The time period in which fiction was set the most in 2016 was
the present, although not in all the cases correlations were made
with the everyday realities of the receptor audiences. Historical telenovelas ranked second, as they returned with new energy after a
period of time in which not many of this kind were produced in the
last three years. Countries like the USA, Brazil, Spain and Portugal risked their capital to produce this type of fictions, while Brazil
and Spain also decided to do so in the production of period fictions.
48 | Obitel 2017
Table 8. Time period in which national iction was set in 2016
Source: Obitel
Table 9. Number of titles of national iction offered
by time slot in 2016
Source: Obitel
Regarding the time slot in which premiere fictions were aired,
the prime time continues to be the favorite hours, with 201 titles,
followed by afternoon telenovelas, with 49, and those that were
played at night, with 30 titles. The morning hours are practically
forgotten, when only reruns are played.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 49
3. The top ten TV fictions of the year
Table 10. The ten most viewed titles in each Obitel country in 2016
Title
A Regra do
Jogo
Totalmente
2
Demais
Rating Share
Format
Production
company
Channel
Coun- Country of try of
origin airing
34.5
52.54 Telenovela
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
31.1
49.58 Telenovela
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
29.5
43.84 Telenovela
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
Êta Mundo
Bom!
28.9
47.35 Telenovela
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
5 Haja Coração
28.7
43.65 Telenovela
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
6 Justiça
26.2
44.75 Miniseries
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
7 A Lei do Amor
26.0
39.63 Telenovela
Globo
Globo
Brazil Brazil
Al Fondo Hay
Sitio 8
25.68
38.9
Soap opera
9 Señores Papis
24.2
34.7
Telenovela
Mega
10 Rock Story
24.0
40.05 Telenovela
Globo
1
3 Velho Chico
4
8
AmériAmérica
ca TeleTelevisión
visión
Peru
Peru
Mega
Chile
Chile
Globo
Brazil Brazil
Source: Obitel
Table 10 shows the ten most viewed fictions in each of the 12
Obitel member countries, for a total of 117 productions2 organized
in decreasing rating order. Among the ten first places, Brazil repeats
the trend from previous years, occupying the first seven spots, all
of them with Globo productions; Peru is eighth, with an América
Televisión production, Chile is in ninth, with a production by Mega,
and the tenth spot is occupied by one more Brazilian production by
Globo. A tendency is repeated regarding what happened in 2015.
It is remarkable that of the ten most viewed fictions in Obitel
member countries, nine were telenovelas (seven from Brazil, one
from Peru and another from Chile), the sixth spot was occupied by
Brazilian miniseries Justiça. It should be highlighted that, despite
2
This year we do not have 120 titles, since Venezuela only reported seven titles due to the
fact that it was very dificult to get data about the rating and share measurements.
50 | Obitel 2017
the growth in the number of series, they did not rank in the first ten
spots, but rather beginning in the 25th spot, where Peruvian series El
Más Querido was located.
Table 11 shows the circulation of the ten most viewed titles in
each Obitel member country. The fictions with the highest ratings
range from national productions, Ibero-American productions and
co-productions. The number of occurrences indicates how many
times a production from the same country appears among the 112
most viewed titles.
Table 11. Producing and importing countries among
the ten most viewed titles in 2016
Number
Number of
Producing
Number
of occurcommercountry
of titles
rences
cializations
Mexico
26
23
20
Brazil
Colombia
Spain
Argentina
Chile
Portugal
Peru
Ecuador
USA
Venezuela
Uruguay
TOTAL
Source: Obitel
22
11
11
10
9
8
7
6
1
1
0
112
16
9
10
8
9
7
7
5
1
1
0
96
12
3
1
3
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
43
Importing countries
USA, Peru, Portugal, Chile,
Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela
Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Chile
Mexico, USA, Uruguay
Mexico
Peru, Uruguay
Mexico
Colombia
Colombia
Mexico
-
In this sense, Mexico and Brazil are the countries that appear
the most often in the top ten from other Obitel countries, with 23 and
16 titles respectively. The two countries jointly concentrate 74%
of exports, which mostly go to Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and the
USA, where the majority of the fiction exported from Mexico is
exhibited. In the case of Brazil, its exports also extend to Argentina
and Chile.
The titles that appeared in the top ten the most were: Hasta
que te Conocí, by Disney Latinoamérica (Mexico, the USA and Co-
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 51
lombia), with four appearances; Moisés y los Diez mandamientos,
by Record TV (Brazil), with three; Celia, by Fox-TV Colombia,
and La Esclava Blanca, by Caracol (Colombia); and Las Reglas del
Juego, by Globo (Brazil), the latter ones with two appearances each.
Figure 1. Distribution of the ten most viewed ictions
in each country
Source: Obitel
With respect to 2015, the number of titles that appeared in other
top ten lists decreased from 106 to 96; the same happened with imports, which fell slightly, going from 44 to 43 in 2016.
4. Transmedia reception in Obitel countries
For 2016, the television companies from the Obitel member
countries continued experimenting in the transmedia universe with
stories to be consumed through different platforms. These countries
show a similar behavior in terms of development and transmedia
strategy: Spain, the United States, Brazil and Mexico. It should be
clarified that not all the fiction products manage to harness the same
level and interest in the transmedia universe, so the analysis will
refer only to the products that are mentioned.
In the case of Spain, the fiction that showed the most activity
with characteristics of a transmedia product is period series Velvet,
broadcast by Antena3, which used a varied strategy; the series expanded throughout three platforms: a microsite, a Facebook page
52 | Obitel 2017
and a Twitter account. These networks, in addition to offering the
chance to view full chapters, provided exclusive materials such as
interviews, previews of the story, news and participation in contests.
The strategy of this series to capture the viewers’ attention is very
interesting since it produced a special program focused on the final
chapter, Velvet, el Final no Está Escrito. A new aspect that was presented and that expands the plot to other formats is the fact that the
story told by the series expanded to the novel format: Noches de Terciopelo (Planeta, 2016). The audience’s experience was prolonged
through the broadcast of a special program focused on the final
episode. In addition, other links were created: “Aviones de papel”
(video messages among the characters); “Ecos de sociedad” (web
magazine); the letters from Alberto to Ana from London (narrated
by Miguel Ángel Silvestre); and application Velvet 360º. As to the
fans’ interaction, a limited participation was revealed through Facebook: the fans were not interested in creating contents that would
expand the story.
In turn, the fiction viewed in the USA focused on four products
that reveal transmedia strategies: Hasta que te Conocí; La Señora
Acero 3: la Coyote; El Señor de los Cielos 4; El Chema – all of them
broadcast by Telemundo. Though Hasta Que te Conocí occupied
the first spot on the list of ratings, it was the one with the least transmedia support. This series was only distributed by Telemundo’s
website and YouTube channel, and it did not receive the support of
content distribution on the social networks. Meanwhile, La Señora
Acero 3 occupied the sixth spot and its contents were distributed
through six digital platforms.
TV corporations continue to make different efforts: Univision
made webseries as an instrument to expand the narrative of its reality TV programs with CNCo Evolution and Alejandra la de Tijuana.
Moreover, it created webseries Ruta 35: Ruta Alternativa. In turn,
Telemundo continued expanding fiction through digital platforms:
it released the application Doble Acción, so that the fourth season
of El Señor de los Cielos could be followed. A novelty that we con-
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 53
sider very original is the fact that Telemundo promoted access to a
virtual experience in which the audiences will be able to experience
Chema’s escape, in a 360-degree experience, to be watched through
Facebook, YouTube and platform Telemundo.com.
The so-called spin-offs (the expansions of a story) stand out in
Brazil, being used for telenovelas Totalmente Demais, Haja Coração and Liberdade, Liberdade, all of them by Globo. The transmedia highlight for this country concentrated on Supermax (Globo), a
series that is the first horror fiction by this station. The production
company implemented a broadcast strategy that involved the creation of a game developed by students. In each episode, the viewers’
interactivity was encouraged from the TV set to the mobile phone
and vice versa (which is known as the use of secondary screens).
The game created for the series obtained over 170,000 downloads.
The main social network used for interaction was Twitter, and the
fans’ comments had a repercussion on the story. Supermax is an
example of an emerging tendency of Brazilian TV fiction, which is
that of a national series that is planned to be exhibited on different
platforms. As to the audience’s participation, it gained visibility on
Twitter because it was a suspense/horror story marked by a rapid
sequence of events, which demanded a lot of constant attention from
the audience.
A case in which transmedia strategy was very different from
those that we have just explained is the one presented by Chilean
products, where no cases of transmedia production and reception
were observed. Fiction productions use the social networks, such as
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to promote interaction, and the
call on the fans by means of hashtags on Twitter that appear on the
screen as the chapters are being aired, mainly on TVN, Canal 13
and Mega.
In the case of Argentina, the transmedia strategy was observed in two products. The first was miniseries Nafta Súper, by
channel Space (owned by Turner), which had eight 35-minute
chapters. In this series, the universe created by the novel written
54 | Obitel 2017
by Leonardo Oyola (2011) is expanded and its story became a
film: Kryptonite. The other fiction product was telenovela La Leona (produced by El Árbol and Telefe), which had a discussion presented on Facebook. The plot of La Leona appealed to situations
of the country’s reality, therefore the users’ comments revolved
around it and not so much around the fiction itself. The plot of
Nafta Súper did not allude to situations of their reality; however,
the two fictions were received and read from the perspective of the
political and social circumstances afflicting Argentina at the moment they were broadcast.
In Colombia, it was series Lady, la Vendedora de Rosas that
presented a transmedia product. The original story was first conceived as a film, La Vendedora de Rosas, in 1998. This story as
well as the life stories of the different characters resulted in documentaries, reports and the abovementioned TV series. It was possible to observe that the fans created memes, blogs, videos and a
compilation of phrases and terms that were used in the language of
the fictions (both the series and the film). Transmedia production
and reception in Colombia continues to be under construction since
what we observed was a type of interaction that focuses on the viewing of contents and the creation of memes.
In the center of the world, in Ecuador, only four products met
with the transmedia requirements, three of them were telenovelas
and one was a sitcom: Los Hijos de Don Juan, La Trinity, Verdades
Secretas and 3 Familias, respectively. On the official pages of Los
Hijos de Don Juan and La Trinity, trivia games and contests were
conducted; videos showing children completing the challenges in
dances were posted, and the video with the most “likes” would be
the winner, whose prize was a cell phone. As usual, the relationship
between the fiction producers with the fans is established mainly on
Facebook. In the three fictions, the users manifest appropriation of
the content, and they appear among the four first spots according
to the number of followers, interactions and multimediality, after
Señora Acero, a Mexican telenovela.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 55
Modifying the traditional analysis of national TV network
products and in view of what has been observed to happen in other
platforms, in Mexico, we analyzed a fiction produced by Netflix:
series Club de Cuervos. This production company seems to understand very well what is meant by transmedia expansion: it set up an
official website on social networks and from there it distributed contents such as chapter previews, photos, news about soccer players in
revues, news on real media, and a TV channel by means of which
the fans were able to see team Cuervos playing soccer matches. That
is, Netflix’s transmedia proposal was to hook the young audience
on the content, mainly through a popular subject matter, soccer, and
expanding the story outside the fiction, where at times the limits
between fiction and reality blurred. The fans created memes and
they even designed the team’s jersey, which was sold via the social
networks, therefore it was possible to observe greater involvement
with the story on the part of the fans in this series.
In the case of Peru, América Televisión remained as the main
contender when it came to launching transmedia strategies. With
Ven Baila Quinceañera, when its first season ended, a contest show
was produced, Sueña Quinceañera. In turn, TV Perú, with its production Nuestra Historia, appears in this experimentation phase for
the first time with transmedia contents, setting up a site on Facebook
on which followers and actors can participate.
Also in this experimentation phase and without a clear path
yet, in Portugal producers focused on setting up sites on Facebook,
above all for the telenovelas. However, the audience shows that they
like participating with comments about the plots. On the other hand,
what seemed like a new strategy to expand contents through other
formats and platforms did not work: BeActive, a Portuguese production company, presented an RTP1 series entitled Os Jogadores in December 2016. The series was provided in several formats (including
a web version with wight 12-minute episodes) in addition to 48- and
90-minute versions for television; but the viewers did not like it.
56 | Obitel 2017
Uruguay presents very interesting data, since the team in this
country applied a formula to find out the degree of the fans’ engagement with the posts launched by the production of a fiction (see the
chapter about this country). The case analyzed was series Feriados,
produced by Televisión Nacional Uruguay (TNU), which launched
an official website and accounts on the social networks, promoting the contents on different platforms. The work team found that
the TV network’s strategies do not appeal to the users’ actions, but
rather they just spread the contents through the different platforms,
launching the trailers and promotional ads for each chapter. As to
the analysis made of the fans’ site for Feriados, there were over
4,000 followers; they found that the post with the greatest engagement was a trailer prior to the series premiere.
In turn, transmedia reception in Venezuela, like in several other Obitel member countries, continues to be limited to the audience
posting comments on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In the case
of Piel Salvaje, a telenovela produced by RCTV Producciones and
broadcast by Televen, unofficial accounts were opened on Twitter
and Instagram. The behavior of the social networks was characterized by the promotion of the chapters, and there was little presence
on the part of the production on them, which was reflected in the
scant audience interaction. This weak presence of activity on Piel
Salvaje is similar to what was obtained by A Puro Corazón, also
aired by Televen. A different behavior was witnessed with Venevisión productions, such as Amor Secreto and Entre tu Amor y mi
Amor, which stood out because their contents were varied: not only
were flyers and videos used to advertise the chapters, but also there
were interviews, bloopers, greetings by the actors, etc.; the audience’s behavior was characterized by its passiveness.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 57
Table 12. Transmedia reception in Obitel member countries
Country
Argentina
Brazil
Fiction
Nafta; La Leona
(series)
Supermax (series)
Transmedia
strategy
Facebook
Game: 170,000
downloads
Twitter
Applications
Contests
Facebook
On TVN, Canal 13 Twitter
Chile
and Mega
Instagram
Use of hashtags
Social networks
Lady, la Vendedora
Colombia
Multiple platde Rosas (series)
forms
Los Hijos de
Facebook
Don JuanI; Vidas Trivia
Ecuador Secretas; La Trin- Contests
ity (telenovelas); 3 Chats with actors
Familias (sitcom) Webseries
Facebook
Contests
Links with other
Spain
Velvet (series)
resources via the
oficial site
Novel Noches de
Terciopelo
Instagram
Hasta que te
Facebook
Conocí; La Señora
Twitter
Acero 3: la Coyote;
USA
YouTube
El Señor de los
3600 virtual
Cielos 4; El Chema
experiences
(series)
Application
Facebook
TV channel
Club de Cuervos
Mexico
Merchandising
(series)
Branded (beer
Corona)
Type of transmedia participation by the fans
Level of
transmedia
implementation
Comments
The fans’ discussion on the country’s economic
and political
situation
1.0
Incipient
The fans’ comments had an
impact on the
storyline.
Comments
Memes
Comments
Blogs
Comments
Comments on
Facebook
The users do not
seem interested
in expanding the
plot by creating
other contents
2.0
Moderately active by the fans
Use of secondary screens
Active on the
part of Globo
1.0
Incipient
1.0
Incipient
1.0
Incipient
2.0
Incipient on the
part of the fans
Active by the
producers
2.0
Incipient on the
part of the fans
Comments on the Experimental
social networks
and bolder by
the producers at
Telemundo
Greater engage2.0
ment (contents
Active on the
and articles crepart of Netlix
ated by the fans) Moderately acComments
tive by the fans
58 | Obitel 2017
Peru
Ven Baila Quinceañera; Nuestra
Historia (telenovelas)
Sueña Quinceañera
Contests
Social networks
Memes
Music videos
1.0
Incipient
Uruguay
Feriados (series)
Facebook
Fan page
Comments
1.0
Incipient
Facebook
Twitter
Piel Salvaje; A
VenezuInstagram
Puro Corazón
Comments
ela
Flyers and
(telenovelas)
videos
Interviews
Source: Made by the authors based on each country’s chapters
1.0
Incipient
Even though each country has their own particular characteristics, there are some aspects in which they coincide, since we find
that the transmedia strategy in most countries is on an experimental
stage that we would classify as level 1.0. It mainly consists of opening websites on the social networks (Twitter, Facebook and now
Instagram as a novelty), uploading chapters’ trailers or coming attractions for the fictions, images, videos, interviews, but having a
very basic type of audience participation. The social networks do
not allow a great variety of interaction, therefore they are limited by
the platform itself right off the bat. The production companies that
go beyond this basic level of transmedia interaction, which would
be level 2.0, create applications, games to be downloaded, launch
contest, “trivia”, 360º virtual experiences, produce webnovelas, etc.
At this level, there is greater engagement by the fans, since they
resort to the use of secondary screens, but the fans are still far from
creating contents that would expand the story. We found that some
Obitel member countries, such as the USA, Spain, Brazil and, to a
lesser extent, Mexico, are already experimenting with a further step
in transmedia. Level 3.0 would resort to greater user participation
and story expansion, for example, storylines that would follow the
characters and create different situations and other stories on other
platforms.
An important element that we detected is that some productions are venturing to mix reality and fiction in the stories; such was
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 59
the case of the fictions analyzed in Mexico and Peru. On the other
hand, if we consider the type of fictions that transmedia strategies
are converging in and which of them have the greatest participation,
we observe that it is the series rather than the telenovelas. What is
more, the main network to establish some kind of (basic) interaction
is Facebook, however, in 2016 a new social network appears to help
spread contents: Instagram.
According to what we have observed in this section, the greatest changes are occurring on the part of the content producers, but
not so much among the fans or users. There is still a very limited
participation in general, also due to the intrinsic characteristics of
the platforms where the contents are promoted. This requires reflection on whether transmedia products will continue to be a strategy
to be followed by the production companies or simply if they will
continue as the majority has done so far: spreading their products on
different platforms and promoting limited interaction just to know
how the audience receives their products.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Ibero-America. Analysis of ten years of Obitel (2007-2016)
If “20 years are nothing” (for oblivion) as tango Volver goes,
ten years of presence for analysis and research, on the contrary,
are indeed very significant. And in the case of Obitel, these have
been very productive years, years that are rich in achievement and
discoveries, in learning, in analysis, in systematization, in opening
up viewing horizons, in proposals, in the creation of meaning from
the qualitative and statistic rating and share data, of observing the
audiences, of following up content and narrative innovations by TV
companies, of documenting alliances and co-productions in the audiovisual world, as well as of study of the screens’ transformation,
of the plots of their fictions, and the manners they use to connect
with the audiences.
A decade in which the national research teams that make up
Obitel have made amendments and proposals for the future, and we
60 | Obitel 2017
have made new questions and sections in the reports, keeping a constructive dialog through its common Methodological Protocol. That
is easy to say, but it is not common in international joint projects,
especially where different latinidades come together. There has
been a little of everything in the Obitel decade: agreements and disagreements, desertions and new incorporations of both colleagues
and countries. Nevertheless, the balance after ten years, first of all,
shows the permanence and pertinence of an academic communicative project and its researchers’ vitality and capacity.
Obitel was born and continues to exist as a transnational project centered on specific fiction countries-contexts, which has been
possible firstly thanks to the will of its participants, but also thanks
to different institutional supports that have made this permanence
possible. Globo Universidade has been a key supporter in the emergence, maintenance and global projection of Obitel, and the universities to which the researchers belong have contributed significantly
to the presence and international mobility of its professors participating in Obitel year after year. In addition, we have had the great
support of rating measurement companies, such as Kantar Ibope
Media, Nielsen Media, GfK/Caem, Marktest and Barlovento Comunicación.
Summoned to join forces by Maria Immacolata Vassallo de
Lopes, a professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2005,
we, the researchers of this Ibero-American project, got together with
the objective of analyzing an emblematic media product from our
televisions: fiction. A very popular product, the one with the highest
rating on TV, except for, at times, the championship soccer matches
that are broadcast on these screens. A TV product that has nevertheless been questioned (just like television itself has been questioned)
because it is considered unworthy of being the object of a study,
since, as Martín-Barbero put it ironically, television and its fiction,
in particular, have been the intellectuals’ “mal de ojo” (evil eye).
Over the decade, Obitel has systematized an observation strategy of TV fiction, and, as time goes by, we believe ever more firmly
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 61
that this object has transcended itself inasmuch as it has become a
catalyzer for other important esthetic, cultural, economic, political
and technical as well as communicative changes for contemporary
societies in Ibero-America. One of the most significant merits of
Obitel has been the fact that it made and projected an object of study
that captures, like no other, that cultural, expressive vitality and that
creativity of the citizens from a geographical area, Ibero-America,
which has been historically dominated and continues to be blurred
as a world stage in media communicational leadership. At the same
time, over the years Obitel has reflected that contained and overwhelming force of “dramatized societies”, as they have been wisely
referred to by Paul Smith (2016), the audiovisual fiction expert in
his latest book.
The Obitel “world” was set in motion with the Obitel Yearbook
2007, entitled Culturas y mercados de la ficción televisiva (TV fiction cultures and markets), published by Editorial Gedisa, in which
eight countries, from the two continents, in three languages, compiled
national analyses of our fictions. In that year we wrote that: “TV
fiction is today a strategic enclave for Ibero-American audiovisual
production, both because of its economic weight in each country’s
TV market and because of the role it plays in the programming of
national formats and contents with a wide international circulation”.
In 2008, with the central theme global markets, national stories, our analysis resulted in the finding that Ibero-American TV
fiction storytelling was not only a market product, but also a strategic space for the construction of an identity and, as such, one of
self-awareness of our own cultures and dramas, from which coincidences emerged with the growing conviction that “fiction speaks
about ourselves”. In this year, we reported the phenomenon of script
and format adaptation in the international circulation of fiction and
the changes in the business models, where script export stood out,
not that of finished fiction products.
With narratives, formats and advertising as the theme of
the year 2009, we intended to observe the particular relation be-
62 | Obitel 2017
tween investments and production and distribution costs of fiction
in the Ibero-American realm. There we discovered a growing sum
of money devoted to advertising investment in fiction as well as
investment in the production itself. The fact evidenced was that fiction sells, and it sells a lot! Here we started paying special attention
to documentation of specific commercial and social merchandising
of fiction products.
In 2010, with the general theme of convergences and TV
transmediation, we wanted to focus on the then incipient tendency of the changes experienced by the audiovisual spectrum and its
screens, as well as the new forms in which the audience connected
to enjoy fictions, the emergence of different business formats and
models, such as the sale and export of scripts from one to another
country, instead of the finished products. That year we started with
the concrete topic of observing and highlighting transmedia reception of fiction products by the audiences. The fact is that the audiences become digital and transmedia, developing capacities and
contents on multiple screens.
The year 2011 was dedicated to a classic theme in every communicative product: quality. Here we recovered different forms of
understanding quality, tried to compare ideal models with the real
products and managed to coincide with several authors who are experts on this subject matter, such as Buonanno (2004), who holds
that sometimes reference is made to quality in fiction while others to a fiction with quality. Among Obitel member countries, there
are also both ways of understanding, which are precisely associated
with the most viewed fictions, and we were able to confirm that, in
some Obitel countries, fictions with quality are associated with public channels and quality in fiction with private TV networks.
Transnationalization of TV fiction in Ibero-American
countries was the theme of the year in 2012. We sought to map
the characteristics of the transactional flows among and outside the
member countries. That is how we found the geographical areas
where national products flow to the outside the most, such as Brazil-
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 63
Portugal and Mexico-USA. Nevertheless, as it can be observed in
the referent table, there is also an exchange between the Southern
Cone and Mexico and between Brazil and other more central nations
in the Southern Cone.
In 2013 social memory and TV fiction was the central theme
of the analysis and it was observed from different angles: as historical fiction, in the first place, period fiction, or a fiction set in a
specific time and place where social memory is recovered; which
would be the case of those Latin American telenovelas set in rural
areas, haciendas and small towns where it seems that the ways of
behaving and thinking have frozen forever, but they nurture the TV
drama.
Transmedia production strategies, as the central topic, were
approached in 2014. With this emphasis we sought to explore the
ways in which TV networks in Obitel countries are trying to hook
their audiences on multiple screens and different TV products. The
transmedia tendency continues to strengthen in many countries, but
the transmedia phenomenon in Obitel member countries has not displayed all its potential yet, maybe because of the type of audience
that prefers Ibero-American fiction, who are middleclass adults,
which allows us to infer that they have not become prone to using
the social networks or to taking the contents to transform them into
others.
In 2015, we decided to explore directly Ibero-American fiction
contents; therefore the theme of that year was gender relations. It
is well known that this type of relation is crucial in fiction in general
and in Ibero-American TV drama. It is also a sphere of discussion
and transformation in everyday life. Therefore, we wanted to explore whether TV fiction incorporates or not, or if it does what it
incorporates in terms of the actual topics of transformations of sexuality and the gender roles in contemporary societies. In this regard,
we have a varied and varying situation in the member countries,
where Brazilian fiction stands out as the one that has introduced the
most novelties in its stories, such as showing two men kissing and
64 | Obitel 2017
using gays as central characters in the plot. The tradition was that
whenever gay characters appeared in the fiction stories, they were
ridiculed, stereotyped or just presented as supporting characters.
Reinventing genres and formats of TV fiction was the theme
of the year in the last Obitel analysis. With the explosion of the digital world, due to the transfer into DTT in most member countries,
the possibilities of hooking the audiences have multiplied. Series
and miniseries have acquired greater importance today as opposed
to telenovelas, not only due to the fact that telenovelas have more
chapters, but also because of the ways in which they narrate and tell
the stories and handle the interplay of characters and their subject
matters. The presence of other “windows” and the multiplication
of the number of screens are creating a scenario of multiple possibilities to connect with fiction products. Each device “demands” a
preferred type of format and the new users-audiences so demand it
as well. Among the many transformations that have occurred over
ten years and today, it is clear that the field of TV fiction is a field
of permanent experimentation, both in order to gain rating and to get
better and greater publicity, and to send messages and information
to several segments of the audiences or simply to circulate political
propaganda or social merchandising.
The Obitel analyses allow a glimpse of a future that is ever
more and more full of fiction contents, precisely because fiction is a
flexible genre with many formats and possible platforms where any
story can be told, any event can be narrated, any news can be communicated, as well as the dreams and fantasies, desires and passions,
both the audiences’ and the TV producers’.
All it takes is the desire to tell stories. And in the words of Literature Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, “he who wants
to live always wants to tell stories... life is not what is lived but what
is told”. That is why fiction is and will always be a way of living, by
telling and retelling life.
Comparative synthesis of Obitel countries in 2016 | 65
References
Buonanno, M. (2004). La qualita de la fiction. Del prodotto all´ambiente
produtivo. Napoli: Liguori Editor.
Chalaby, J. (2005). From internationalization to transnationalization. Global
Media and Communication, 1 (1), 28-33.
Evans, E. (2011). Transmedia television. Audiences, new media and daily life.
New York; Oxon: Routledge.
Lopes, M. I. V. and Orozco, G. (2010). Transmedia storytelling across IberoAmerican countries. Anais IAMCR, Braga, Portugal.
Lopez, A. (1995). Our welcomed guests: telenovelas in Latin America. In R. C.
Allen (ed.). To be continued...: soap operas around the world. Londres; Nueva
York: Routledge.
Martín-Barbero, J. (2004). Memory and form in the Latin American soap opera.
In R. C. Allen and A. Hill (eds.). The television studies reader (p. 276-284).
London; New York: Routledge.
Mazziotti, N. (2010). La telenovela y su hegemonía en Latinoamérica: la pasión
por los relatos. In G. Casano (ed.). Televisión: 14 formas de mirarla (p. 17-34).
Lima: Departamento Académico de Comunicaciones; Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Perú.
Smith, P. (2016). Dramatized societies: quality television in Spain and Mexico.
Liverpool: University Press.
Straubhaar, J. (1991). Beyond media imperialism: asymmetrical interdependence and cultural proximity. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8.
second PArt
fIctIon In obItel countrIes In 2016
1
ArgentInA: chAnge of dIrectIon In nAtIonAl
ProductIon. concentrAtIon And
reInforcement of commercIAl logIcs
Authors:
Gustavo Aprea, Mónica Kirchheimer, Ezequiel Rivero
1. Argentina’s audiovisual context in 2016
As a result of the presidential elections in December 2015, a
new government took over and introduced, throughout 2016, a series of modifications in the normative related to audiovisual media
in Argentina. The administration directed by Mauricio Macri dissolved the entities and altered the ways of functioning that had been
developed since the Law on Audiovisual Communication Services
was approved, in 2011.
1.1. Open television in Argentina
The open television system in Argentina consists in five networks with national coverage. TV Pública takes part of public media system and is financed with funds from the National Treasury,
official publicity and other self-resources. The other four networks
are privately managed.
Chart 1. National networks of open television in Argentina
Private networks (4)
América 2 (channel 2)
El Nueve (channel 9)
Telefe (channel 11)
El Trece (channel 13)
Total networks: 5
Source: Obitel Argentina
Public networks (1)
TV Pública (channel 7)
70 | Obitel 2017
Three of these networks cover the entire country through their respective boosters: TV Pública, Telefe and El Trece. TV Pública is the
one that covers the biggest part of national territory (99.5%). El Trece
and Telefe cover all provinces through direct property or association
with main local stations. The five networks of national scope broadcast their programming through cable television, which is privately
managed. TV Pública depends on Radio y Televisión Argentina, Sociedad del Estado (RTA S.E.), which functions within the sphere of
the Federal System of Public Media and Contents (SFMyCP), created in 2015. América 2 belongs to group América Medios. El Nueve
forms part of international group Alvavisión, owned by Mexican
entrepreneur Ángel Gonzalez. Telefe is now property of American
company Viacom Inc.1, after they bought it from Telefónica S.A.,
in late 2016, along with other eight competitors from the country’s
interior territory, for 345 million dollars. Clarín holding operates El
Trece. It owns newspapers, open channels, cable television networks
from around the country, a digital TV company, internet service providers and a mobile phone company. It also co-owns a news agency
and the only press paper factory, along with an important amount of
companies aside from massive media communications.
Graph 1. Audience and share per network
Home
Network audience
América
4.6
2
El Nueve 3.0
Telefe
9.2
El Trece
8.7
TV
1.6
Pública
TOTAL 27.1
% Network
Share
(%)
40
35
16.8 América
17.0
10.9 El Nueve 11.0
33.9 Telefe
33.0
32.2 El Trece 32.1
TV
6.1
6.9
Pública
100
100
30
25
Home
20
aud.
15
%
10
Share
5
(%)
0
América
El Nueve
Telefe
El Trece
TV Pública
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
1
Viacom Media Networks has participation in cable signals Comedy Central, MTV,
Nickelodeon, VH1 and Paramount Channel. Since 2017 the management is run by Guillermo Campanini and Darío Turovelzky, both with commercial and television management experience at Viacom.
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 71
Graph 2. Genres and hours transmitted in TV programming
Transmitted
genres
Hours of
exhibition
%
Information
6963:20
16.4
Fiction
7799:20
18.4
Information
19.8%
Entertainment
10389:25
24.5
Religion
493:30
1.2
Sports
2227:20
5.2
12.8%
16.4%
Fiction
Entertainment
18.4%
Religion
Sports
Education
5.2%
1.8%
1.2%
Education
762:45
1.8
Politics
5412:30
12.8
Others
8393:00
19.7
TOTAL
42441:13
100.0
24.5%
Politics
Others
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
In 2016 Telefe achieved to increase its advantage over El Trece,
retaking the leadership that it had lost the year before for barely two
tenths. TV Pública remains being the least chosen and, in 2016, with
the replacement of authorities, it lost even more audience.
1.2. Audience trends throughout the year
The year was marked by a slight reduction in the news and journalistic spaces that had dominated in 2015 in the midst of intense
electoral activity. The fiction grew from 11 to 18% of the programming by the emission of long formats and changes in the programming policy of TV Pública, which in previous years had developed
a considerable amount of series and miniseries. Telefe and El Trece
remained being the networks with highest ratings. Even though the
global average of 2016 favored Viacom’s channel, El Trece prevailed in some months, and in others they tied. América 2, on the
other hand, consolidates its third position on ratings with a proposal
based on entertainment and political debate shows. Its audience,
however, is unstable throughout the year and from May it enters in
a decreasing and sustained curve. This results in numbers similar to
72 | Obitel 2017
those of El Nueve, whose ratings remain low but stable thanks to the
transmission of many long fictions from Ibero-America and some
entertainment/journalistic shows. TV Pública lost more than 60% of
its audience. This fall was not pronounced due to the transmission of
sport events, like the Copa America of football in the United States
and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
Considering the first quarter of 2016 with the same period of
2015, the advertising market in fixed volumes expanded by 4%.2
Open television was one of the most benefited, with a growth of
11.9%, while pay television rose 7.5%. Measured in current pesos,
total investment grew 33%, although in that period there was a devaluation of peso, so this measure is not a good parameter to analyze
the behavior of the market. On the other hand, the National State,
which is the largest individual investor in the advertising market
(10% of the total), reduced its budget investment by 25% compared
to 2015. In addition, it introduced innovations in the management of
the pattern, such as: bigger concentration of recipients, with Grupo
Clarín as the main beneficiary; geographical centralization and prioritization of the commercial private sector (Espada and Marino,
2017).
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
Esperanza Mía, the teen series that ended in the summer of
2016, continued with the sale of merchandising from social networks
and boosted the musical career of its protagonist Lali Espósito. The
social merchandising was absent in national production. Two series
dealt with social issues: El Marginal portrayed with hardness the
life of inmates in a prison in Buenos Aires, and telenovela La Leona
addressed labor issues, workers’ rights and class conflicts.
2
According to Cámara Argentina de Agencias de Medios, this growth makes it the best
irst quarter in the last six years.
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 73
1.5. Communication policies
By decree 267, published in January 2016, the Executive
Branch modified central aspects of the Laws on Audiovisual Communication Services (26,522) and Digital Argentina (27,078). The
changes, which allow a greater level of concentration and expansion
of existing dominant providers to other markets, include: elimination of concentration limits on pay TV; increase in concentration
levels in open TV and radio; authorization for the transfer of licenses; extension of all audiovisual licenses. In fact, the adjustment plans
submitted to the previous authorities by operators that exceeded the
limits set by the Law on Audiovisual Communication Services were
closed and the market was crystallized in its current form.
The institutional architecture of regulation and control was also
modified: the Afsca and Aftic were dissolved and the political authority of the sector was concentrated in ENaCom, a convergent
entity created under direct dependence of the Executive Branch.
Government activity aimed at changing the structure of the communications market was frantic. Only ENaCom issued more than
9,000 resolutions, to which are added presidential decrees and other
resolutions of the Ministry of Communication. Among the main
measures, the new government approved the purchase of Nextel by
Grupo Clarín; supported the sale of Telefe to Viacom; allowed Mexican businessman David Martinez (Fintech), minor partner of Clarín
in Cablevisión, to take control of Telecom Argentina. In addition
it promoted the transfer of television rights of football to Fox and
Turner. The National Plan for the Development of Conditions of
Competitiveness and Quality of Mobile Communications Services
(decree 798) was announced mid-year and encourages the sharing
of networks to facilitate the entry of new operators. By the end of
2016 (decree 1340), telephone companies are allowed to provide
pay TV services, and Grupo Clarín is allowed to offer 4G services in less than two years. The decree also protects the operators of
new generation networks for 15 years and raises barriers against
the entry of competitors. In satellite matters, the construction of the
74 | Obitel 2017
AR-SAT 3 is suspended and nine satellites belonging to private providers are authorized to operate in the country. The deployment of
digital television remains virtually paralyzed until September, when
the Advisory Council of SATVD is formed and a plan is presented
for the installation of transmission antennas.
1.6. ICT trends
Broadband for home use reaches 7.1 million connections, with
penetration in 16% of the population and an average speed of up to 6
Mbps.3 This places the country among the first ones in Latin America, behind Uruguay and Chile, but far from the figures of OECD
countries. In line with the global trend, fixed telephony is in decline,
with a fall of 0.54% compared to 2015. The mobile telephony market reached a degree of maturity and shows marginal growth rates,
growing 0.4% in the year. During 2016, the installation of bases for
4G services in different parts of the country grew by 113%. Digital
television covers approximately 85% of the territory and has an estimated penetration of 7% of households.4 According to estimates
by Digital TV Research and eMarketer, Netflix users in the country
exceed 764 thousand and it is estimated that more than 2 million
viewers consume this platform.
1.7. Public TV
In 2016, the institutional redesign of the administration of public media derived in the creation of the Federal System of Public
Media and Contents (decrees 12 and 237/15). This entity has ministerial rank and authority upon the audiovisual public media and
other public projects of cultural character. At the end of 2016, it
took control of the educational signals Encuentro, PakaPaka and
3
According to the 2016 management report of Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones (ENaCom).
4
Diverse studies made independently by SInCA, Universidad de Quilmes and AR-SAT
during 2013 and 2014 registered a penetration of 7% of households.
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 75
DeporTV – until then dependent on the Ministry of Education –, and
Bacua, Acua Mayor y Acua Federal.
In RTA S.E. – the body on which TV Pública and Radio Nacional depend –, the new management forced the departure of two of
its directors, Tristán Bauer and Alberto Cantero, who had been appointed by the previous Executive and had a legal mandate until the
end of 2017. At TV Pública, Martin Bonavetti left the programming
management after seven years and was replaced by Horacio Levin.
In terms of programming, there was an extensive restructuring of informative content and political debate that involved the end of some
programs and the replacement of presenters and columnists. In turn,
the channel lost the transmission of the main football matches of the
first division, after the government decided to sell the rights to the
private commercial channels of Buenos Aires.
1.8. Pay TV
The penetration of pay television in 2016 is located in 80.9% of
households, marking a fall of 2.5% compared to the previous year,
that is to say about 70 thousand homes less than in 2015. This is
the second consecutive year of declines in subscribers, a trend that
is also registered in developed markets with high audiovisual consumption of internet. Nevertheless, the average annual share of pay
television as a whole outnumbered open television, 53.9% against
46.8%.5
1.9. Independent production companies
Pol-ka, the production company belonging to El Trece (Grupo
Clarín), continued to produce the fiction of that channel during the
year. Underground and El Árbol were the other producers that managed to put fictions on open TV in association with Telefe. Those
productions that had support of the State’s promotion plans and that
could be visualized online through Banco Audiovisual (Bacua) or
5
Source: Latin American Multichannel Advertising Council (Lamac).
76 | Obitel 2017
Contenidos Digitales Abiertos (CDA) are no longer available. In
general, there is a crisis in the sector resulting from the fall of national fiction and the increase of repositions and foreign titles. For
this reason, the Multisector for Work, Fiction and Audiovisual Industry – an entity that brings together actors, authors, producers,
directors, trade unions, and other sectors of the industry – was mobilized to demand public policies in the face of the fall of fiction
that generates loss of work and affects the competitiveness and sustainability of local productions. The change of government was a
change of policy in the field of communication. As can be seen, not
only were certain privileges granted to the dominant media groups
(Clarín and La Nación), but the display of productions made under
the promotion of the state was eliminated.
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction exhibited in 2016 (national and foreign;
premiere and reruns; and co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES – 17
Telefe – 3 national titles
1. La Leona (telenovela)
2. Educando a Nina (comedy)
3. Loco x Vos (comedy)
7. Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse
(telenovela – Mexico)
8. Pasión y Poder (telenovela – Mexico)
9. Por Ella Soy Eva (telenovela – Mexico)
10. Simplemente María (telenovela – Mexico)
El Trece – 3 national titles
11. Sin Senos no Hay Paraíso (telenovela
4. Esperanza Mía (telenovela)
– Colombia)
5. Los Ricos no Piden Permiso (telenovela) 12. Tres Veces Ana (telenovela – Mexico)
6. Silencios de Familia (series)
13. La Patrona del Patrón (telenovela –
Colombia)
El Nueve – 1 national title
14. La Rosa de Guadalupe (telenovela –
7. Conflictos Modernos (miniseries)
Mexico)
15. La Vecina (comedy – Mexico)
América 2 – 1 national title
16. Las Amazonas (telenovela – Mexico)
8. Círculos (miniseries)
TV Pública – 2 titles
TV Pública – 8 national titles
17. Amar en Tiempos Revueltos (telenove9. El Marginal (miniseries)
la – Spain)
10. Las Palomas y las Bombas (unitario) 18. Celia (telenovela – Colombia)
11. Ultimátum (miniseries)
RERUNS – 21
12. Jostel (miniseries)
Telefe – 7
13. La Educación del Rey (miniseries)
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 77
1. Avenida Brasil (telenovela – Brazil)
2. Casados con Hijos (comedy – Argentina)
3. Chiquititas (telenovela – Argentina)
4. Dulce Amor (telenovela – Argentina)
CO-PRODUCTIONS – 1
5. Niños Robados (miniseries – Spain)
Telefe – 1 title
1. Por Amarte Así (telenovela – Mexico/ 6. Graduados (comedy – Argentina)
7. Historia de un Clan (series – Argentina)
Colombia)
14. La Última Hora (miniseries)
15. Según Roxi (series)
16. Si, Solo Si (miniseries)
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES – 25
Telefe – 7 titles*
2. El Juego del Pecado (telenovela – Brazil)
3. El Tiempo entre Costuras (series –
Spain)
4. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos (telenovela – Brazil)
5. Los Milagros de Jesús (series – Brazil)
6. Velvet (series – Spain)
7. Eterno Amor (telenovela – Brazil)
8. Imperio (telenovela – Brazil)
El Trece – 1
8. Mujeres Asesinas (series- Argentina)
América 2 – 1
9. Pan y Vino (miniseries – Argentina)
El Nueve – 1
10. El Patrón del Mal (series – Colombia)
TV Pública – 11
11. Cuentos de Identidad (unitario – Argentina)
12. Decisiones de Vida (unitario – Argentina)
13. El Mal Menor (unitario – Argentina)
14. El Paraíso (miniseries – Argentina)
15. Los Sónicos (miniseries – Argentina)
16. Perfidia (miniseries – Argentina)
17. Presentes (miniseries – Argentina)
18. Variaciones Walsh (miniseries – Argentina)
19. Fronteras (miniseries – Argentina)
20. Historia Clínica (unitario – Argentina)
21. La Celebración (unitario – Argentina)
El Trece – 0 titles**
El Nueve – 16 titles
1. A que no Me Dejas (telenovela – Mexico)
2. Amo Despertar Contigo (telenovela –
Mexico)
3. Corazón que Miente (telenovela – Mexico)
4. El Color de la Pasión (telenovela –
Mexico)
5. El Señor de los Cielos (telenovela –
USA/Mexico)
6. Lo Imperdonable (telenovela – Mexico) TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 42
TOTAL RERUNS: 21
TOTAL TITLES: 63
* Telefe has released three Turkish telenovelas: ¿Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül?, Secretos,
Nadie es Inocente (continuation, 2015) and Sila; and three Korean series: Escalera al
Cielo, Mi Amor de las Estrellas and Mirada de Ángel.
** El Trece broadcast two Turkish telenovelas: Las Mil y Una Noches (rerun) and Esposa
Joven (premiere); and Indian telenovela Saras & Kumud.
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
In 2016, 42 titles were released, one more than in 2015, and
the number of reruns increased – from four to 21 –, due to programming changes on TV Pública. Telefe and El Trece maintained their
78 | Obitel 2017
production levels. The two leading channels premiered nine fictions
outside the Obitel area: four Turkish, three Korean and one Hindu.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Titles
%
Chapters/
Episodes
%
Hours
%
16
38.5
669
27.0
547:55
26.3
25
59.5
1903
73.0
1504:15
72.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00
0.0
Argentina
16
40.5
669
25.7
547:55
26.3
Brazil
5
11.9
362
13.9
320:50
15.4
Country
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
NON OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
Chile
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Colombia
3
7.1
82
3.1
63:40
3.0
Ecuador
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
3
7.1
102
3.9
84:20
4.0
1
2.4
185
7.1
139:55
6.7
13
31.0
1172
45.0
895:25
42.9
Peru
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Portugal
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Uruguay
0
0.0
0
0.0
Venezuela
TOTAL
0
42
0.0
100.0
0
2607
0.0
100.0
National co-productions
1
2.0
35
1.3
36:05:00
1.7
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Ibero-American co-pro0
0.0
0
ductions
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
0:00:00
0.0
2088:15:00 100.0
The number of national premieres falls from 21 to 16 in relation to 2015 by the retraction of TV Pública, which releases seven
titles less than the previous year. However, the number of episodes
and hours emitted increases as long-lasting formats gain weight.
Within the scope Obitel, the number of titles released went from
20 to 25, focusing in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Spain. Only a
co-produced title is released with Mexico and Colombia, in which
Argentina participates through global producer Endemol.
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast by time slot*
Morning (06:00-13:00)
Nationals
Ibero-Americans
Total
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
8
1.1
03:15
0.6
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
8
0.3
0:00:00
0
Afternoon (13:00-21:00)
48
6.8
39:09
6.7
1477
77.6
1154:30
76.7
1525
58.5
1193:40
57.2
Prime time (21:00-24:00)
635
90.2
533:30
91.4
426
22.4
349:45
23.3
1061
40.7
883:15:20
42.4
Night (00:00-06:00)
13
1.8
08:05
1.4
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
13
0.5
8:05:00
0.4
Total
704
100.0
584:00
100.0
1903
100.0
1504:15
100.0
2607
100.0
2088:15
100.0
* The national calculation includes the co-production title.
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction*
National
Format
Ibero-American
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
5
29.4
518
73.6
460:35
78.9
22
88.0
1837
96.5
1446:55
1.0
Series
4
23.5
116
16.5
77:05
13.2
3
12.0
66
3.5
57:20
0.0
42:24
0:00:00
03:55
0:00:00
0:00:00
584:00
7.3
0.0
0.7
0.0
0.0
100.0
0
0
0
0
0
25
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
0
0
0
0
0
1903
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
1504:15
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.0
Miniseries
7
41.2
65
9.2
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
Unitario
1
5.9
5
0.7
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
0
0.0
0
0.0
Total
17
100.0
704
100.0
* The co-production title is included in the national calculation.
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 79
Time slot
80 | Obitel 2017
The historical privilege of national fiction for the prime time
schedule is maintained, only incorporating in it foreign fictions of
the non-Obitel field.
The national telenovela increases in number of titles, episodes
and hours emitted, while the miniseries contracts from 16 in 2015
to seven in 2016. In the premiere fiction from the Obitel scope, the
predominance of the telenovela format remains.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot*
Format
Morning
Afternoon
0.0
1
0.0
0
100.0
1
0.0
0
0.0
0
%
%
Prime
time
%
Night
Telenovela
0
50.0
4
30.8
0
Series
0
0.0
4
30.8
0
Miniseries
1
50.0
4
30.8
1
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
Unitario
0
0.0
1
7.7
0
Docu0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
drama
Others
(soap op0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
era, etc.)
Total
1
100.0
2
100.0
13 100.0
1
* The co-production title is included in the national calculation.
%
Total
%
0.0
0.0
100.0
0.0
0.0
5
4
7
0
1
29.4
23.5
41.2
0.0
5.9
0.0
0
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
100.0 17 100.0
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
As in previous years, 90% of the national premiere fiction is
concentrated in prime time, while the majority of the Obitel area is
scheduled during the afternoon.
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set*
Time period
Titles
%
Present
Period
Historical
Other
16
0
1
0
94.1
0.0
5.9
0.0
Total
17
100.0
* The co-production title is included in the national calculation.
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 81
In 2016, there is the predominance of fictions set in the present,
in long formats as well as in series, miniseries and unitarios.
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share*
Title
Country
of original idea
or script
Moisés y
los Diez
1 Mandamientos
Brazil
Edu2 cando a
Nina
Los
4 Milagros
de Jesús
Brazil
5
Loco x
Vos
Argentina
6
EsperanArgentina
za Mía
7 La Leona Argentina
Por
9 Amarte Así
10 Imperio
Rede Record
(Brazil)
Telefe
Vívian de
Oliveira
OI: Sebastián
Ortega
S: Ernesto KoTelefe
rovsky, Silvina
Frejdkes, Alejandro Quesada
OI: Adrián Suar
Pol-ka (ArEl Trece S: Marcos Cargentina)
nevale
Renato Modesto,
Academia
de Filmes/
Vivian de
Telefe
Rede Record
Oliveira and
others
(Brazil)
Daniel Cuparo,
Telefe/Sony
Telefe Lily Ann Martin
(Argentina)
(adaptation)
OI: Adrián Suar
Pol-ka (ArEl Trece
gentina)
S: Marta Betoldi
El Árbol/
S: Pablo Lago,
Telefe (ArTelefe
Susana Cardozo
gentina)
Underground/
Argentina
Telefe
(Argentina)
Los Ricos
3 no Piden Argentina
Permiso
Silen8 cios de
Familia
Production
Scriptwriter or
company Channel author of the Rating Share
(country)
original idea
Argentina
Pol-ka (Argentina)
Azteka
Films/CTV
Argentina
Contenidos/
Endemol
Brazil
Globo
17.3
27,5
15.9
23.1
13.2
20
12.2
19.7
11.3
17.3
10.7
17.1
10.5
19.2
El Trece
OI: Adrián Suar
S: Javier Daulte
9.2
14.7
Telefe
S: Claudio
Lacelli, Carolina
Parmo
7.5
17.8
Telefe
Aguinaldo Silva
7.2
15.9
Total productions: 10
Foreign scripts: 3
100%
30%
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
82 | Obitel 2017
Table 7A. The ten most watched national titles
Telenovela
Channel/production company
Telefe, Underground
Prime time
13.2
Telenovela
El Trece, Pol-ka
Prime time
11.3
10.7
10.5
9.2
Series
Telenovela
Telenovela
Series
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Por Amarte Así
7.5
Telenovela
El Marginal
2.89
Series
Círculos
2.34
Miniseries
Telefe, Sony
El Trece, Pol-ka
Telefe, El Árbol
El Trece, Pol-ka
Telefe, Azteka Films, CTV
Contenidos, Endemol
TV Pública, Underground
América 2, Zarlek Producciones
Title
Educando a Nina
Los Ricos no Piden
Permiso
Loco x Vos
Esperanza Mía
La Leona
Silencios de Familia
Rating
Format
15.9
Conflictos
2.19 Miniseries
El Nueve, ONTV
Modernos
Total titles: 10
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
Time slot
Afternoon
Prime time
Night
Prime time
In the last positions of national fictions appear those included
in signals that are not specialized in fiction and have got very low
audience.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, duration, time slot
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Format
Genre
Moisés y los Diez
Telenovela
Mandamientos
Epic
drama
Romantic
Educando a Nina Telenovela
comedy
Los Ricos no
Telenovela Drama
Piden Permiso
Los Milagros de
Epic
Series
Jesús
drama
Romantic
Loco x Vos
Series
comedy
Romantic
Esperanza Mía
Telenovela
comedy
La Leona
Telenovela Drama
Silencios de
Romantic
Series
Familia
comedy
Number of First and last
chap./ep. transmission Time slot
(in 2016)
(in 2016)
03/28-12/30
199
Prime time
(cont.)
134
04/11-12/01
Prime time
225
01/11-12/26
Prime time
21
08/04-12/30
(cont.)
Prime time
66
09/05-12/29
Prime time
8
01/04-01/15
Prime time
116
01/18-07/14
Prime time
19
06/12-10/19
Prime time
9 Por Amarte Así
Telenovela
Drama
35
10 Imperio
Telenovela
Drama
93
Source: KantarIbope Media and Obitel Argentina
11/14-12/30
(cont.)
03/02-07/08
Afternoon
Afternoon
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 83
As usual, Telefe and El Trece concentrate the audience, with
a clear advantage for the first one, which emitted seven of the ten
most watched fictions. Unlike the general trend of programming,
there was an increase in the average rating of the top ten fictions,
especially those in the first five places. Brazilian fictions are still
present in the table thanks to the success of biblical dramas.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
Moisés y los
1 Diez Mandamientos
2
Educando a
Nina
Dominating themes
Biblical tales, crime, love, crossings, ambition.
Biblical tale, orphanhood,
slavery, liberation.
Love, identity concealment, scam,
family relationships.
Social class differences,
cultural shock, popular
music.
Scam, impossible love, economic
Los Ricos no
disputes, identity concealment,
3
Piden Permiso struggle between families, supernatural beliefs.
Los Milagros Biblical tales, miracles, redemp4
de Jesús
tion, forgiveness, fraternity, love.
Life as a couple, love, inidelity,
5 Loco x Vos
professional development, friendship, secrets.
Esperanza
Orphanhood, forbidden romance,
6
Mía
religious vocation, identity conlict.
7 La Leona
Impossible love, hate, scam,
revenge, vices.
Couple in crisis, separation,
inidelity, independence, family
therapy, middle-age crisis.
Por Amarte
Ethical conlicts, guilt, scam, love,
9
Así
redemption.
Power relationships, family
10 Imperio
relationships, ambition, identity
revelation, self-made man.
Source: Obitel Argentina
8
Silencios de
Familia
Social themes
Social class conlicts.
Biblical tale, deiciencies,
poverty.
Professional growth.
Environmental pollution,
search for justice.
Workers’ rights, popular
resistance, teen pregnancy,
inequality.
Divorce, mid-life crisis.
Digniied death, disability.
Homosexuality, gender
identity, homophobia, child
adoption, media scandals.
The top ten fiction programs highlight the interest aroused by
biblical dramas and the emergence of religious themes. In others,
the usual social problems are highlighted along with others rarely
seen in local fiction: environmental problems and dignified death.
84 | Obitel 2017
In most cases they work as triggers that go into the background and
do not receive a deep treatment. Among the dominant themes are
deception, the concealment of identity and the conflicts of life as a
couple.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles:
gender, age, socioeconomic level
Title
Channel
Gender %
Socioeconomic level %
Women Men ABC1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos
Educando a Nina
Los Ricos no Piden
Permiso
Los Milagros de Jesús
Loco x Vos
Esperanza Mía
La Leona
Silencios de Familia
Por Amarte Así
Imperio
C2
C3
D
Telefe
59.7
40.3
14.2
18.7
30.6
36.5
Telefe
57.9
42.1
16.3
19.7
28.6
35.5
El Trece
62.2
37.8
16.1
26.1
33.3
24.6
Telefe
Telefe
El Trece
Telefe
El Trece
Telefe
Telefe
58.3
58.4
59.0
59.3
59.7
59.1
61.5
41.7
41.6
41.0
40.7
40.3
40.9
38.5
9.8
13.7
25.5
19.2
19.6
11.0
0.9
18.7
20.8
20.6
19.7
29.3
23.6
21.7
29.6
27.1
30.1
23.8
26.6
27.6
40.6
42.0
38.5
23.7
37.3
24.5
37.9
36.7
Title
Channel
4-12
Age group %
13-18 19-24 35-44
50+
1 Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos
Telefe
22.7
21.0
17.3
2 Educando a Nina
21.2
17.9
Telefe
20.5
23.8
24.1
18.0
13.7
El Trece
14.3
20.1
24.1
18.7
22.9
4 Los Milagros de Jesús
Telefe
19.5
24.2
22.7
17.3
16.3
5 Loco x Vos
Telefe
19.0
26.0
23.5
19.0
12.5
3 Los Ricos no Piden Permiso
6 Esperanza Mía
El Trece
20.6
20.1
23.6
18.3
17.4
Telefe
20.7
20.7
23.1
18.0
17.5
El Trece
13.2
22.9
25.7
18.1
20.1
9 Por Amarte Así
Telefe
22.7
28.9
19.4
14.4
14.6
10 Imperio
Telefe
26.4
25.2
24.2
12.4
11.9
7 La Leona
8 Silencios de Familia
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Argentina
The profile of the top ten audience is made up mostly of women
with relative age parity, since they were broadcast in prime time. In
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 85
biblical dramas, a greater audience is noted in the socioeconomic
segments C and D.
3. Transmedia reception
Despite the efforts made by open television to compete with
the transmedia strategies of the global networks, the Argentine production does not find the tone for that proposal. Historically, there
were experiences that, from the television screen, extended to other
media – the digital ones – or advertising spaces, as well as remissions that allowed to review fragments of material aired on television in other media. These links did not imply a fictional development that articulated diverse media. In this sense, following Jenkins
(2008), transmedia production is defined as a type of narrativity that
supposes multiple developments in different media, in which each
space makes a contribution to the story. Thus, narration needs this
forwarding to complete. This production implies an active participation of the audience, which reconstructs the narrative from the
multiple fragmentary spaces. The most developed case so far has
been Aliados.6
In 2016 Nafta Súper is premiered on a pay TV channel from
Buenos Aires, Canal Space (property of Turner). It is a miniseries
of eight episodes, 35 minutes each, that expands the universe developed by Leonardo Oyola’s novel (2011) and his filmic transposition, Kryptonita (Nicanor Loretti, 2015). Both texts tell the story of
a group of criminals from a very poor area led by Nafta Súper. The
band members and their leader have extraordinary abilities. This
way it speculates with the existence of superheroes in the Buenos
Airean conurbano. The novel and the film narrate the night when a
doctor on duty and a nurse receive a wounded Super Nafta (Superman). His band forces them to keep him alive until dawn. The band
6
Aliados (Cris Morena Group, 2013-2014) incorporated a series of webisodes (www.
aliados.telefe.com), applications for mobile devices (for both Android and iPad), Twitter
account, oficial Facebook page, magazine, CD, sticker album, development of a club,
among others.
86 | Obitel 2017
has to endure until the sun rises and the boss heals. During the night,
characters are remembered for their feats. Before dawn the police
surround the hospital. The tension increases. The “villains” work
in the police forces and are defeated by the super powers of the
band. The negotiator is none other than the Joker. Miniseries Nafta
Súper tells other criminal episodes of the band and their forms of
resistance to the police. They face arch enemies, who are associated
with the forces of order. Unlike the members of Nafta Súper’s band,
the set of villains created for the series have no correlation with
characters from comics. At the same time as the official space of the
channel releases the chapters for online viewing, eight webisodes
are offered. Presented in a newspaper format, these webisodes tell
the band’s wanderings and points to the state power for its inaction
in an exaggerated way. It could be said that Nafta Súper is the first
truly transmedia title produced in Argentina. However, something
curious happens in the various reception spaces. Its reading, especially on official Facebook, ranges from admiration and the usual
comments received by fictions and their protagonists to some observations anchored in a specific economic and social context: “Good
actors. It’s a pity that justifies some illegal activities by the fact of
being victims of society, and puts the whole police as bad. If it was
not for that, it would be a good series”, says one of the posts.
This type of comment questions from a non-generic logic to a
production whose plausible are those that come from graphic novels and superhero movies: characters with super powers that face
situations that only they can overcome. To this is added a generic
confrontation between good and evil together with their alleged inversion: the bad guys are not so bad, and, above all, the good guys
are very bad.
It is interesting to emphasize this point – a social interpretation
of a strongly generic product – especially when compared to the
ways in which the telenovela La Leona (Telefe) was received in
social networks. The production, which points out a subject related
to Kirchner’s government, was produced by independent producer
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 87
El Árbol and Telefe. The leading couple expressed their support
for Kirchner’s administration on several occasions. The premiere
scheduled for January 2016 generated a campaign in social networks
under the hashtag #decilenoalanovelalaleona, in which various users promoted the boycott of the telenovela because it considered the
protagonists responsible for the corruption reported in the previous
government. Beyond these accusations, fiction sought, with a naturalistic style, to show a situation of union struggle from the fraudulent bankruptcy of a company, and the place of the workers to make
the factory operate as a cooperative. Perhaps because of the social
nature of his plot, the reception of the telenovela was constantly
crossed by a response also alien to the adventures of fiction. In the
telenovela’s Facebook page, the following can be read: “I think it
reflects reality. Despite the fact that we are not having a good time
with this government, we must resist and endure, hoping that something will happen and things will be better. EVER ONWARD TO
VICTORY!!!”; “A very good novel that deals with issues of what
happens in real life”; or “Thank you Nancy and Pablo for this wonderful series that portrays like no other what neoliberalism does to
the working class… Applause to the cast! Applause to Argentine
talent!”
Clearly this fiction was trapped within the framework of what
the press calls “the crack”, between those who support Kirchner’s
governments and those who support the new government. While
this polarizing effect could be predictable for a telenovela such as
La Leona (a social theme with protagonists that are known for their
public political inclination in a context of strong polarization), it is
not for the case of Nafta Súper, whose transmedia path implies a
direction that is external to the national context, along with some
generic topics and treatments, and a bet on fiction. Nevertheless,
both fictions are read from the same point of view, perhaps inevitable, considering that the audiovisual production obtained a strong
impulse from Kirchner’s governments through diverse fomentation
plans. Although neither fiction was produced with state funding,
88 | Obitel 2017
both received an interpretation based on the political debate moment
that surrounded their exhibition.
4. Highlights of the year
The 2016 season marks a transition in Argentina’s open television strategies. It is characterized by: political changes; the reduction and reorientation of the National State’s official pattern; the
redefinition of TV Pública and the ownership transfer of the network with the highest audience level (Telefe). All this happens in
a context where the audience of fiction emigrates to VoD spaces.
An important innovation is the appearance of Argentine miniseries accessible to streaming through Netflix – multi award-winning El Marginal (Undergroud and Telefe) – or broadcasted exclusively by international cable channels, such as Pisconautas (Navajo
Films), on TBS, and Nafta Súper (TNT and Crudo Films), on Space.
In a country where pay TV is widespread, so far the production of
local fiction has been sporadic and scarce. During 2016 the new
screens begin to occupy a central place in some of the projects that
are generated in association with international networks. The three
mentioned cases stand out for their innovative aesthetics with significant levels of production. For its part, the national TV channels
implement different proposals to adapt to the new situation. El Trece
limits its scarce emission of fictions. It is reduced to a comedy, Esperanza Mía, which ended on January 14; a telenovela, Los Ricos
no Piden Permiso; and a dramatic series –Silencios de Familia – all
from Pol-ka, the captive production company of the network. It is
worth mentioning the abandonment of one of the successful components of that company, the costumbrist comedy, and the limited
time granted to fiction – although always in prime time – within the
programming. Also, the network maintains its commitment to Turkish fiction, with the emission of Esposa Joven, and the Hindu one,
with Saras & Kumud. The proposal of the entrepreneur group that
manages the channel is oriented toward reality TV and to an active
participation in political debate.
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 89
Telefe, with better average rating, supports a more diversified
programming. It bets on imported fiction, mostly Brazilian (from
Globo) and Spanish, in the afternoon schedule. Two Korean programs and four Turkish telenovelas complete the picture, having
little repercussion – with the exception of the end of ¿Qué Culpa
Tiene Fatmagül?, emitted in prime time. In 2016, Telefe places
Argentine programs in a central schedule: telenovela La Leona (El
Árbol) and comedy Educando a Nina (Telefe – Underground), that
accompany Brazilian biblical drama (and year’s success) Moisés y
los Diez Mandamientos (Record TV). By complementing the biblical stories with their stories of classic narrative and a good level
of spectacularity in programs of local theme, the network manages
to dominate the rating thanks to fictions. The mentioned boycott
against La Leona generated an opposite effect and created expectations about the show. For its part, comedy Educando a Nina is set
in the environment of “cuarteto” music, the one of greater consumption in the interior of the country and in the popular sectors.
The bet on foreign fiction has an irregular performance, and
the signals resort to the shortening of programs, cancellations, and
changes of schedule. Telefe pulled out of the air, after 19 chapters,
Brazilian drama Eterno Amor, which moved to the channel’s website. Telenovela El Juego del Pecado was edited, removing decisive
scenes to give greater weight to the character interpreted by Cauã
Raymond (Avenida Brasil), who has a secondary role in this show.
On the other hand, El Trece did not obtain good results and also
stopped airing Indian super production Saras & Kumud. Private networks with smaller audiences only give a very marginal place to local premiere fictions (one each channel) that were produced through
state funding. El Nueve continues to cover hours of programming
with exclusively Mexican telenovelas. América 2 resorts to fiction
as “stuffing” in one case. TV Pública, with the new government,
reorients its policy concerning the promotion and production of independent fiction. During the first half of the year, production was
paralyzed due to the review of investments made until then. When
90 | Obitel 2017
the activity was resumed, projects linked to more commercial prospects were prioritized. Simultaneously the fictional programming
stopped having a fixed place in prime time. The national miniseries were exhibited both in the afternoon and at night, with daily
or weekly continuity and without distinguishing between premieres
and repositions – which were more numerous. The publicity of the
fictions was almost null, with the exception of El Marginal. Hence,
a space of continuity for the public was not generated and the state
channel halved its already diminished levels of audience.
In summary, the productive panorama of the Argentine television fiction is not encouraging. One of the main supporters of the
number of programs released, the State, modified and reduced its
participation. In the most popular channels (Telefe and El Trece) national fiction only appears in prime time with a very limited number
of premieres. The novelty and new possibility that emerges within
this compromised situation is the emergence of a new actor that intervenes both in production and in exhibition: the international cable
networks.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Argentina. Analysis of ten years of Obitel
The decade covered by the analysis of Obitel on the premiere
fiction of Argentine open television coincides with a series of significant transformations that take place both in the production modalities and the forms of reception of the television fictions, as with
the variations in the tastes of the audiences and the stylistic offers
of the main producers. In this context, to describe the general trends
that guided this process of change, we will follow these four parameters: technological transformations, audience trends, production
and exhibition modalities, and variations of formats and styles of
programs.
The period from 2006 to 2016 is framed in what many authors
– for example, Verón (2007), Carlón and Scolari (2009) and Tous
Rovirosa (2009) – define as the third stage of television, in which
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 91
the classic television screens complement and compete with other
exhibition means, such as cable TV, internet, VoD and social networks. At the beginning of this stage, within the field of audiovisual
fiction, the open television channels – which are the only premiere
space for national programs – and pay television (cable and satellite), which covers most of the national territory – cable has 90% of
coverage, and satellite TV has 10% (ATVC, 2015) –, but does not
produce any fictional program, conform the most relevant instances.
Within this scenario, internet use covers 55% of the population –
broadband only reaches 4% – and cellular telephony covers 46%,
although smartphones appear only in 2007 (Zeitler, 2014). These
data allow seeing that, at the beginning of the stage, open television
is the center of the fictional production and main option for its circulation. Pay television is only a distribution channel, and both the
internet and cellular telephony are not technically able to offer itself
as an outlet for audiovisual fiction.
In ten years, technological innovations are produced, modifying the panorama and generating deep changes in the consumption
of fictions that originally were thought only for open TV. An important modification occurs with the appearance of Televisión Digital Abierta, Argentine version of Digital Terrestrial Television. In
2009, the government opted for the standard compatibility for DTT
used by Brazil, changing the previous choice, which was in private
hands – Grupo Clarín – and worked with the US standard. In October 2010 the National Digital Television Platform was declared
of public interest and there was the free delivery of decoders and
antennas to be used with analog TV sets. The beneficiaries are nonprofit associations, foundations, cooperatives, retirees, pensioners,
the disabled, and other cases of social vulnerability. At present it
covers 85% of the national territory, although its audience reaches
only 7% of the population (Sifema, 2014). In addition to being a
way of accessing TV for marginalized sectors, it serves as a support
base for a novel television production promoted by the State, which
generated, between 2011 and 2016, 267 programs of different types.
92 | Obitel 2017
Of this production, 64 fictions reached four of the five national open
television channels (Rivero, 2017).
At the same time, during this period there is a transformation of
television fiction’s outlets. Through constant and rapid growth, internet broadband and mobile telephony popularize social networks
and allow streaming, expanding the screens for accessing audiovisual fiction. Within the framework of this scheme, VoD carries
out a process of continuous enlargement since 2014, reason why
it appears like a route of exhibition for some national productions,
although the technical conditions of the network in Argentina are
not optimal.
Within this system, open television makes minor innovations,
although it undergoes a process of constant drop in ratings. At the
beginning of this period, the main social networks are just starting –
Twitter in 2006 – or they appear in Spanish – Facebook in 2007 –,
but there is a long tradition of internet forums – even previous ones
– where television fictions are discussed. The new networks quickly
become a sounding board for comments on television programming,
but the first launch of a fiction program in prime time would not take
place until 2011 (El Hombre de tu Vida, Telefe and 100 Bars). In
2013, a new program is produced and can be seen through a website
before the TV premiere (Aliados, Telefe and Cris Morena Group).
Just in 2014 the main channels open their own channel on YouTube.
That is to say that the Argentine air channels slow down and take advantage of their incorporation to the new devices, privileging spaces
of exhibition alternative to the television screen, without taking advantage of other potentialities.
In the context of these transformations that expand the supply of media consumptions, a continuous and constant process of
drop – with small exceptions – has to be highlighted in the general audience of television broadcasting since 2004. Thus, while
in 2006 the consumption measured 36.1 rating, in 2016 it reached
only 26.1, according to reports from television.com.ar. In the case
of narrative fiction, the decline has been registered with intensity in
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 93
the highest socioeconomic level and with greater strength among
the age groups under 25 years. During the studied decade, some of
the fictions were the most rated programs – Monte Cristo in 2006
(Telefe Contenidos), Graduados (Telefe, Underground and Endemol, 2012), Avenida Brasil (Globo, 2014) and Moisés y los Diez
Mandamientos (Record and Casablanca, 2016). However, the highest points of the audience are related to major sporting events – local
and world championship football matches –, or politics – bicentennial celebrations in 2010 and presidential debate in 2015 –, or reality
TV programs, such as Bailando por un Sueño/Showmatch (Ideas del
Sur 2005/2016), which heads the rating in the remaining years, except 2013. The new orientations of audience and the diversification
of the advertising pattern towards new media make reality television, along with its series of satellite programs, the axis of television
offer.
To adapt to this new situation, the networks with national
reach adopted diverse strategies. Despite the differences that will
be noted below, there is one element in common in all of them: the
reduction of the amount of emissions of each program. The vast
majority of fictions are exhibited in formats that work serially with
predominance of daily broadcast. Within this type of programming,
national fictions of prime time tend to drastically reduce the number
of episodes. Thus, for example, it goes from about 150 episodes at
the beginning of the decade to half in 2016. The long duration is
restricted to imported fictions, especially Brazilian, Mexican and
Turkish ones, which can be interrupted or compressed without problems in case of not achieving the proposed objectives. An alternative proposal was the one developed by some private independent
producers – for example, El hombre de tu Vida – and, in general, it
supported the system of state promotion for television production
between 2011 and 2016: the creation of stories that have a limited
duration, between eight and 13 episodes. This allows to raise the
level of productions, take fewer risks, diversify supply and target the
diversity of screens, especially VoD.
94 | Obitel 2017
Telefe and El Trece, the two networks that compete for the first
place in the audience during the decade7 and the only ones with
capacity to sustain a continuity of work, opt for two ways to face
the national fiction production. At the beginning of the period and
since the 1990s, national reach networks tend to outsource the production of fictions. However, in the face of changes in audience
preferences, the two business groups implement different policies.
El Trece prioritizes, since 1994, the relationship with Pol-ka, led by
Adrián Suar, who assumes as programming manager of the network
since 2001. In 2004 El Trece buys part of the shareholding and in
2008 it assumes control of Pol-ka. In this way, the one that was
an independent and innovative company that imposed a successful
style becomes a captive producer of the only network in which it
presents its programs. In spite of the growth of its infrastructure,
Pol-ka reduces the amount of programming hours that it covers and
adapts slowly to the transformations of the audience’s taste, especially the most innovative sectors. For its part, Telefe, in principle,
faces its most important projects through its production company
Telefe Contenidos, but, since the departure of Claudio Villarruel, as
programming manager in 2009, the network intensifies its co-production work with different local companies – Undeground, Chris
Morena Group, El Árbol, etc. –, each specialized in a different genre
and allied to international companies like Endemol. The fictions of
El Trece increasingly go deep into an aesthetic that appeals to local
customs (costumbrismo) and narrow generic molds; this shallows
the international appeal of its products. On the contrary, Telefe –
managed until the end of 2016 by international group Telefónica
– pays special attention to the sale of programs and formats, which
promotes projects that renew to some extent the conventions of television fiction.
The other two private television networks minimize premiere
national fiction or give them a marginal place, but they never pro7
El Trece won the competition in 2010 and 2011, although it broadcast the most successful program, Show Match. Telefe led the audience over the remaining eight years.
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 95
duce.8 América 2 airs increasingly fewer fiction programs, while El
Nueve, of group Albavisión, holds its programming bar based on
fictions from Televisa or TV Azteca.
As a consequence of the promulgation of the Law on Audiovisual Communication Services, in 2009, an area was created, where
the greatest innovations of format – miniseries and unitarios of no
more than 13 episodes–, themes and aesthetic proposals were registered. Following the postulates of the new legislation, the Operational Plan for the Fomentation and Promotion of Digital Audiovisual Content (2011-2016) prompted the presence of a variety of
voices on Argentine television. This implied that for the first time
fictions were made outside the metropolitan area, medium-sized
producers were consolidated and new ones appeared throughout the
country. Some of the proposals – Historia de un Clan (Underground
and Telefe, 2015) and El Marginal (Underground, 2016) – reached
wide critical repercussion and quickly acceded to international VoD
platforms. In spite of these achievements, the lack of promotion and
their location in marginal schedules and channels made the projects
of the state development plan have little audience and in some cases
could not even reach the television screens.
The lack of interest of private channels is compounded by the
fact that the national authorities, in December 2015, abrogated the
initiative to promote audiovisual production. First, the implementation of the development was frozen and then much reduced. At the
same time, the larger networks take advantage of new types of foreign fiction, such as Turkish telenovelas or productions of Brazilian
network Record, and cover the space of fiction with programs that
have impossible production costs for the Argentine market, but that
are cheap to buy.
Within a scenario in which irreversible changes are taking
place in the consumption of audiovisual media, the new situation
8
The only exception is La Lola (Underground, 2007-2008), which was released by
América 2 after not inding space in leading networks. The exception was the most
viewed product of the station.
96 | Obitel 2017
appears as problematic for the existence of the Argentine television
fiction. In our country, the production levels of countries such as
Mexico and Brazil were never reached, but there is an important
professional capacity that, thanks to its smaller scale, maintains a
significant innovation appeal.9 Thus, medium-scale producers that
bet on introducing new themes and generating styles with their own
identity were developed. At a time when the form of production
focused on open television is in crisis, the state development plan
opened a space for experimentation and the emergence of new values. At the end of this period, a number of factors threaten the comparative advantage of Argentine fiction producers: the release routes
are concentrated, leaving little room for innovation; the area of development that has been innovative over the last few years has been
diluted. All these changes allow us to glimpse a scenario in which
Argentine television fiction will surely be transformed, although
certainty about its new identity cannot be established.
References
ATVC (2015). El Cable, 50 años haciendo futuro. Buenos Aires: Asociación
Argentina de Televisión por Cable.
Carlón, M. and Scolari, C. (eds.). (2009). El fin de los medios masivos. El comienzo de un debate. Buenos Aires: La Crujía.
Catalano, A. (2014). No todo es Netflix: el otro mercado VOD. En: El Cronista, Buenos Aires. Retrieved on April 8, 2017 from https://www.cronista.com/
itbusiness/No-todo-es-Netflix-el-otro-mercado-VOD-20140429-0016.html.
Espada, A. and Marino, S. (2017). ¿Cómo usó la publicidad oficial Macri en
su primer año? Chequeado. Retrieved on April 4, 2017 from http://chequeado.
com/el-explicador/como-uso-la-publicidad-oficial-macri-en-su-primer-ano/.
Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence culture. La cultura de la convergencia de los
medios de comunicación. Barcelona: Paidós.
Rivero, E. (2017). La ficción de fomento estatal en la TV abierta de Buenos
Aires 2011-2016. Ponencia para las Primeras Jornadas Nacionales sobre Cine y
Política. Tucumán: CIESCyF – EUCTV.
9
During the analyzed decade, Argentina was the third and fourth country in the world
ranking based on sale of television formats.
Argentina: change of direction in national production. Concentration
and reinforcement of commercial logics | 97
Scolari, Carlos A. (2013). Narrativas transmedia. Cuando todos los medios
cuentan. Barcelona: Deusto – Planeta.
Sifema (2014). Informe de consumos culturales. Buenos Aires: Sistema Federal
de Medición de Audiencias.
Tous Rovirosa, A. (2009). Paleotelevisión, neotelevisión y metatelevisión en
las series dramáticas estadounidenses. Comunicar. Revista Científica de Educomunicación, 33. Sevilla: Grupo Comunicar.
Verón, E. (2007). La televisión, ese fenómeno masivo que conocimos, está
condenada a desaparecer. Entrevista de Scollari y Bertetti. MEDIAMERICA.
Semiotica e analisi dei media a America Latina. Torino (Italia): Cartman Edizioni.
Zeitler, M. (2014). Evolución del uso de internet y del celular en Argentina. Obsolescencia Programada en Celulares. Retrieved on April, 6 2017 from https://
obsolescenciaprogramadaencelulares.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/evoluciondel-uso-de-internet-y-del-celular-en-argentina/.
Zelcer, M. (2016). Narrativas transmediáticas en la ficción seriada televisiva
argentina: el caso de Aliados. LIS Letra. Imagen. Sonido. Ciudad mediatizada,
VIII, 15, Primer semestre. Buenos Aires.
2
brAzIl: towArds 360° ProductIon
And recePtIon
Authors:
Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes, Clarice Greco
Team:
Daniela Ortega, Fernanda Castilho, Ligia Prezia Lemos,
Lucas Martins Néia, Mariana Lima, Tissiana Pereira
1. Brazil’s audiovisual context in 2016
The year 2016 was marked by the deterioration of the economic
crisis started in 2015 and the spread of corruption scandals at all political levels, culminating in the institutional breakdown represented
by the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. In this year also,
Brazil hosted the Olympic Games for the first time ever. Both facts
had a significant impact on the audiovisual sector, in particular a
3.5% increase in viewing time in open TV. This can be put down
to two reasons: reduced leisure expenses, with people spending
more time at home, and increased viewing of information programs,
which surpassed fiction and entertainment. However, in terms of
audience there was widespread growth.
Running counter to the mood of uncertainty and political and
economic disputes, open TV showed positive and unexpected dynamism in fiction production. Genres and formats were continuously
explored, enhancing trends identified by Obitel in previous years.
Examples include the production, distribution and consumption of
transmedia fiction and on demand content, the offer of mobile devices and the constant release of a host of series and miniseries over
the year, not only on open TV, but also on pay TV and the internet.
Such dynamism evokes a communication strategy from the early
100 | Obitel 2017
2000s in which press services, web content management, editorial
production, marketing, advertising and public relations no longer
worked separately, but in an integrated manner that covered communications as a whole, called 360º at the time. With the convergence of different media, transmedia strategies in TV fiction and
the outpour of UGC (user-generated content), we retrieve the notion
of a comprehensive spread of content expanding in both production
and viewing.
1.1. Open TV in Brazil
Brazil has six national open television networks, five of them
private and one public. As in the two previous years, four networks
produced and broadcast original national fiction: Globo, Record
TV, SBT and TV Brasil.
Chart 1. National open television broadcasters in Brazil
Private broadcasters (5)
Public broadcasters (1)
Globo
Record TV
SBT
Band
RedeTV!
TV Brasil
TOTAL NUMBER OF BROADCASTERS = 6
Source: Obitel Brazil
Open television ratings in 2016
Graph 1 shows that, with 13.3 points, Globo confirmed its nationwide leadership and was the only network to singlehandedly
surpass all pay TV channels combined (OPC). In second comes
SBT (5.48 points), which increased by four tenths its lead over Record (5.05 points). Next come Band and RedeTV! and public broadcaster TV Brasil. Apart from the two latter, all the other open TV
stations increased their ratings.1
1
Globo: 12.4 to 13.33; SBT: 5.0 to 5.48; Record TV: 4.7 to 5.05; Band: 1.50 to 1.51;
Rede TV!: 0.50 to 0.46; TV Brasil: 0.20 to 0.16.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 101
We highlight the 14.5% growth – from 7.13 (2015) to 8.16
(2016) – in pay TV (OPC) ratings, whose progress has been recorded by Obitel since 2013. However, as OPC has only one index comprising all pay TV ratings combined, comparison with open ratings
is impossible. As to the household share of television sets connected
exclusively to television channels (TCE), called “pure ratings”, no
changes were identified.
Graph 1. TV ratings and share per broadcaster in 2016
(all days, from 6 a.m. until 5:59 p.m.)
Household Share
rating
(TCE)
Globo
13.34
37.93
OPC2
8.17
23.23
SBT
5.48
15.60
Record TV
5.05
14.37
OFC3
1.62
4.67
Band
1.52
4.31
Rede TV!
0.47
1.33
TV Brasil
0.17
0.48
Other4
1.11
3.15
TCE
35.16
Peripherals5
2.21
Other tunes6
0.26
VoD operator7
0.06
Recorded content8
0.04
Non-linear9
0.06
TC
37.41
Source: Kantar Ibope Media – Media Workstation – 15 Markets
Broadcaster
40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Globo
OPC
SBT
Record TV
OFC
Household rating
2
BAND
Rede TV! TV Brasil
Other
Share (TLE)
OPC (other pay TV channels): pay TV broadcasters with no individual ratings released.
³ OFC (other free-to-air TV channels): open TV broadcasters with no individual ratings
released.
4
Other channels: Record News, TV Senado, TV Câmara, TV Justiça and not identiied/
registered channels.
5
Peripherals: videogame, DVD, Blu-ray, Apple TV, etc.
6
Others tunes: internal circuit of buildings, radios, internet browsing.
7
VoD operator: on demand content accessed through the “menu” provided by the TV
operators (Now, Sky on Demand, etc.)
8
Recorded content (available as of 01/04/2016): represents the playback of recorded
content that is not compatible with any broadcast from the last seven days.
9
Non-linear (available as of 01/04/2016): recorded content displayed in the last seven
days, VoD, internet-connected peripherals (such as videogames, for example), and applications accessed by smart TV.
102 | Obitel 2017
Regarding ratings by type of media, open TV preserved its
lead, with 92.9%. Extensive media, which includes media such as
billboards, achieved a slight increase over 2015, totaling 83.1% and
ranking second. In third place, the internet reached 72.8%, followed
by radio, with 67.9%. Pay TV closed the year with 47% – a 6%
drop compared to the previous year (50%). Next come newspapers
(31.7%), magazines (24.7%) and movies (15.5%), the same order of
the previous year.
Graph 2. Genres and hours broadcast in TV programming
Genres
Minutes
Hours
broadcast broadcast broadcast
Informa825,263
tion
Entertain623,483
ment
Fiction
442,340
Sports
173,193
Educa6,106
tional
Politics
3,686
Religious
286,684
Other
791,935
Total
%
13757:23
26.2
10391:23
19.8
7372:20
2886:33
14.0
5.5
101:46
0.2
61:26
4778:04
13198:55
52545:09
0.1
9.1
25.1
100.0
Others
Information
25.1%
26.2%
Religious
9.1%
Entertainment
Sports Fiction
5.5%
19.8%
19.8%
Politics
0.1% Educational
0.2%
Division by television genre is very similar to 2015. Information programs are prominent, followed by entertainment. Fiction
comes third, with 13.4%. The three genres total 60% of TV broadcast hours and make up the base of Brazilian television programming.
1.2. Audience trends over the year
In 2016, the deteriorating economic and political crisis, the corruption scandals, the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and
the Olympic Games in the country combined to boost news ratings
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 103
above those of telenovelas.102However, this fact did not stop telenovelas from closing the year with ratings superior to TV news.
A consistently increasing trend is the creation of applications of
new platforms that provide viewing mobility and flexibility, such as
Globo Play (Globo), TV SBT (SBT), Now (Net), Vivo Play (Vivo)
and Record TV on YouTube (Record TV), besides applications of
specific channels and programs. Such platforms allow Brazilian
viewers to increasingly binge-watch 113TV fiction.
Despite the economic crisis, consumption of TV fiction remains high thanks to the link between television and internet. An
example is the great number of Twitter mentions measured by Kantar Ibope, which recorded up to 40,000 tweets per minute during
television fiction showing hours, reinforcing the multiscreen trend
among Brazilian viewers.
1.3. Advertising investment: in TV and in fiction
The impact of the escalating economic and political crisis in
Brazil was immediately felt in the advertising market. Compared to
2014, a 1.5% drop was recorded in advertising investment, which
totaled approximately R$ 130 billion (around US% 39 billion). The
slight increase due to the Olympics was not sustained. Open TV
continued leading in investment share, with 55.51%, followed by
pay TV (12.6%), which outdid newspapers (11.7%). The segments
that most advertised on open TV were, in order: trade and retail;
personal hygiene and beauty; financial market and insurances; pharmacy; and consumer services.12 4
10
Cf. https://observatoriodatelevisao.bol.uol.com.br/noticia-da-tv/2016/12/preferenciado-publico-por-jornalismo-ultrapassa-novelas-na-tv-revela-pesquisa. Accessed in: March
2017.
11
Marathon watching of the chapters/episodes of a TV iction, in one sitting.
12
Cf. Kantar Ibope Media, Monitor Evolution, version 3.5.1, Database, ME1612TOTALPTVSH.
104 | Obitel 2017
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
The multiplatform trend continues in telenovela merchandising, especially transmedia initiatives involving interaction with
spectators. In 2016, the most significant merchandising event occurred in Globo’s prime time telenovela A Lei do Amor: two female
senior citizens, well-known for appearing in bank advertisement
campaigns, took part in the plot as friends of a character. At the
same time, product placement events, in which a product is placed
in the set or used in a scene by characters, were largely employed in
the 7 p.m. slot telenovelas Totalmente Demais (Globo), with beauty
and fashion brands, and Haja Coração (Globo).
Socio-educational initiatives of great impact occurred over
the year. For Velho Chico (Globo), the network closed a partnership with environmental organization Conservação Internacional
(CI-Brasil) to provide technical advice regarding the content of the
innovative screenplay, which used environmental marketing to promote sustainability and support family farmers and organic produce.
Historical telenovela Liberdade, Liberdade (Globo), in turn, aired
the first scene of homosexual intercourse in the history of Brazilian television, with great aesthetic gracefulness. Another telenovela,
Totalmente Demais (Globo), jointly addressed the issues of adoption
and prejudice against HIV carriers. In SBT, children’s telenovela
Cúmplices de Um Resgate addressed religious tolerance.
1.5. Communication policies
The most important fact was the regulation of the Brazilian
Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, in May 2016, after almost
two years of debates in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. The law
serves as a kind of constitution on internet use in Brazil, establishing
guarantees, principles, rights and duties for businesses and internet
users. Its main pillar is the so-called “net neutrality”, which forbids
internet providers from offering differently priced connection based
on content accessed by users, whether e-mail, social media, video,
etc. They are still allowed to sell different broadband access speeds.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 105
1.6. Trends in ICTs
Over the past three years, internet access has grown from
54.4% to 57.5%, reaching around 102.1 million people aged ten or
over – a 7% increase (roughly 48% of the Brazilian population). The
computer access was exceeded by access via mobile devices, which
have now become the main source of internet access, confirming a
trend previously identified by Obitel.
With Brazilians increasingly adhering to video on demand
(VoD), Brazil is now ranked sixth in online video markets worldwide, being the most competitive market in Latin America.135
Exploiting its production and creation resources146to gain a
foothold in the multiplatform interactivity, Globo attempted a few
experiments in this area in 2016. It released on Globo Play the first
four chapters of miniseries Justiça and the first 11 chapters (out of a
total 12) of series Supermax before showing them on its open channel; and regarding series Nada Será Como Antes, the strategy was to
release each weekly episode on the online platform first, days ahead
of airing it on television.
1.7. Public TV
Despite the persisting low average ratings since its inception
in 2007, Brasil TV, the only nationwide public network in Brazil,
broadcast the final chapter of the first season of its comedy series
República do Peru, which addressed the daily life of senior citizens
living together in Rio de Janeiro.
Amidst the complicated political setting in Brazil, the new federal government planned to restructure Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC)157through a bill that proposed to shut down TV Brasil
13
According to a study by the British consultancy IHS: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/
ilustrada/2017/02/1858978-brasil-e-o-sexto-mercado-de-tv-pela-internet.shtml. Accessed
in: March 2017.
14
Cf. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrada/2017/04/1874746-a-netlix-encomendaaqui-na-globo-temos-estudio-diz-diretor-da-emissora.shtml. Accessed in: April 2017.
15
EBC is the body responsible for the public social communication system comprising TV
Brasil, Rádio, TV NBR, TV Brasil Internacional, Internet, media monitoring and agency.
106 | Obitel 2017
to cut costs. The broadcaster was still in operation by the end of the
year, but facing an uncertain future.
1.8. Pay TV
Pay TV was also hit by the economic crisis, ending 2016 with
18.802 million subscribers, a 2% drop over 2015.168In the competition against over-the-top (OTT) content distributed online, pay TV
operators expanded the offer of national production, with revenues
shared between VoD and streaming services. Broadcasting the
Olympic Games was the major event of the year in boosting the ratings of both national and international sports channels.
Fiction on pay TV
The number of pay channels showing Brazilian fiction increased in 2016 from 11 to 12, four national and seven international
ones. The number of original Brazilian productions fell to 24, three
fewer than the previous year. However, the incentive to national
production generated by Law n. 12,485 (Pay TV Law), which has
been in force for five years, produced a positive fact: drama series
on drug trafficking 1 Contra Todos (Fox) ranked third in pay TV
fiction ratings17,9behind only the two seasons of The Walking Dead
(Fox).
1.9. Independent producers
Co-productions between open and pay TV channels for simultaneous broadcasting of independent content have proved to be an
increasing trend in Brazilian television fiction. Examples include
drama series A Garota da Moto (Mixer, SBT and Fox Life) and comedy series Terminadores (Hungry Man, Band and TNT). Equally
relevant was the participation of independent producer Casablanca
16
Cf.http://www.meioemensagem.com.br/home/ultimas-noticias/2017/01/24/tv-pagaperdeu-311-mil-assinantes-em-2016.html. Accessed in: March 2017.
17
Cf. http://noticiasdatv.uol.com.br/noticia/series/por-que-game-thrones-esta-fora-dalista-das-25-series-mais-vistas-da-tv--13599. Accessed in: March 2017.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 107
in Record TV telenovelas – in 2016, A Terra Prometida and Escrava
Mãe, besides the second season of telenovela Os Dez Mandamentos.
Also contributing to the growth of independent producers is the
advance of multiplatform showings. A significant increase of independent audiovisual productions in these platforms was predicted
for 201618,10with reported studies to create VoD national content
quotas to regulate the subject, possibly along the same lines of pay
TV. 1911
1.10. International trends
Brazil stood out in the year as a producer of universal storylines2012thanks to the sale of biblical telenovela Os Dez Mandamentos
to 23 countries – among them Argentina (Telefe) and Chile (TVN),
where it enjoyed great success. Additionally, the first national production commissioned by Netflix, science fiction drama 3% (Boutique Filmes), was considered the first Portuguese-speaking series
to achieve success outside Portugal and Latin America.
A highlight in experiments with new genres was Supermax
(Globo) project, which, besides the horror series under the same
title broadcast in Brazil, spawned an international co-production
led by Globo and Argentinian producer Oficina Burman, in partnership with broadcasters TVP (Argentina), Mediaset (Spain), TV
Azteca (Mexico) and Teledoce (Uruguay). The production, directed
by Daniel Burman, was considered “revolutionary” for promoting a
“cocktail” of TV genres, in particular a blend of fiction and reality
show.2113
In short, in 2016 there was a significant increase in trends observed in previous years. Audience habits, such as the boom of VoD
18
Associação Brasil Audiovisual Independente (Bravi).
Cf. http://icabrasil.org/2016/index.php/mediateca-reader/producao-independentedeve-crescer-preve-dirigente-da-bravi.html. Accessed in: March 2017.
20
As mentioned in the Obitel Yearbook 2016, this is one of the global trends in the TV
market pointed out by WIT (World Information Tracking).
21
Cf. http://variety.com/2017/ilm/festivals/daniel-burman-supermax-tv-revolution-characters-kings-1202392087/. Accessed in: April 2017.
19
108 | Obitel 2017
platforms and the use of multiscreens, highlighted the importance
of fiction content. In a scenario of fragmented audiences and huge
offer, the most important changes observed were especially related
to innovative fiction content and narrative forms, which engage audiences and create loyalty.
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction broadcast in 2016
(national and foreign; premieres and reruns; co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES – 31 PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES – 9
Globo – 22 national titles
1. A Cara do Pai (series)
2. A Lei do Amor (telenovela)
3. A Regra do Jogo (telenovela)
4. Além do Tempo (telenovela)
5. Alemão, os Dois Lados do Complexo
(docudrama)
6. Chapa Quente 2nd season (series)
7. Êta Mundo Bom! (telenovela)
8. Haja Coração (telenovela)
9. Justiça (miniseries)
10. Liberdade, Liberdade (telenovela)
11. Ligações Perigosas (miniseries)
12. Malhação 23rd season (soap opera)
13. Malhação 24th season (soap opera)
14. Mister Brau 2nd season (series)
15. Nada Será Como Antes (series)
16. Pé na Cova 5th season (series)
17. Rock Story (telenovela)
18. Segredos de Justiça (sketch of Fantástico)
19. Sol Nascente (telenovela)
20. Supermax (series)
21. Totalmente Demais (telenovela)
22. Velho Chico (telenovela)
Record TV – 4 national titles
23. A Terra Prometida (telenovela)
24. Conselho Tutelar 2nd season (series)
25. Escrava Mãe (telenovela)
26. Os Dez Mandamentos 2nd season
(telenovela)
SBT – 8 foreign titles
1. A Dona (telenovela – Mexico)
2. A Gata (telenovela – Mexico)
3. Abismo de Paixão (telenovela – Mexico)
4. Lágrimas de Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
5. Mar de Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
6. Meu Coração é Teu (telenovela – Mexico)
7. Querida Inimiga (telenovela – Mexico)
8. Teresa (telenovela – Mexico)
TV Brasil – 1 foreign title
9. O Tempo Entre Costuras (series – Spain)
RERUN TITLES – 19
Record TV – 7 reruns
1. Amor e Intrigas (telenovela)
2. Chamas da Vida (telenovela)
3. José do Egito (miniseries)
4. Prova de Amor (telenovela)
5. Rei Davi (miniseries)
6. Sansão e Dalila (miniseries)
7. Vidas em Jogo (telenovela)
Globo – 5 reruns
8. Anjo Mau (telenovela)
9. Caminho das Índias (telenovela)
10. Cheias de Charme (telenovela)
11. Por Toda a Minha Vida – Leandro
(docudrama)
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 109
SBT – 3 national titles
12. Por Toda a Minha Vida – Renato Russo
27. A Garota da Moto (series)
(docudrama)
28. Carinha de Anjo (telenovela)
29. Cúmplices de um Resgate (telenovela) SBT – 5 reruns
13. A Mentira (telenovela – Mexico)
Band – 1 national title
14. A Usurpadora (telenovela – Mexico)
30. Terminadores (series)
15. Carrossel (telenovela)
16. Chiquititas (telenovela)
TV Brasil – 1 national title
17. Cuidado com o Anjo (telenovela –
31. República do Peru (series)
Mexico)
TV Brasil – 2 reruns
18. Descalço sobre a Terra Vermelha
(miniseries – Brazil/Spain)
19. Entre o Céu e a Terra (docudrama)
CO-PRODUCTION TITLES – 0
NATIONAL TITLES (original): 31
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES (national, foreign and co-productions): 40
TOTAL BROADCAST TITLES (premiere and rerun): 59
Source: Obitel Brazil
Compared to 2015, there is a fall in the number of premiere
titles and broadcast titles – 27% and 18%, respectively. However, it
should be noted that both categories achieved record figures in that
year due to the unusual broadcast of telefilms as part of the celebration of Globo’s 50th anniversary. The drop is less sharp compared to
2014 data, while both categories grew compared to 2013.
Compared to the previous three-year period (2013-2015), national production fell in 2016. Conversely, the number of foreign
titles increased, reaching record figures over the Obitel monitoring
series.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
Titles
%
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
31
9
0
31
0
0
77.5
22.5
0.0
77.5
0.0
0.0
Chapters/
episodes
2046
720
0
2046
0
0
%
Hours
%
74.0
26.0
0.0
74.0
0.0
0.0
1434:50
606:25
0:00
1434:50
0:00
0:00
70.3
29.7
0.0
70.3
0.0
0.0
110 | Obitel 2017
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
Brazilian co-productions
Co-productions between Obitel
countries
OVERALL TOTAL
Source: Obitel Brazil
0
1
0
8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.0
2.5
0.0
20.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
15
0
705
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.5
0.0
25.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0:00
7:00
0:00
599:25
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0.0
0.3
0.0
29.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
40
100.0
2766
100.0 2041:15 100.0
If the number of titles fell, the quantity of national chapters/
episodes and hours increased significantly compared to 2015 – 6%
and 5%, respectively –, reaching the highest levels since 2012. This
trend (drop in titles vs. increase in chapters/episodes and hours) reflects the predominance of long running narratives, i.e., telenovelas.
Regarding Ibero-American fiction, remarkable growth is observed in the number of chapters/episodes (92%) and hours (128%).
Highlights among foreign titles include series O Tempo Entre Costuras (Antena3, 2014), a rare appearance of a Spanish production in
Brazilian open TV, aired by TV Brasil.
As usual, no fiction was broadcast in the morning. Between
2011 and 2015, original fiction at prime time was exclusively national, while in 2016 an Ibero-American title was broadcast – abovementioned O Tempo Entre Costuras, on TV Brasil. However, national fiction reached record figures in number of chapters/episodes
and hours aired at prime time – compared to 2015, both categories
grew by approximately 12%.
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast per time slot
Time slot
%
0.0
22.0
69.9
8.1
100.0
C/E
0
705
15
0
720
Ibero-American
%
H
0.0
0:00
97.9
599:25
2.1
7:00
0.0
0:00
100.0 606:25
Total
%
0.0
98.8
1.2
0.0
100.0
C/E
0
1265
1300
201
2766
%
0.0
45.7
47.0
7.3
100.0
H
0:00
914:50
1009:35
116:50
2041:15
%
0.0
44.8
49.5
5.7
100.0
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
Format
Telenovelas
Series
Miniseries
Teleilm
Unitario
Docudrama
Others (soap opera, etc.)
Total
Source: Obitel Brazil
Titles
15
10
%
48.4
32.3
National
C/E
%
1633
79.8
127
6.2
H
1225:15
74:40
%
85.4
5.2
Titles
8
1
%
88.9
11.1
Ibero-American
C/E
%
705
97.9
15
2.1
H
599:25
7:00
%
100.0
0.0
2
6.5
30
1.5
19:20
1.3
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0
1
3
31
0.0
0.0
3.2
9.7
100.0
0
0
4
252
2046
0.0
0.0
0.2
12.3
100.0
0:00
0:00
2:10
113:25
1434:50
0.0
0.0
0.2
7.9
100.0
0
0
0
0
9
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
0
0
0
0
720
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
606:25
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 111
Morning (6 a.m-12 p.m.)
Afternoon (12 p.m.-7 p.m.)
Prime time (7 p.m.-10 p.m.)
Night (10 p.m.-6 a.m.)
Total
Source: Obitel Brazil
National
%
H
0.0
0:00
27.4
315:25
62.8
1002:35
9.8
116:50
100.0
1434:50
C/E
0
560
1285
201
2046
112 | Obitel 2017
Telenovelas accounted for practically half of national titles, a
level not recorded since 2012. Compared to 2015 data, however,
here is little change in number of chapters and hours in this long
running format – increase of 8% and 10%, respectively. Although
only one extra national series was produced compared to the previous year, this category had once more a significant share of number
of titles, equaling 2014 levels.
The absence of telefilms is especially notable, since 21 titles
were produced in the previous year, largely due to Globo’s project
Luz, Câmera, 50 Anos. Miniseries remained stable in quantity of
titles and recorded an increase in number of chapters (36%) and
hours (27%).
Table 5. Formats of national iction per time slot
Morning
Telenovelas
0
Series
0
Miniseries
0
Teleilm
0
Unitario
0
Docudrama
0
Others
(soap opera,
0
etc.)
Total
0
Source: Obitel Brazil
Format
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Afternoon
3
1
0
0
0
0
50.0
16.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
2
33.3
1
7.7
0
0.0
6
100.0
13
100.0
12
%
%
Prime
To% Night %
%
time
tal
11
84.6
1
8.3 15 48.4
1
7.7
8
66.7 10 32.3
0
0.0
2
16.7 2
6.5
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
8.3
1
3.2
0.0
3
9.7
100.0 31 100.0
Since the beginning of Obitel monitoring, in 2006, the highest
number of titles had always been concentrated at night time slot.
That pattern was interrupted in 2016, with a clear balance between
fiction aired at prime time and night slots, with a slight advantage
of the former.
All three major Brazilian networks (Globo, Record TV e SBT)
allocated two prime time slots to original national fiction. While
Globo and Record TV filled those slots with nine telenovelas, SBT
reserved one of them for two children’s telenovelas and the other for
series A Garota da Moto. Such strategy, by creating a strain in conti-
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 113
nuity/discontinuity – i.e., the dramatic arch of episode and chapter –,
proves to be a kind of extension of the “short stories” phenomenon
(Lopes and Mungioli, 2015) noticed in Brazilian television fiction
in the last two years, with short running storylines emerging as the
networks’ main bet for experimenting with new models of production and exhibition.
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Period
Present
Period
Historical
Other
Total
Source: Obitel Brazil
Titles
23
4
3
1
31
%
74.2
12.9
9.7
3.2
100.0
In 2016, fiction set in the present predominated once again, as
in the entire Obitel monitoring period. Regarding the percentage
share of total national fiction, period pieces, comprising telenovela
Êta Mundo Bom!, miniseries Ligações Perigosas, series Nada Será
Como Antes (all by Globo) and telenovela Escrava Mãe (Record
TV), increased 230% compared to 2015. On the other hand, historical fiction, composed of telenovelas Liberdade, Liberdade (Globo),
A Terra Prometida and Os Dez Mandamentos (both by Record TV),
fell 38%, and the category other, with Além do Tempo (Globo), also
recorded a drop, of 59%.
Table 7. The ten most viewed titles: origin, rating, share
Title
Country of
original
idea or
script
Producer
Channel
1
A Regra do
Jogo
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
Globo
2
Totalmente
Demais
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
Globo
Scriptwriter
or author of
original idea
João Emanuel
Carneiro
Rosane Svartman e Paulo
Halm
Rating
Share
(TCE)
34.6
52.54
31.1
49.58
114 | Obitel 2017
3 Velho Chico
Êta Mundo
Bom!
Haja Cora5
ção
6 Justiça
4
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
Globo
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
Globo
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
Globo
Globo
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
A Lei do
7
Amor
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
8 Rock Story
Brazil
Globo (Brazil)
Benedito Ruy
Barbosa
Walcyr
Carrasco
Daniel Ortiz
Manuela Dias
Maria Adelaide
Globo
Amaral and
Vincent Villari
Maria Helena
Globo
Nascimento
29.4
43.84
28.9
47.35
28.7
43.65
26.2
44.75
26.0
39.63
24.0
40.05
Ligações
9
Brazil Globo (Brazil) Globo Manuela Dias
23.7
Perigosas
Além do
10
Brazil Globo (Brazil) Globo Elizabeth Jhin
22.2
Tempo
Total productions: 10
Foreign scripts: 0
100%
0%
Source: Kantar Ibope Media – 15 Mercados – Obitel Brazil
39.19
41.67
Since the beginning of the Obitel monitoring series, the top ten
titles have always been national productions by Globo, a pattern
repeated in 2016. The first fiction by another broadcaster to appear
in the most viewed list – Os Dez Mandamentos (2nd season), Record
TV – ranks 34th overall.2214
In the past, 7 p.m. telenovelas have beaten 9 p.m. titles in the
ratings: in 2010, Caras & Bocas surpassed Passione and ranked second; in 2012, Cheias de Charme ranked third, ahead of Salve Jorge.
This is the first time, however, that two 7 p.m. titles (Totalmente
Demais and Haja Coração) and one 6 p.m. title (Êta Mundo Bom!)
achieve this feat, and that one 9 p.m. telenovela (A Lei do Amor)
ranks only seventh.
For the second year in a row, there were no productions from
Globo from the night time slot among the top ten. Since last year,
the network has bet on season-based short running fiction2315in this
22
Data provided by Kantar Ibope Media – 15 Mercados, 2016.
In 2016, Globo aired in this format the series Mister Brau and Nada Será Como Antes
on Tuesdays and Chapa Quente on Thursdays, besides the miniseries Justiça from August to September, an unusual period until then – at least in the last few years – for this
format in the network.
23
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 115
time slot, previously devoted to hugely popular comedy series aired
all year round.
Table 7A. The ten most viewed national titles: origin, rating, share
As mentioned above (see Table 7), the top ten viewed titles
were all national, by Globo.
Table 8. The ten most viewed titles: format, length, time slot
Title
A Regra do
Jogo
Totalmente
2
Demais
1
3 Velho Chico
Êta Mundo
4
Bom!
Format
Genre
Telenovela Crime drama
Number
First and
of chap./ last broadep.
cast
(in 2016) (in 2016)
Time slot
61
01/01-03/12 Prime time
Telenovela
Romantic
comedy
129
01/01-05/30 Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
172
03/14-10/01 Prime time
Comedy
190
01/18-08/27 Afternoon
138
05/31-11/08 Prime time
Telenovela
6 Justiça
Miniseries
Romantic
comedy
Drama
20
08/22-23/09
7 A Lei do Amor
Telenovela
Drama
78
10/03-12/31 Prime time
Romance
46
11/09-12/31 Prime time
Drama
10
01/04-01/15
Romance
13
01/01-01/16 Afternoon
5 Haja Coração
Telenovela
Telenovela
8 Rock Story
Ligações Peri9
Miniseries
gosas
10 Além do Tempo Telenovela
Night
Night
Source: Obitel Brazil
If in 2015 the drama genre accounted for 20% of the most
viewed titles – 40% considering the hybrid genres crime drama and
biographical drama –, in 2016 it dominates the top ten viewed fiction shows, accounting for 40% in “pure” form or 50% if added to
crime drama. Romantic comedies, in turn, lose a title compared to
2015, while romance is seen in two fiction programs – one more
than the previous year.
Regarding format, short running fiction loses space: if in 2014
it reached 40% of the top ten, falling to 30% in 2015, in 2016 its
participation is reduced to 20%.
116 | Obitel 2017
As for time slot, telenovelas broadcast at 7 p.m. – Totalmente
Demais, Haja Coração and Rock Story – and at 6 p.m. – Êta Mundo Bom! and Além do Tempo – increased in ratings, which may be
linked to the themes their plots addressed.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most viewed titles
Title
1
A Regra do
Jogo
2
Totalmente
Demais
Main themes
Organized crime, dualities
(social, geographic, cultural,
psychological), daily life in the
favela, pathological relations.
Love quadrangles, fashion world,
beauty pageants, clash of interests, online scandals.
Social themes
Organized crime, psychological
pathologies, violence against
women, sociocultural mobility.
Fashion, social climbing, adoption of seropositive children,
sexual harassment in the family,
homophobia.
São Francisco River, contemporary rural patronage, sustainability, corruption, class prejudice.
Positivity of popular culture,
radio culture, respect towards
minorities.
Family rivalries, regional beliefs,
rural culture, political conlicts,
family secrets.
Search for family origin, rural
Êta Mundo
life, ambition, fable about opti4
Bom!
mism.
Love quadrangles, disputes of inHaja
terest, search for fame, marriage
Alcoholism, adoption, class
5
Coração
of convenience, psychological
prejudice, suburban culture.
disturbances.
Ethical and moral dilemmas, reCrime of passion, drug traf6 Justiça
venge, impunity, conlicting work icking, racial prejudice, rape,
relationships, crossed dramas.
euthanasia.
Love relationships, love across
Corruption, verbal and social
A Lei do
different social classes, ambition, violence, prostitution, drug traf7
Amor
revenge, family relationships.
icking and use.
Music scene, love triangles,
Music industry, celebrity culture,
8 Rock Story
fraudulent misrepresentation,
drug traficking, intellectual
relationship with fans.
property.
Passionate relationships, maLigações
Ambivalence of female roles,
nipulation, seduction, revenge,
9
Perigosas
ruling class games.
epistolary confessions.
Past lives, karma, historical
Além do
Spiritualism, racial prejudice,
setting, wine production in the
10
Tempo
class prejudice, parental neglect.
South region.
Source: Obitel Brazil
3
Velho
Chico
While 9 p.m. telenovelas A Regra do Jogo, Velho Chico and A
Lei do Amor privileged political issues in both the main and social
themes, the 7 p.m. and 6 p.m. storylines used a milder approach to
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 117
address dense themes, centered on a love conflict. These characteristics are aligned with Globo’s long-standing pattern, determined by
specific viewing habits (romance at 6 p.m.; comedy at 7 p.m.; drama
at 8/9 p.m.) regarding telenovela time slots (Lopes, 2009).
Since last year, however, it has been argued that TV audiences,
overwhelmed by the country’s deep economic and political crisis,
would not be interested in following plots that echo such issues in
fiction, nor narratives too far removed from traditional telenovela
storylines. If the success of Justiça contradicts this thesis, the rise of
6 p.m. and 7 p.m. titles in the top ten, as well as the impact of biblical fiction in Record TV and children’s fiction in SBT, suggests that
it might not be entirely wrong, at least with regards to the telenovela
format.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most viewed titles:
gender, age, socioeconomic status
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
A Regra do Jogo
Totalmente Demais
Velho Chico
Êta Mundo Bom!
Haja Coração
Justiça
A Lei do Amor
Rock Story
Ligações Perigosas
Além do Tempo
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
A Regra do Jogo
Totalmente Demais
Velho Chico
Êta Mundo Bom!
Haja Coração
Justiça
A Lei do Amor
Rock Story
Ligações Perigosas
Além do Tempo
Channel
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Channel
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Globo
Gender %
Socioeconomic status %
Women Men AB
C
DE
61.5
38.5 28.3 52.2
19.5
64.5
35.5 28.3 52.1
19.5
61.0
39.0 30.6 51.4
18.0
64.7
35.3 29.7 51.2
19.1
63.7
36.3 27.6 52.6
19.8
61.0
39.0 30.5 51.5
18.0
62.4
37.6 30.9 51.0
18.1
64.2
35.8 28.9 51.8
19.4
63.1
36.9 30.6 50.9
18.5
67.6
32.4 30.9 50.6
18.5
Age group %
4-11 12-17 18-24 25-34 35-49 50+
5.7
7.2
8.5
15.3
24.7 38.5
6.5
7.7
8.3
14.2
23.6 39.6
5.0
5.8
7.3
13.8
24.2 43.9
5.7
6.8
7.8
12.8
22.9 44.1
6.9
7.6
8.1
14.8
23.4 39.8
5.5
6.9
8.9
17.0
26.0 35.7
5.1
6.3
7.5
14.2
23.8 42.9
6.7
8.0
8.2
14.7
23.3 39.1
5.4
7.0
9.9
16.9
25.6 35.2
5.6
7.1
8.3
13.3
22.5 43.2
118 | Obitel 2017
Women still make up the largest audience share of the top ten,
with the most expressive percentages in 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. romances
and comedies. Among men, in turn, the highest shares are in 9 p.m.
telenovelas and miniseries, titles of the drama genre. Regarding age
group, the 7 p.m. telenovelas are the most viewed by children and
adolescents, while the 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. fiction plots are favored by
audiences over 50 years old. Miniseries are the titles most viewed
by young people and adults (aged 18 to 49).
Regarding socioeconomic status, class C, the main consumer
of television fiction, and class DE recorded the highest audience
share in two 7 p.m. telenovelas and one 9 p.m. telenovela. Curiously, the AB class relegated experimental and critically acclaimed
fiction – traits usually linked to this audience – to second place in
their preference, favoring instead two telenovelas that flirt strongly
with melodrama.
3. Transmedia reception
The development of transmedia initiatives in television fiction
and the expansion of storytelling on other platforms have become
increasingly sophisticated over the Obitel monitoring series. Strategies proven to be successful with audiences continue, such as content made available on broadcasters’ streaming platforms. There are
also other possibilities for the expansion of narrative beyond the
limits of the television schedule.
The main highlight in 2016 was the spin-offs2416used in telenovelas Totalmente Demais, Haja Coração and Liberdade, Liberdade, all by Globo. Regarding the first storyline, spin-off Totalmente
Sem Noção Demais – released on Globo Play after the telenovela
ended – featured, in ten daily chapters released at the same time the
telenovela had been shown on TV (7.30 p.m.), the past life of Cassandra, one of the most popular characters in the story. In the case
of Haja Coração, for the first time a parallel story complemented
24
A story expansion technique that adds details that are not addressed in the main plot.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 119
the chapters of a telenovela still being aired on TV: eight episodes
of the spin-off gave life to a character that seemed to have died in
the original story but survived on the internet. Finally, in A Lenda do
Mão de Luva, spin-off of Liberdade, Liberdade, details of satirical
crook Mão de Luva (Glove Hand) were revealed in eight episodes
available after the end of the story on TV.
Supermax on TV and on Twitter
Another highlight in 2016 was series Supermax (Globo), the
network’s first horror fiction, aired in the late night time slot. A transmedia strategy was also deployed involving the creation of a game
based on the series, developed exclusively by students.2517With each
episode aired on television, new levels were unlocked, motivating
audience interactivity across TV to cell phones and vice versa. The
game had over 401,145 downloads, both in Brazil and abroad, in
countries such as the United States, Angola, Japan, Portugal and the
United Kingdom. A further initiative involved monitoring the 20
most engaged fans in social media, who were selected to watch the
last chapter at the broadcaster’s headquarters.
Figure 1. Word cloud of fan tweets during the last chapter
of Supermax and Twitter image
25
The broadcaster launched a hackathon-style programming challenge involving 30 college students at Brasil Game Show, the largest gaming show in Latin America. The game
developed by the winning team was available for free for Android and iOS systems.
120 | Obitel 2017
Observing the repercussion of Supermax on Twitter while the
last episode was being aired, it was noted that the audience responded to the fictional events in real time, proving that the concept of
social TV (Proulx and Shepatin, 2012) reaches its apex especially at
the end of a fiction show.2618
In a survey of fan posts published on Twitter on December
13, 2016, the day the last episode of Supermax was aired on TV,
we identified about 2,000 comments. Content analysis of the posts
showed that the main topics related to praising the characters’ courage, especially the female roles. Others expressed annoyance with
the successive deaths, an aspect that received much criticism, but
which was precisely the narrative’s main drive. Although fans were
aware of this detail, the comments revealed a certain level of shared
frustration regarding the last chapter of the series, as only two characters survived. The end of the series moved the social media and
#SupermaxFinal boosted in the worldwide trending topics.
A chart of the terms most used by fans in the comments showed,
in order: the broadcaster (Globo); the universe of the series (Supermaxworld); Pedro Bial (Bial), an intertextual character – host of the
reality show Big Brother Brazil – inserted in the series; and character Janete, who particularly caught the audience’s attention for being
a transsexual who suffers prejudice in various ways.
In general, we can say that Supermax is a good example of an
emerging trend in television fiction: a nationwide series planned for
various platforms, available for linear viewing or not, with coordinated transmedia initiatives (competitions, games, applications, social media).2719Audience involvement was more evident on Twitter
as it was a suspense/horror storyline with a fast sequence of events,
which required increased attention from fans and linear viewing of
the chapters.
26
During Supermax exhibition, on Twitter there was a total of 389,356 tweets. Days with
higher repercussion: 12/06: 11 thousand; 12/09: 15 thousand; and 12/13: 39 thousand.
19
#maratonasupermax had 14.287 tweets.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 121
4. Highlights of the year
As mentioned above, this was the first year in which one 6
p.m. and two 7 p.m. telenovelas appeared among the top ten fiction
shows ahead of a 9 p.m. telenovela. This was one of the highlights
of television fiction in 2016, alongside the aesthetic and narrative
innovation brought to TV by Velho Chico (Globo) and greater experimentation with short running genres and formats.
Velho Chico: baroque aesthetics and suspended temporality
Acclaimed by reviewers and breaking with the aesthetic canon,
telenovela Velho Chico retrieved a Brazilian rural setting in the 9
p.m. time slot, moving away from the Rio-São Paulo axis. It is years
since rural Brazil was last portrayed in a 9 p.m. telenovela with
space/time assuming such importance in the narrative’s aesthetics.
One of the biggest controversies in Velho Chico was the baroque
inspiration behind the sets and characters. The plot is set in three different time periods, and in the last one, already in the present, there
was some exaggeration in the use fabrics and colors, which, over
time, became increasingly significant. The depiction of the characters sought to reflect their personality in an unusual way, with hints
of timelessness. They were constantly sweaty and dirty, portraying
the barrenness and heat of the northeastern region.
The São Francisco River, more than a mere setting, was a leading character with a will of its own and responsible for events endowed with mysticism and spirituality. Legends and folklore from
the Northeast were presented in an organic way at prime time as realities rather than tales. The land issue approach was praised for addressing various forms of agricultural production, from traditional
exploitation to cooperatives and sustainable production, portraying
the real life clash between big landowners and small farmers: issues
that echoed political events rocking the country at the time.
Lastly, we mention the tragic accident suffered in the last
weeks of shooting by the protagonist, actor Domingos Montagner,
in the river that lent its name to the title and drove the narrative. The
122 | Obitel 2017
director chose to keep the character in the story without replacing
the actor. To this end, he used a subjective point of view whenever
the character was supposed to be in a scene: the image was shown as
if viewed by the character, making the audience see things from his
perspective. This highly emotional aesthetic resource was praised
on media reviews and moved the audience during the last week and
climax of the story.
Globo 7 p.m. and 6 p.m. telenovelas
Beginning in 2015, telenovela Totalmente Demais entered 2016
with good ratings, which continued growing until the last chapter,
aired on a Monday, a strategy not adopted by the broadcaster since
the 1970s. The contemporary fairy tale portrayed a poor girl who
ascends socially to become a successful model. Despite not evading controversial and socially relevant issues such as homophobia,
physical disability, adoption and HIV, the storyline focused on romance, told in an agile and good-humored way, appealing to young
audiences whom the authors had already successfully reached in
Sonhos season of soap opera Malhação.
Its successor, Haja Coração, kept up the good ratings and became the most successful telenovela in the time slot since Cheias de
Charme (2012). A reinterpretation of classic Sassaricando (Globo,
1987), it depicted the lighter and more cheerful side of poor districts in the outskirts of São Paulo, preserving the narrative form of
Totalmente Demais and the time slot’s tradition of comedy. It was
widely debated in social media, especially the love triangle of the
protagonists.
At 6 p.m., Êta Mundo Bom! had the highest ratings since O
Profeta (2007), according to Kantar Ibope Media. Set in São Paulo
and in an inland farm in the late 1940s, and based on Voltaire’s Candide: Or Optimism and Mazzaropi’s film Candinho, the plot centers
on the figure of a typical hillbilly who moves to the city in search
of his mother, from whom he was separated at birth. This can be
considered the prototype of the 6 p.m. telenovela: a romantic period
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 123
piece full of optimism, ingenuity and humor, narrative components
that guaranteed its great success.
Series genres and formats
The high number of series aired in 2015 was atypical due to
the celebrations of Globo’s 50th anniversary. In 2016, in spite of
the drop in quantity, a great variety of genres was observed in this
format. Series like Nada Será Como Antes (period piece) and Supermax (suspense/horror) occupied time slots long reserved exclusively for comedies and sitcoms.
Dramatic miniseries Justiça (Globo) had a different proposal
of serialization. Running for 20 episodes, the drama was set in the
Brazilian northeast region, in Recife (PE), and was a clear example
of complex narrative (Mittell, 2015). Developed in the form of nonhorizontal temporality, each day of the week it focused on the story
of one of the four characters in search of justice; and their stories
connected in some way. The production was regarded as an example
of television achieving the status of a work of art.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Brazil.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Over the ten years of Obitel monitoring, we have recorded political, social, cultural and economic changes that have profoundly
affected the Brazilian audiovisual system. We will use Martín-Barbero’s scheme of mediations (2009) to better formulate the changes
over the period, which ranged from logics of production, viewing
capabilities and cultural matrices to the industrial formats of Brazilian television fiction. It should be noted that the title of this chapter,
“towards 360° production and reception”, serves as a symbolic expression of the decade.
The initial milestone of the monitoring period is 2007, year of
the first official digital TV broadcast in Brazil, and the final milestone is 2016, the beginning of the end of analog TV broadcast. We
can therefore consider that the decade was marked by the digital
124 | Obitel 2017
transition. Given this complex scenario, the following analysis emphasizes some relevant aspects of such transformations.
Rating and share
In Brazil, when talking about, for example, the 37-point average
rating reached by telenovela Império (Globo, 2015) or the 44-point
rating of Passione (Globo, 2011), we are actually referring to huge
audiences of 25 million and over 27 million spectators, respectively.
Graph 3. The irst places in the top ten
ranking over ten years of Obitel
Source: Obitel Brazil
Analyzing all top ten lists, we have compiled a few undisputable points: (1) Brazil is the country of origin of the original idea or
script of all works ranked in the top ten ratings, which undoubtedly
proves its capacity to create and produce national television fiction;
(2) production of Brazilian television fiction is mostly private; (3)
Globo ranks as the biggest producer of top ten fiction, and even the
exceptions comprise four of the network’s co-productions over the
decade; (4) the telenovela is the absolute leader format in the country, with the highest number of appearances in the top ten and occupying the first place in all ten years monitored; (5) among genres
and subgenres there is a predominance of drama, especially due to
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 125
the melodrama framework of telenovelas – even though in recent
years we have noticed a hybridization of both genre and format,
marked by the demands of the logics of production and industry and
of viewing.
Audience
In these ten years, we have observed new patterns of media
consumption and significant changes in the ritualisms of fiction
viewing, and also occurred in the technicity (Martín-Barbero, 2009)
of communication industries, which nowadays largely accounts for
the ability to compete technologically and innovate and shape industrial formats (series, miniseries, telenovelas, unitarios, etc.). The
logics of production are marked by practices with different languages, such as transmedia narratives and fiction produced exclusively
for the web, which create audiences based on their own demands.
After all, what is produced is not only a consequence of industrial
and commercial strategies, but also of the cultural fabric and the
ways of interacting with this fabric. Fiction viewing has become
digital, changing not only the ritualisms of viewing and producing
meanings of these media products, but also the sociabilities (MartínBarbero, 1990) of viewers, who were able to create other forms of
social interaction through collective uses of fiction (virtual communities, blogs, webpages, fanfics).
We highlight over the period a telenovela that became a media
event and marked the year 2012. Considered a legitimate “national
narrative” (Lopes, 2009), Avenida Brasil (Globo) stood out in all
the kinds of media, congesting social network sites in its last chapter, drawing the attention of the international media and becoming
a veritable “social commotion” (Mulgan, 1990). The plot portrayed
the “new class C” as a protagonist in the 9 p.m. telenovela and engaged the audience on a permanent basis.
The decade thus reveals audience trends that paint a new picture, still in the process of being discovered. Highlights of this period were: increase in television fiction consumption via the internet,
126 | Obitel 2017
intense use of social media related to television programs, multiplatform TV viewing, and audience fragmentation.
Communication policies
Over the ten-year monitoring period, communication policies
directly linked to television fiction were implemented in Brazil,
such as: (1) creation in 2007 of TV Brasil, a national public open
network that stimulated the production of fiction content through
public notices; (2) approval in 2010 and implementation in 2012 of
Law n. 12,485 (Pay TV Law), which determined the opening of the
pay TV market to telecommunications companies and established
mandatory quotas for domestic production, half of them reserved for
national independent producers with no link to broadcasting groups;
(3) approval of the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet in 2014, which establishes principles, guarantees, rights and duties for internet use in Brazil; (4) Brazilian National Broadband Plan
(PNBL), which privileges broadband over landline communication;
and (5) disconnection of analog TV (switch off), with deadlines running from 2016 to 2023.
Narrative themes
The following word cloud affords a visual representation of
the dominant themes of the top ten fiction programs of the decade,
quantitatively and proportionally hierarchized by frequency. Traditional melodrama themes predominate in Brazilian telenovelas and
series over the period, but they are accompanied by realistic-style
social themes, an accurate characterization of Brazilian television
fiction.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 127
Figure 2. Word cloud of the top ten main themes
Narrative forms
Both stability and change marked format and content in the
ten-year period, in which interactivity and audience cooperation
stood out, aimed at promoting a “culture of participation”. In terms
of form and content transitions in television fiction, the focus was
on new strategies of production and viewing in multiple platforms,
integrating social, technological, communicational, cultural and
economic relations. In 2014, we identified signs of a “short story
cycle,” that is, an increase in series and miniseries, besides shorter
telenovelas, with format diversification and hybridization. Over the
decade, we highlight in Globo’s productions the stylistic innovations of fiction by João Emanuel Carneiro – A Favorita (2009), A
Cura (2010), Avenida Brasil (2012) and A Regra do Jogo (2015) –,
besides experimental work in the 11 p.m. time slot, inaugurated by
O Astro, in 2011, with reconfigured genres and running times. In
Record TV, Os Mutantes (2007 to 2009) and Os Dez Mandamentos (2015 to 2016) were telenovelas that invested in more than one
season, which is unusual for this format in Brazil. We consider the
latter as a successful strategy in creating a niche audience in open
television.
Producers and channels
The new television business model that emerged with the implementation of the so-called Pay TV Law in 2012 involved structural
128 | Obitel 2017
changes in the sector such as: increase in the number of independent
producers; proportionality of national and independent channels in
packages offered by operators; creation of Brazilian channels of
qualified space; increased resources available for television production; migration of professionals from advertising and cinema to TV.
The pay TV has become a new space of national television fiction
mainly devoted to the production of season series, in contrast to the
initial Obitel monitoring, since it was dominated by foreign fiction
and restricted to audiences of more affluent social classes in Brazil.
Transmedia production and reception
Over the period, narratives started circulating in different media and platforms (Jenkins, Ford and Green, 2013). Different industrial formats came up, ranging from book to video, from videogame
to TV, from TV to website, as well as online interaction and content
produced by those audiences most involved with television fiction:
the fans. Viewers accompanied the new paradigm marked by the
coexistence of analog and digital culture, watching TV on multiple
platforms, in a collectively socialized way, but without excluding
family viewing, especially in situations of limited access to the internet.
In the ten years of the Obitel project in Brazil, we have reflected on the new technological possibilities that have emerged
and generated restructurings from the strain between the so-called
new media and traditional media, along with new forms of viewing.
Such dynamism has been sustained by the great capacity for television fiction production in Brazil, which allows the coexistence of
works of fiction of established success among audiences with others
marked by experimentation in genres and formats, in a continuous
feedback process with reshaped audiences.
References
Jenkins, H., Ford, S. and Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: creating value
and meaning in a networked culture. New York: New York University Press.
Brazil: towards 360° production and reception | 129
Lopes, M. I. V. de. (2009). Telenovela como recurso comunicativo. MATRIZes,
3 (1) 21-47.
Lopes, M. I. V. de e Mungioli, M. C. P. (2015). Brasil: tempo de séries brasileiras? In M. I. V. de Lopes and G. O. Gómez (coords.). Relações de gênero na
ficção televisiva. Porto Alegre: Sulina.
Martín-Barbero, J. (2009). Dos meios às mediações: comunicação, cultura e
hegemonia. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ.
Mittell, J. (2015). Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York: New York University Press.
Mulgan, G. (1990). Television’s Holy Grail: seven types of quality. In G. Mulgan. The Question of Quality. London: British Film Institute.
Proulx, M. and Shepatin, S. (2012). Social TV: how marketers can reach and
engage audiences by connecting television to the web, social media, and mobile. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
3
chIle: the strengthenIng
of PrIvAte televIsIon1
Authors:
Pablo Julio P., Francisco J. Fernández,
Constanza Mujica H.
Team:
Verónica Silva, Cristóbal Pozo
1. Chile’s audiovisual context in 2016
In recent years, Chilean television has undergone major changes. As it was reported in the last Obitel yearbooks, since the landing
of Turkish telenovelas, which rescued the most classic elements of
the genre and the positioning of Mega as the most successful channel in terms of audience, the rest of the stations have been subject
to significant challenges and changes. In 2015, the public television
station, Televisión Nacional de Chile, underwent a major financing
crisis that caused the government to decide to inject funds in 2016
to pay for the digitalization process of its broadcast. Likewise, UCV
Televisión, the last channel until then still in the hands of a university, decided to sell its signal to the private sector, and Chilevisión
merged a part of its operations with CNN Chile, in the new facilities
that were under construction for more than eight years.
To the above adds the growth in access to new technology platforms for consumption of content, mainly audiovisual, and of social
networks, with YouTube and Netflix having a share that exceeds
30% of internet users each.
1
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Kantar Ibope Media Chile, whose
invaluable collaboration was fundamental for this work.
132 | Obitel 2017
Thus, 2016 was a year in which, rather than changes, processes
that had been developing for a couple of years took shape. The end
of university television, the entrance of foreign capitals linked to
big audiovisual companies of world order to the property of open
TV Chilean channels, and the consolidation of the presence of nonIbero-American telenovelas are some of the facts that marked Chilean television during 2016.
1.1. Open TV in Chile
Chart 1. Open TV national stations
Private channels (6)
Public channels (1)
Canal 13: Luksic group (67%), Pontiical Catholic University
of Chile (33%)
Chilevisión: Time Warner, through Turner Broadcasting System
TVN, exclusively
La Red: belongs to Albavisión group
Mega: Grupo Bethia, one of the controllers of Falabella holding advertising-funded
Telecanal: belongs to Inversiones Alfa Tres (linked to Albavisión)
UCV: GCO Entretención Group
Total number of channels: 7
Despite the fact that in 2016 the definitive frequencies that the
national coverage channels would use to transmit their digital signals were assigned, the structure of the industry did not change from
the previous year. In fact, in the capital of the country, Santiago,
the assigned frequencies were the same as the channels were using
experimentally for digital television.
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 133
Graph 1. TV audience by channel in 20162
Channel
House- Total
Share
hold
TV
in open
rating share
TV (%)
(%)
(%)
5.1
12.9
20.9
5.2
13.1
21.3
8.1
20.5
33.2
4.2
10.6
17.2
0.6
1.5
2.5
1.0
2.5
4.1
0.2
0.5
0.8
Canal 13
CHV
Mega
TVN
UCV
La Red
Telecanal
Total open
24.4
61.6
TV
Total pay
15.2
38.4
TV
Total pay
and open
39.6
100.0 100.0
TV
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile
2.5%
4.1%
0.8%
Canal 13
20.9%
17.2%
CHV
Mega
TVN
21.3%
33.2%
UCV
La Red
Telecanal
The channel differences since last year are less than one rating
point, which leads to talk of a consolidation of Mega’s success in
television audiences and the failure of state-owned TVN, formerly
the leader. Likewise, although TVN has practically maintained the
same score in the fourth place, Canal 13 suffers a significant drop
of half a point between 2015 and 2016, remaining in the third place.
Chilevisión, on the other hand, fell four tenths, reaching a threepoint gap with the leader, Mega.
The strategy of Bethia group channel, which began the previous year with the installation of a robust fictional production area,
has allowed Mega to have a telenovela offering whose results have
always been above the ten rating points, reaching 24 points average
in some productions, as will be seen later.
2
Household rating considers 24 hours a day. Television channels do not currently broadcast 24 hours a day. If only the hours of actual transmission are considered, the sum of the
open television channels increases from 24.4% to 28.8%.
134 | Obitel 2017
Graph 2. Offer by genre in TV programming in 2016
Broadcast- Broadcast % of % of aued genres
hours3
time
dience
Fiction
18146:39 34.3%
40.9%
Information 12935:03 24.5%
39.0%
Entertainment
8099:12
15.3%
7.1%
Services
6298:08
11.9%
6.6%
Sports
1291:19
2.4%
1.5%
Others
6081:06
11.5%
4.8%
Total
52851:27 100%
100%
2%
Fiction
12%
Information
12%
34%
Entertainment
Services
15%
Sports
25%
Others
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile3
A new Olympics cycle was completed in 2016, and, although
there is no big difference, the increase of 0.7% in the sports genre
over the previous year may have its answer in the Olympic Games
in Rio de Janeiro. The rest of the content maintains, with a presence
on the screen more or less constant compared to the previous year,
except fiction, genre that had 1.7% less of broadcasted hours. Also,
it should be noted that in 2016 there was a reduction of 1,645 hours
in the total hours of exhibition if compared to 2015.
1.2. Audience trends in 2016
In order to understand multiscreen consumption, the National Television Council (CNTV) conducted a survey that analyzed
the consumption of Chilean audiovisual content over the internet.
Among its results, the most used platforms are YouTube (55%), social networks (49%), Netflix (36%) and web portals of open television channels (35%) (CNTV, 2017).
Another aspect that accounts for the consumption trends of
the audience is the number of hours of exposure to open television,
which adds almost one month of television per year, according to
figures released by CNTV in 2016. As stated in the 2015 Statistical
For presentation purposes, the times in this and the following tables are rounded to ive
minutes.
3
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 135
Yearbook of Offer and Consumption (published in 2016), people
watched, on average, two hours and 15 minutes a day of television,
and information is the most viewed genre, with 221 hours average
annual per person, representing an increase of six hours compared
to the previous year (CNTV, 2017). The figure obtained through the
measurement of People Meter is different: the average daily consumption of television is estimated in three hours and 50 minutes.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
The most accurate information on advertising investment is the
one of the Chilean Association of Advertising Agencies (Achap),
which publishes its results some months after the conclusion of this
yearbook. The data for 2015 show, as from 2012, a drop (−1.6%) in
advertising investment in open television. This leaves the amount
of resources with which Chilean television as a whole is financed in
US$ 441 million (US$ 24 per capita). Since advertising investment
is very sensitive to economic expectations, which in business sectors were negative during 2016, it is also expected that it will not be
positive for Chilean open television. However, it continues to be the
media with the largest share of advertising investment, with 37.4%
of the total, but far from the 47% reached ten years earlier.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
Like previous years, the production of television fiction in Chile
does not present examples in which cases of social merchandising
can be observed. However, Mega has incorporated into the afternoon telenovelas (3 p.m.) some topics of social relevance aimed at
promoting changes and attitudes in their audiences. This is the case
of Eres mi Tesoro (2016, first semester), which dealt with children’s
disability, and Te Doy la Vida (2016, second semester), where the
subject of assisted fertilization is discussed through sperm donation
and organ donation.
136 | Obitel 2017
1.5. Communication policies
Following the promulgation of Law n. 20,750, on digital TV
(DTTV), in 2014, and the regulation that would enforce it in 2015,
the implementation of digital terrestrial television continues to advance at its own pace in the country. However, other platforms such
as Netflix and Amazon Prime are still moving forward during this
attempt period, in addition to web platforms such as YouTube.
Following the implementation schedule of DTTV, on July 27,
2016 the UHF frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum that the
television channels will occupy were awarded. Until now, they used
a VHF channel for analog broadcast. The aim is that this year all the
regional capitals of Chile will have open digital terrestrial television
on all channels with an open TV concession. While national television channels produce their live content and record in high definition, not all have begun to broadcast in digital in regions. According
to the Digital Television Plan, established by the government, they
have all this year to complete the goal. However, time is running out:
in a radio interview in July 2016, the then undersecretary of Telecommunications, Pedro Huichalaf, stated that the analogue blackout
would take place in 2020 (Soto, Valenzuela and Proust, 2017). That
year corresponds to the fifth of the Plan, when DTTV will have to
reach 100% of the coverage in the country. Until then, signals with
a frequency to be transmitted in digital should also do it in analog
in their original signals, which is known as simulcast. Meanwhile,
according to CNTV – the body in charge of granting, modifying and
terminating free-to-air television concessions, among other functions –, in the country there are 116 television channels available
in UHF, with an average of seven channels per region. Applications for the concession of all these frequencies in DTTV may be
national, regional, local and also community-based (CNTV, 2017).
1.6. ICT trends
Although television did not have significant technological improvements in 2016, in terms of devices to consume audiovisual
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 137
content we did find some changes. The main one is the increase in
the possession of smartphones. In this regard, Chile is the leader
in Latin America in the use of internet and smartphones, with 7.9
million users, corresponding to 45% of the population (IAB, 2016).
Access to audiovisual content through these mobile devices is enhanced by the use of networks with higher bandwidth and data transmission speed. This is how 79% of internet access occured through
3G and 4G networks. The annual growth during the previous year,
2015, was already of 307% (Subtel, 2016).
The household scenario also points to a greater availability of
platforms to access digital content, as 42% of households in Chile
have four or more devices and, of these, 96% have at least one stable.
1.7. Public TV
In 2015, President Bachelet announced the creation of a public
cultural television channel. Almost exactly a year later, she resumed
the subject and reported that US$ 100 million will be allocated for
the creation of this channel and for the modernization and restructuring of TVN. This requires an indication to the legislative project
that modifies Law n. 19,132, which has not been promulgated yet.
This project establishes that TVN must broadcast, through a special
television concession of national character, the educational and cultural contents in a signal that will be administered by a subsidiary
of TVN and without advertising, in addition to establishing changes
in its corporate governance. The project highlights the increase in
the scope of action of TVN, going beyond television. It would be
allowed to act as a consortium of digital media, radio and television.
The one-time distribution of US$ 100 million, which until the end
of 2016 had not yet materialized, stipulates that US$ 25 million will
be for the new cultural educational channel and US$ 75 million for
the modernization of TVN.
138 | Obitel 2017
1.8. Pay TV
Pay TV already reaches a formal penetration of almost 54%
(over 60% including irregular users). With that, it manages to
capture about 38% of the total television audience and more than
15% of advertising investment in television. Although its growth
is increasingly slow, it has a significant weight in the Chilean audiovisual panorama. However, its weight as a producer of national
television fiction is practically non-existent. The relevant national
channels are channels of news, culture and entertainment, but not of
local fiction. This has traditionally been so and there is no sign of
any significant change in the short term.
1.9. Independent production companies
As in previous years, independent production is mainly concentrated in the series conducted with the support of state funds (CNTV
and Corfo). In addition, and as detailed in the section “Highlights
of the year”, this type of production has been very successful in
the case of afternoon telenovelas (3 p.m.). Three of them, made for
Mega, are placed in the ranking of the most watched this year.
1.10. International trends
Other from the traditional presence of Televisa and Globo telenovelas, it is possible to detect a consolidation of Turkish telenovelas in the Chilean market. Although they are still very successful,
their broadcast has stabilized in the afternoon slot – the one-hour
episodes are scheduled between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. – and the second
night slot – from 11:30 p.m. Although more anecdotal, religious
Brazilian telenovelas, such as Los Diez Mandamientos and Josué,
were also well received by audiences. They were broadcast by TVN
as an alternative to the Turks’ clash.
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 139
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction broadcasted in 2016
(national and foreign; premiere and reruns; and co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES
Canal 13
1. Preciosas (telenovela)
2. Veinteañero a los 40 (telenovela)
36. Amor Sincero (telenovela – Colombia)
37. Correo de Inocentes (serie – Colombia)
38. Juegos Prohibidos (telenovela – Colombia)
CHV
39. Las Noches de Luciana (telenovela –
3. Bala Loca (serie)
Colombia)
4. Buscando a María (telenovela)
40. Lorena (telenovela – Colombia)
5. Lo que Callamos las Mujeres (unitarios) 41. Pobres Rico (telenovela – Colombia)
6. Vidas en Riesgo (docudrama)
42. Séptima Puerta (telenovela – Colombia)
Mega
43. A Cada Quien Su Santo (unitarios –
7. Amanda (telenovela)
Mexico)
8. Ámbar (telenovela)
44. La Duda (telenovela – Mexico)
9. Código Rosa (docudrama)
45. La Loba (telenovela – Mexico)
10. Eres mi Tesoro (telenovela)
46. La Vida es Una Canción (unitarios –
11. Familia Moderna (sitcom)
Mexico)
12. Papá a la Deriva (telenovela)
47. Lo que la Gente Cuenta (unitarios –
13. Pobre Gallo (telenovela)
Mexico)
14. Señores Papis (telenovela)
15. Te Doy la Vida (telenovela)
TVN
48. Carrusel (telenovela – Brazil)
TVN
49. José de Egipto (telenovela – Brazil)
16. Colegas (series)
50. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos (tele17. El Camionero (telenovela)
novela – Brazil)
18. Esa No Soy Yo (telenovela)
51. Rey David (telenovela – Brazil)
19. Once Comida (sitcom)
52. Sansón y Dalila (serie – Brazil)
20. Por Fin Solos (series)
53. El Secreto de Puente Viejo (telenovela
– Spain)
UCV
21. Cronistas Ciudad en Letras (minise- PREMIERE OBITEL CO-PRODUCries)
TIONS
CHV
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES
1. Hasta que te Conocí (series – Obitel coCanal 13
prod.)
1. Boogie Oogie (telenovela – Brazil)
2. Imperio (telenovela – Brazil)
Telecanal
3. La Sombra de Helena (telenovela – Bra- 2. Decisiones de Mujeres (series – Obitel
zil)
co-prod.)
4. Las Reglas del Juego (telenovela – Brazil)
RERUN NATIONAL TITLES
5. Partes de Mí (telenovela – Brazil)
Canal 13
6. Verdades Secretas (telenovela – Brazil) 1. Héroes (unitarios)
7. Celia (telenovela – Colombia)
2. Los Años Dorados (sitcom)
140 | Obitel 2017
8. Las Amazonas (telenovela – Mexico)
9. El Beso del Escorpión (telenovela – Portugal)
10. La Única Mujer (telenovela – Portugal)
CHV
3. 12 Días que Estremecieron a Chile (series)
4. Amar y Morir en Chile (miniseries)
5. Cartas de Mujer (TV movie)
6. Divino Tesoro (series)
CHV
7. Historias de Campo (unitarios)
11. Esperanza Mía (telenovela – Argen- 8. La Dona (telenovela)
tina)
9. Series Nacionales (unitarios)
12. La Esclava Blanca (telenovela – Co- 10. Sudamerican Rockers (series)
lombia)
13. Las Hermanitas Calle (telenovela – La Red
Colombia)
11. Fabulosas Flores (sitcom)
14. Velvet (series – Spain)
Mega
La Red
12. Casado con Hijos (sitcom)
15. Laura (serie – Colombia)
13. El Niño Rojo (miniseries)
16. Águila Roja (series – Spain)
17. Hay Alguien Ahí (series – Spain)
TVN
18. Amo Despertar Contigo (telenovela – 14. Amores de Mercado (telenovela)
Mexico)
15. El Día Menos Pensado (docudrama)
19. Como Dice el Dicho (unitarios – Me- 16. Floribella (telenovela)
xico)
17. La Fiera (telenovela)
20. Corazón que Miente (telenovela – 18. Romané (telenovela)
Mexico)
19. Somos los Carmona (telenovela)
21. Corona de Lagrimas (telenovela –
Mexico)
UCV
22. Criminal (series – Mexico)
20. Los Años Dorados (sitcom)
23. La Rosa de Guadalupe (unitarios – 21. Puerto Hambre (miniseries)
Mexico)
24. La Vecina (telenovela – Mexico)
RERUN NATIONAL CO-PRODUC25. Mi Corazón es Tuyo (telenovela – TIONS
Mexico)
CHV
26. Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real (docu- 1. El Bosque de Karadima (miniseries –
drama –Mexico)
co-prod. Chile)
27. Por Ella Soy Eva (telenovela – Mexico) 2. Violeta se Fue a los Cielos (miniseries –
28. Por Siempre Mi Amor (telenovela – co-prod. Chile)
México)
29. Quiero Amarte (telenovela – Mexico) RERUN FOREIGN TITLES
30. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (tele- Canal 13
novela – Mexico)
1. Avenida Brasil (telenovela – Brazil)
2. El Rey del Ganado (telenovela – Brazil)
Mega
3. India (telenovela – Brazil)
31. Abismo de Pasión (telenovela – Mex- 4. Terra Esperanza (telenovela – Brazil)
ico)
5. Terra Nostra (telenovela – Brazil)
32. Pasión y Poder (telenovela – Mexico)
Telecanal
La Red
33. Impostores (series – Argentina)
6. Pedro el Escamoso (telenovela – Co34. Los Normales (series – Brazil)
lombia)
35. Sirvienta a Domicilio (sitcom – Brazil) 7. Yo Soy Betty, la Fea (telenovela – Colombia)
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 141
8. Chespirito (sitcom – Mexico)
9. El Chapulín Colorado (sitcom – Mexico)
10. Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse
(telenovela – Mexico)
TVN
16. Doña Bárbara (telenovela – Colombia)
17. El Zorro (telenovela – Colombia)
18. La Tormenta (telenovela – Colombia)
19. Destilando Amor (telenovela – MexiMega
co)
11. El Chavo del Ocho (sitcom – Mexico) 20. En Nombre del Amor (telenovela –
12. Teresa (telenovela – Mexico)
Mexico)
21. Rubí (telenovela – México)
Telecanal
13. Pedro el Escamoso (telenovela – Co- TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 76
lombia)
TOTAL BROADCASTED TITLES:
14. Chespirito (sitcom – Mexico)
120
15. Lo que la Gente Cuenta (unitarios –
Mexico)
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
The 21 premiere national titles suppose a drop regarding the
previous years. In 2014 there were 28, and 27 in 2015. This drop
is more than compensated by the Ibero-American premieres, which
rose to 56 in 2016, from 28 in 2015, but this result is comparable to
the 47 titles of 2014. That year began in Chile the phenomenon of
Turkish telenovelas, and, without considering them, the panorama is
incomplete. In 2016, the number of episodes of Turkish telenovelas
was slightly more than 10% of the total fiction of Ibero-American
origin, including Chile.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Spain
USA Hispanic
Mexico
21
55
Chapter/
%
Hours
episodes
27.6
1534
25.6 1080:05
72.4
4459
74.4 3469:35
23.7
76.3
2
13
21
11
0
4
0
21
2.6
17.1
27.6
14.5
0.0
5.3
0.0
27.6
0.3
12.7
23.7
16.3
0.0
7.4
0.0
36.6
Titles
%
18
645
1534
1113
0
242
0
2291
0.3
13:45
10.8 575:35
25.6 1080:05
18.6 742:55
0.0
0:00
4.0 337:15
0.0
0:00
38.2 1663:15
%
142 | Obitel 2017
Peru
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Portugal
2
2.6
113
1.9
106:50
2.3
Uruguay
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Venezuela
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
2
2.6
37
0.6
29:55
0.7
National co-productions
Ibero-American co-productions
TOTAL
0
2
76
0.0
2.6
100
0
37
5993
0.0
0.6
100
0:00
29:55
4549:35
0.0
0.7
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
In 2016, the phenomenon observed the previous year was reversed, and the Ibero-American titles, which had fallen 50%, surpassed this year what was observed in previous years, reaching
74%. However, in terms of hours broadcasted, the increase is lower
as it rises from 70% to 76%. Mexico recovers part of the presence it
lost with the Turkish irruption, rising from 14% to 30% in amount of
titles and from 30% to 37% in the amount of hours of screen. Chile
falls from 27 to 21 titles, from 50% to 27%. In terms of share of
broadcasted hours, it falls from 30% to 24%, but in absolute terms
it rises from 752 to 1,080 hours of premiere, which is explained
because the fall in titles was mainly in series and miniseries, which
provide fewer hours of exhibition than telenovelas.
The time distribution of television fiction in 2016 is very similar to that of 2015. This represents a consolidation of the changes
observed in 2014 and 2015 compared to previous years, partly due
to the emergence of Turkish telenovelas, but also due to the extension of the time slots of exhibition of national productions, previously broadcasted almost exclusively in prime time and now also
occupying spaces in the afternoon slot.
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast by time slot
National
Time slot
C/E
Morning (6:00-12:00)
%
Ibero-American
H
%
C/E
%
H
Total
%
C/E
%
H
%
0.0
0:00
0.0
1
0.0
1:30
0.0
1
0.0
1:30
0.0
763
49.7
618:05
57.2
2906
65.2
2330:05
67.2
3669
61.2
2948:10
64.8
Prime time (20:00-24:00)
733
47.8
454:30
42.1
1128
25.3
844:35
24.3
1861
31.1
1299:05
28.6
Night (24:00-6:00)
38
2.5
7:30
0.7
424
9.5
293:20
8.5
462
7.7
300:50
6.6
1534
100
1080:05
100
4459
100
3469:35
100
5993
100
4549:35
100
Total
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
National
Format
Titles
Ibero-American
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
12
57.1
1047
68.3
587:59
54.4
37
67.3
2796
62.7
2335:42
67.3
Series
3
14.3
54
3.5
21:35
2.0
11
20.0
274
6.1
196:25
5.7
Miniseries
TV movie
Unitario
Docudrama
Others
1
0
1
2
2
4.8
0.0
4.8
9.5
9.5
8
0
255
127
43
0.5
0.0
16.6
8.3
2.8
3:19
0:00
349:56
92:58
24:17
0.3
0.0
32.4
8.6
2.2
0
0
5
1
1
0.0
0.0
9.1
1.8
1.8
0
0
1126
261
2
0.0
0.0
25.3
5.9
0.0
0:00
0:00
745:16
190:29
1:41
0.0
0.0
21.5
5.5
0.0
Total
21
100
1534
100
1080:04
100
55
100
4459
100
3469:33
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 143
0
Afternoon (12:00-20:00)
144 | Obitel 2017
Unlike previous years, the offer of national and Ibero-American
formats tends to resemble each other. However, there is a decline in
the number of series and miniseries, where the explorations made in
previous years seem to have no space.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
Format
Telenovela
Series
Morn%
ing
0
0.0
0
0.0
AfterPrime
%
noon
time
5
55.6
7
0
0.0
2
%
Night
70.0
20.0
0
1
To%
tal
0.0 12 57.1
50.0 3 14.3
%
Miniseries
0
0.0
1
11.1
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
4.8
TV movie
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Unitarios
0
0.0
1
11.1
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
4.8
Docudrama
Others
Total
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0
2
0
9
22.2
0.0
100
0
1
10
0.0
10.0
100
0
1
2
0.0
50.0
100
2
2
21
9.5
9.5
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
As anticipated, the scheduling of national productions was historically prime time. However, timidly in 2014 and clearly in 2015,
the afternoon schedule also began to be used for national productions. Until then, that had only happened with very specific titles,
aimed at youth audiences. This 2016 seems to confirm the expansion of the schedule as an evolution, just as in the middle of the last
decade night telenovelas burst into the night.
Table 6. Period in which iction is set
Time
Titles
%
Present
20
95.2
Period
0
0.0
Historical
1
4.8
Others
0
0.0
Total
21
100
Source: Obitel Chile
In 2016, with one exception, all national television fiction pro-
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 145
ductions were set in the present time. The only title that does not is
merely anecdotal. This is miniseries Cronistas Ciudad en Letras,
broadcasted by UCV Televisión, but developed by production company Sinóptico, with funding from the National Television Council.
It is a channel with a very scarce tradition of own production and
that, in addition, was sold, so little can be foreseen if it will bet for
its own fiction or will follow a different strategy.
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Title
Country
of original
idea
or script
Producer
1
Señores
Papis
Chile
Mega
2
Papá a la
Deriva
Chile
Mega
3 Pobre Gallo
Chile
4 Amanda
Chile
5 Ámbar
Chile
6
7
8
Te Doy la
Vida
Eres mi
Tesoro
Moisés y los
Diez Mandamientos
Veinteañero
a los 40
Chile
Chile
Brazil
Mega
Scriptwriter
or author of
Rating Share
original
idea
Marcela
Guerty, Pamela
Mega
24.2
34.7
Rementería
(Telefe)
Daniella
Mega
23.9
43.0
Castagno
Rodrigo BasMega
20.5
32.2
tidas
Channel
AG Creative
Mega Luis Ponce
Garage
Daniella
Mega
Mega
Castagno
AG Creative
María José GalMega
leguillos
Garage
AG Creative
Mega Yusef Rumie
Garage
Rede Record TVN
Vivian de
Olivera
18.1
38.4
17.0
27.9
17.0
37.7
16.1
35.1
11.7
17.3
Canal
Sergio Díaz
10.7
13
Caridad Bravo,
Abismo de
M. del Carmen
10
Mexico
Televisa
Mega
10.5
Pasión
Peña, J. A.
Olivera
Total national productions: 8
Foreign scripts: 3
80%
30%
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
9
Chile
Canal 13
15.7
23.4
146 | Obitel 2017
In the list of the ten most watched titles during 2016, there are
eight national productions and two Ibero-American productions.
This is similar to what happened in 2015, but different from what
until 2013 was the absolute domain of national productions and, in
2014, an apparent dominance. Until 2013, the top ten were Chilean
titles, regardless of whether the list was open to any origin. In 2014,
the top ten were also Chilean, but there were two Turkish telenovelas that could have led the list if they had been considered. This
rocked the stage, hit the national domain and, in 2015, two IberoAmerican titles entered the top ten. The year 2016 follows the same
scheme. Two Ibero-American titles reach the bottom of the list, but
there are also three Turkish productions that could have been in positions three, four and five: Sila Cautiva Por Amor, Kara Para Ask
and Medcezir, all three on Mega.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles in 2016:
format, length, time slot
Title
1 Señores Papis
Format
Genre
Telenovela
Drama/Comedy
2 Papá a la Deriva Telenovela Melodrama
3 Pobre Gallo
Telenovela
4 Amanda
Telenovela
5 Ámbar
Telenovela
Drama/Comedy
Melodrama
Drama/Comedy
Melodrama
Melodrama
Telenovela
6 Te Doy la Vida
Telenovela
7 Eres mi Tesoro
Moisés y los Diez
Telenovela Melodrama
8
Mandamientos
Veinteañero a
Telenovela Melodrama
9
los 40
Abismo de
Telenovela Melodrama
10
Pasión
* Broadcasting started in 2015 or passed to 2017.
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile – Obitel Chile
Number
Dates of
of
irst and last
Time slot
chap./ep. broadcast in
in 2016
2016
Prime
114
06/28-12/28
time
Prime
35
01/04*-02/29
time
Prime
160
01/06-08/22
time
29
11/22-12/30* Afternoon
Prime
91
08/22-12/30*
time
159
04/05-11/23 Afternoon
67
01/04*-04/06 Afternoon
01/02*Prime
265
12/28*
time
Prime
93
01/03-07/26
time
25
01/04*-02/05 Afternoon
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 147
In the list of the ten most watched titles in 2016, the top seven
places are occupied by productions made by Mega, which in 2013
had none, neither owned nor imported. Until that year, the panorama of television fiction was dominated by TVN and Canal 13, with
their own productions. Year 2014 marked the turning point with the
Turkish breakthrough, but Mega quickly capitalized on the audience’s preference by launching Pituca sin Lucas, produced by its
new drama production area, which had an immediate success and
lasted for 2015, ranking as a leader of the top ten. This first production was followed by others also successful, so that initial dominance, achieved thanks to the productions of Turkish origin, now
rises on the basis of its own production or, for the afternoon time
slot, performed on commission by an outside producer.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
Prevailing themes
Social themes
Family relationships, love,
1 Señores Papis
Family roles, classism.
friendship, parenthood.
Love, family relationships, class
Family roles, classism,
2 Papá a la Deriva
differences.
widowhood.
Love, family relationships, stress Exitism, village life, city
3 Pobre Gallo
management.
ield contrasts.
4 Amanda
Vengeance, love, sexual abuse. Gender violence, classism.
Love, family relationships, class
Childhood life, role of
5 Ámbar
differences.
paternity.
Love, class differences, family
6 Te Doy la Vida
Adoption, organ donation.
formation.
Love, class differences, ecoCouple deceit, disability,
7 Eres mi Tesoro
nomic dificulties.
prison world.
Moisés y los
Biblical history, love, family
Nationalism, religion,
8 Diez Manrelationships.
discrimination.
damientos
Veinteañero a
Love, readjust to the present,
Classism, fatherhood being
9
los 40
family relationships.
young, self-employment.
Abismo de
Love, family secrets, couple
Rural world, orphanhood,
10
Pasión
relationships.
ecology, classism.
Source: Obitel Chile
In 2016 there were not breakthrough themes in the field of television fiction, and the classic themes of the genre dominated: love,
148 | Obitel 2017
family relationships, and class differences, among others. The elements that deviate from the most recurrent mold are associated with
the spaces in which the realizations are set: the port, the countryside.
The only production that breaks this scheme is Moisés, a Brazilian
biblical telenovela.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles:
gender, socioeconomic status and age
Title
1 Señores Papis
Gender %
ChanWomnel
Men
en
Mega
63.9
36.1
Socioeconomic status%
ABC1
C2
C3
D
6.2
18.6
29.3
45.8
Mega
Mega
Mega
Mega
71.1
65.1
69.0
65.3
28.9
34.9
31.0
34.7
6.1
5.1
5.5
4.9
18.9
16.0
14.7
16.4
25.7
26.7
27.9
27.8
49.3
52.2
51.9
50.9
6 Te Doy la Vida
7 Eres mi Tesoro
Moisés y los Diez Man8
damientos
Mega
70.7
29.3
4.5
16.0
28.2
51.3
Mega
75.8
24.2
5.0
18.8
25.8
50.4
TVN
60.5
39.5
5.0
18.9
34.4
41.7
9 Veinteañero a los 40
Canal
13
Mega
61.0
39.1
16.9
19.6
29.4
34.2
74.3
25.7
2.2
16.7
18.9
62.3
13-17
Age range %
18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65-+
2
3
4
5
Papá a la Deriva
Pobre Gallo
Amanda
Ámbar
10 Abismo de Pasión
Titles
4-12
1 Señores Papis
8.1
2 Papá a la Deriva
8.2
3 Pobre Gallo
9.8
4 Amanda
8.2
5 Ámbar
11.7
6 Te Doy la Vida
7.9
7 Eres mi Tesoro
7.6
Moisés y los Diez Man8
5.3
damientos
9 Veinteañero a los 40
5.7
10 Abismo de Pasión
11.9
Source: Kantar Ibope Media Chile
6.5
12.0
16.9
22.8
19.1
14.7
6.3
6.0
5.2
5.6
3.8
5.3
8.8
7.4
10.5
8.6
7.3
6.6
15.9
15.3
16.2
13.8
16.6
17.2
19.7
22.6
21.1
23.3
22.7
20.3
21.2
19.4
19.3
19.1
19.3
18.8
19.9
19.5
19.6
18.0
22.4
24.1
3.2
4.3
10.7
20.4
27.6
28.5
5.0
4.5
10.4
5.1
18.0
12.1
29.0
16.3
19.3
26.2
12.6
24.0
Although all the titles in the list show a profile that is markedly
feminine, the one that has the most male audience (39.5%) is the
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 149
telenovela that departs thematically from the rest: Moisés, which
at the same time is markedly the one of older audiences, reaching
56.1% of those over 50 years. Another differentiated profile of the
list corresponds to the only other non-Chilean production, Abismo
de Pasión, which is the second with an oldest audience and very
concentrated in the D socioeconomic group (62.3%). At the opposite extreme is Veinteañero a los 40. In terms of gender, it is very
masculine and close to Moisés, but focused on the 35-49 segment
– the age of the protagonist who awakens from a long period in a
coma –, and it triples the rest of the productions in its concentration
of audience in the ABC1 segment.
3. Transmedia reception
Except for the availability of series and telenovelas chapters
on Chilean sites and YouTube, it was not possible to detect cases
of production and transmedia reception of Chilean fiction. The consumer strategy beyond television programming frequently used social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as means
of interaction with the audience, talking to it through hashtags (the
use of # on Twitter) superimposed on the screen during the broadcasting of the telenovelas, mainly on TVN, Canal 13 and Mega, inviting to express an opinion on some problematic raised in the story
or to comment on a photo or a fragment of the program.
4. Highlights of the year
The year 2016 brought the consolidation of industrial processes
more than great innovations: the downward trend in the ratings of
the entire Chilean television system that hit, especially, the state
channel; the end of the television “with a mission” after the sale of
UCV, the last university channel of Chile, to GCO, group that represents Disney in Chile in other areas; and the relevance of Turkish
production for the programming grid of all channels.
A single element draws attention in the list of the most watched
shows this year: three of the productions listed correspond to Chil-
150 | Obitel 2017
ean telenovelas in the afternoon (3 p.m. time slot) and were commissioned by Mega to the production company AG Creative Garage.
These telenovelas are broadcasted outside prime time and, even so,
they obtained rating levels that surpass the productions that were
broadcasted in that time slot. Thus, Amanda obtained 18.1% of
household rating, surpassing Ámbar (telenovela of 8 p.m.), which
obtained 17%, Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos (10:30 p.m.), Brazilian telenovela that obtained 11.7%, and Veinteañero a los 40
(10:30 p.m.), Chilean telenovela that reached 10.7%.
This is a surprise if we think that until 2011 it was considered
that the afternoon time slot did not yield sufficient rating to recover
the high investment costs involved in producing a national telenovela and the space was occupied by Latin American telenovelas.
In 2011, TVN broadcasted Esperanza, a telenovela co-produced with My Friend. Esperanza’s argument was about a Peruvian
immigrant who goes to work as a domestic servant in a house in
Santiago and discovers that her new employer is a love of youth and
the father of her son. The telenovela recovered several attributes
of the traditional Latin American melodrama, which allowed it to
compete with the type of programming that the other channels were
broadcasting: a poor young woman falls in love and has a son with
a rich man who does not know that he has been father. In addition,
it replicated the audiovisual aesthetics of these productions through
the use of simple interiors, little action and suspense, and the use of
romantic songs as a soundtrack. This allowed reducing the cost of
production in order to decrease the investment risk.
The end of the telenovela averaged 12.6 rating points and it was
considered a success. TVN continued to produce telenovelas in the
afternoon and managed to replicate what had been achieved with
Esperanza. In fact, Dama y Obrero, the telenovela that followed,
had a remake on Telemundo. Then came Volver a Amar (2013), La
Chúcara (2014), and Esa no Soy Yo (2015).
Therefore, since the creation of Mega’s drama area in 2014, the
production of telenovelas was considered not only in prime time,
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 151
but also at 3 p.m., replicating TVN’s model, insisting on high melodramatic contents commissioned to outside producers. Mega’s innovation is to improve the level of production (with more exteriors,
a more careful treatment of the image) and to incorporate in all its
telenovelas some link with the contingency.
Eres mi Tesoro resumed the issue of disability, but not from the
victimization of the disabled. The protagonist’s daughter was in a
wheelchair and through her we could see the challenges involved in
rehabilitation, school integration and medical care. However, this
girl is not a suffering character, or just tender, but a girl with challenges, hopes and frustrations. While the mother has her daughter’s
disability as a constant topic, most of her conflicts are those of any
telenovela: choosing whom to pursue a romantic relationship with.
Her daughter’s disability builds her, but it does not define her.
In Te Doy la Vida the issues of artificial insemination and transplants are discussed. In this case, a couple who had their child using
semen from a donor learns that their child has leukemia and needs a
bone marrow transplant for which no one is compatible. Therefore,
they have to seek the biological father and ask him to help them.
Again, the contingent topic is subsumed to the melodramatic plot,
as the child heals in the first half of the telenovela and the relationship of the mother with the biological father becomes more relevant.
Amanda approaches the issue of rape. However, in this case
there is an innovation regarding the more traditional melodrama and
a recovery of the melodrama with Chilean suspense (that appears
already since the 1980s, with La Madrastra, Los Títeres and others).
Margarita, a young woman who was raped in her teenager years by
three of the four Santa Cruz brothers, returns to take revenge. She
poses as Amanda, the nurse of the mother of the family, to approach
them and destroy them. On the way, she falls in love with Luciano,
the brother who did not participate in the attack. Amanda obtained
the highest rating record in this time slot.
This background seems to suggest that the afternoon telenovela
will remain and consolidate as one of the star products on Mega’s
grid.
152 | Obitel 2017
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Chile.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
The decade covered by this ten-year review of Obitel has been
of transformations in Chilean television. University television disappeared, which, independently of its contents, had been a distinctive feature of the national milieu. Similarly, public television, with
its original commercial financing only, went from being the dominant actor in the industry to one that, because of its poor results, has
had its continuity put into question. It was also internationalized:
Time Warner entered the ownership of Chilevisión, and Discovery,
in part, of Mega. Two of the largest business groups are now owned
by Canal 13 and Mega. The idea of channels with a mission (extra
commercial) is in the past. In the midst of these changes, those who
used to be the leaders are no longer and a channel that, since its
creation in 1990, and until it changed ownership in 2011, had never
managed to have a profit appears as a great dominator. Within this
framework of transformation in the structure of the industry, we will
review the evolution and changes in some common areas in the different chapters of this yearbook.
Rating and share: rebalance of forces
The follow-up of the audience results of the top ten programs
is indicative of the leadership changes observed in Chilean open
television over the last decade. There are 100 programs in ten years.
Of these, 44% belong to TVN, the clear dominator of the decade.
However, it only managed to install one in the top ten of 2015 and
one in 2016. In the opposite situation is Mega. It only has 14 programs in the top ten of the decade, but 12 of them are in the last
two years, not counting the Turkish telenovelas, which were the ram
with which they gave the initial blow and have continued to bear
fruit two years later .
However, the review of the composition of the top ten of the
decade not only shows the substitution of one leader for another,
but it also reveals a change in the structure of competition. Between
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 153
2007 and 2013, as measured by Obitel – because in the perception
of any Chilean the affirmation would also be valid since the 1960s
–, more than 80% of the top ten were concentrated between TVN
and Canal 13, and the rest was completed by CHV. But in the last
couple of years, adding the reinforcement of the Turkish telenovelas
that are not recorded in the top ten, that bipolar competition changed
to a scenario in which, at least for now, an actor dominates almost
without a counterbalance, as occurs in Brazil or Mexico.
The look on the origin of the productions located in the top
ten of the decade leaves no doubt: 97 of the 100 titles are national
productions. However, those four that are missing – two from Brazil, one from Colombia and one from Mexico – occurred in 2015
and 2016. Although they are at the end of the table each year, they
managed to displace national productions. This seems to be a consequence of the weakening of national production, after the Turkish phenomenon, which attracted the audience, and the advertising
investment towards Mega, besides the dismemberment of the drama
production area of TVN, which in 2014 almost completely migrated
towards Mega.
Audience: older and poorer
In the decade between 2007 and 2016 there were strong and
significant changes in the behavior of television audiences in Chile.
The most obvious is the growth of the main replacement for open
television, pay TV. According to the figures of the Undersecretariat
of Telecommunications, in 2007 the penetration of pay television
reached 26.3% of households in Chile. By 2016, that number doubled. And if not only the formal subscribers, but the total number
of households is considered, according to the Establishment Survey
2013, conducted by Ibope in the People Meter measuring area, penetration could reach 63.5% of households. But it is not just access to
technology, but also changes in use. By 2007, the household rating
of the total of pay TV reached 6.5 points, but by 2016 it had more
than doubled, reaching 15.2%, according to Kantar Ibope Media’s
154 | Obitel 2017
measurements. Put differently: in 2007, any of the four main channels of open television achieved an audience higher than that of pay
television as a whole, while in 2016 it is necessary to add at least
three of them to overcome it.
However, the competition on open television no longer comes
only from pay TV. In 2007 it was not yet two years since the first
video was uploaded to YouTube, in April 2005, starting the streaming industry and later mobile consumptions, without which it is impossible to understand audiovisual consumption, especially of the
younger ones.
At the level of total consumption of television, in Chile there
is not a fall yet. In fact, between 2007 and 2016, average daily consumption went from 203 to 225 minutes. What has happened is an
aging of the audience, because that increase is made up of an augmentation between those over 35 and a fall between 13 and 24 years.
Something similar occurs at the socioeconomic level. The consumption falls in the ABC1 segment and rises in the D segment. It is the
young and the rich who are watching less television; the old and the
poor watch more.
Specifically from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., the classic time slot of the
evening telenovela, there is a marginal drop between 2007 and
2016, from 25.9 to 25.4 rating points (61.3 to 57.0 household rating). However, the crossing by age is more significant. Until the
age of 34, all of them go down, while those over 65 go up sharply.
What we have then is that the traditional time slot of the national
telenovela accentuates the socioeconomic and age effect observed
in general consumption, which is commercially negative.
The above shows that, with variations and displacements, the
habit of watching television subsists. The problem is open television. Considering the four main channels, their household rating has
fallen in the classic time slot of the telenovela, from 8 p.m. to 9
p.m., from 52 to 36 points. Mega rose from 11.2 to 14.8, and CHV
fell marginally from 8.5 to 8. However, the great crisis is in Canal
13 and TVN, the historical producers, which today reach between
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 155
half and a third of the household rating they achieved a decade ago,
being the examples of the crisis that the industry is experiencing.
Narrative themes: changes and continuities
In terms of structure, rhetorical treatment, genres and narrative
topics, the transit of Chilean television has been more of emergences than of trends. More than subtle and constant changes, what has
been is the appearance of certain types of representation for a year,
which are successful in terms of rating, so they are imitated by the
rest of the industry or maintained by the same channel, and, after a
while, they lose relevance. Each of them has redefined the limits of
what is possible to do in different genres and time slots, increasing
the repertoire of plots and narrative resources, but they have not
been able to solidify as independent genres.
With the appearance of Alguien te Mira (TVN), in 2007, with
its plot of suspense, a definitive redefinition of the telenovela appeared to begin. The night telenovelas, from that year, had no melodrama and were telenovelas only by the label assigned to them by
the industry, but another thing at the narrative level.
There began a maelstrom of suspense telenovelas, most of
them written by screenwriter Pablo Illanes, which lasted until 2011
and yielded a number of good ratings. The scripts of some of them
were distributed abroad, and Telemundo made remakes of Alguien
te Mira, Dónde Está Elisa y La Casa de al Lado. And, indeed, the
boundaries of genre were challenged in an irreversible way, taking
to the extreme the tendency that Chilean telenovelas have had for
the suspense since their beginning, in the 1980s (Gavilán, 2016).
The focus ceased to be the leading couple and the search for a desire
that was constantly postponed and prevented (Fuenzalida, Corro
and Mujica, 2009).
That story was put on a secondary or tertiary level regarding the
challenge of discovering the serial killer (Alguien te Mira), who had
kidnapped a teenager (Dónde Está Elisa, TVN), who was the pedophile who attacked the children of a school (El Laberinto de Alicia,
156 | Obitel 2017
TVN), who were the killers who besieged Viña del Mar (Secretos
en el Jardín, Canal 13). There were difficult love relationships, but
many of them were truncated, unresolved or irrelevant.
Nevertheless, after the maelstrom of this type of telenovelas,
they were replaced by the telenovelas and series that deal with the
difficulties of obtaining the love in a world where the gender roles
are redefined. Secondary characters are strengthened as a way of
accounting for diverse positions and situations, stories have in their
center large amounts of humor, but there is a turning back to the
inhibited desire as a central plot. This type of series and telenovelas
had a first moment between 2004 and 2007, in Canal 13 and TVN,
with Brujas and Los 30, and returned with force from 2012, with
Soltera Otra Vez (Canal 13, night telenovela) and Aquí Mando Yo
(TVN, evening telenovela).
A similar process was experienced with the centrality of humor in fictional and hybrid narratives in Chile. The highest moment
of humor series was between 2006 and 2008, after the success of
Casado con Hijos, the Chilean version of American sitcom Married
with children. Between those years, Casado... became a permanent
presence in Mega, with repetitions in the afternoon, at night and
commentaries during the mornings (in some cases the almost intact
chapters were reproduced). This success gave rise to the appearance
of new remakes of American and Spanish sitcoms (La Nani, Tres
Son Multitud, Mi Bella Genio, Ana y los Siete) and the adaptation of
Argentine stories with humorous plots that leave at secondary level
the love thing (Lola, Fortunato).
In the last three years, there has been a resurgence of romantic
family comedy, hand in hand with the work of the teams of screenwriters led by Daniella Castagno and Rodrigo Bastías and Elena
Muñoz4 and director María Eugenia Rencoret. First in TVN and
later in Mega, this group decided to recover the afternoon time slot
(from which the Chilean telenovelas had almost disappeared as a
Bastías and Muñoz worked irst as part of the Castagno team and then continued to lead
their own team.
4
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 157
result of competition programs, realities or foreign telenovelas) with
whiter and less sexual stories, high levels of melodrama, but also
with much humor.
Narrative structures: trends and hybridizations between audiovisual genres
The above description retains much of the traditional definitions
and delimitations of the audiovisual genres, which can be defined as
labels, grouping strategies that serve to guide the production and
consumption of programs. It is the television genre understood as a
system of stable and transgressible rules of production that accounts
for a particularized mode of mediation of the real (Tesche, 2006).
These barriers are in constant negotiation between author and
recipient (and critics) (Aprea and Soto, 1998; Mercer and Shingler),
because they must reconcile the industrial need to expand markets
by varying themes and types with the need to build loyalties through
known and relatively stable structures. Changes occur within the
limits of genre and only to the extent that they can modify the horizon of audiences’ expectations.
However, although the definition itself insists on the notions
of negotiation, expansion and change, the daily use of genres in the
industry and academia is rather static. In Chilean television we have
seen telenovelas that looked like suspense series, action movies or
extended sitcoms, as well as reality shows where the least important thing was the competition, but the love stories with protagonists
who cried more than Mexican actress Victoria Ruffo.
To collect this tension, we classified all the programs in the database of Obitel Chile that in the last ten years had been defined by
Ibope as telenovelas, series or reality shows/docudramas5 through
the method of hierarchical grouping. The 277 analyzed programs
were grouped considering the behavior of three variables referred
5
Reality shows and docudramas were incorporated because they are considered as hybrid
genres between iction and non-iction, between suspense and melodrama (Fuenzalida,
Corro and Mujica, 2009; Obitel Peru, 2015; Fuenzalida, 2007).
158 | Obitel 2017
to levels of melodramatization (centrality of the amorous desire/
impediment plot, level of audiovisual emotionality and centrality
of the protagonist couple) and as for the centrality of humor and
suspense.
The result was a classification into five groups:
1) classical melodrama, with high levels of centrality of the matrix
romantic desire and impediment, with low levels of suspense
and humor. In this category are grouped telenovelas and series;
2) suspense, with high levels of suspense, low humor levels and
medium and low levels of desire and impediment. The audiovisual treatment is not particularly emotional. It includes telenovelas, series, docudramas and reality shows;
3) melodrama with suspense, where both the suspense and the romantic matrix are relevant and the audiovisual treatment has
medium to high levels of emotionalization. Only telenovelas
are included;
4) humorous melodrama, where both humor and romantic matrix
are central. It includes telenovelas, series, docudramas and realities;
5) the mixed category called emotional choir, with little centrality of the desire/impediment and humor matrix, medium levels
of suspense, but with high levels of choral narration and emotionalizing audiovisual treatment. Series and docudramas are
included.
These groups cross the traditional distinctions of genres (see
next table). Telenovelas are fundamentally distributed in melodramatic categories, leading to think more in telenovelas types or subgenres. However, it is possible to find suspense telenovelas. In the
case of realities and docudramas, they can be classified as melodramas, suspense, humorous melodrama and emotional choir. Series fluctuate between classic melodrama, suspense and humorous
melodrama.
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 159
Telenovela
32%
10%
12%
0%
46%
100%
Classic melodrama
Suspense
Suspense melodrama
Emotional choir
Humorous melodrama
Total
Series
24%
22%
1%
8%
45%
100%
Reality show
23%
42%
0%
18%
18%
100%
Total
27%
22%
5%
8%
38%
100%
A diachronic analysis of these groups allows to confirm the
fluctuations described in the above section. Suspense reached 38%
of the analyzed programs in 2011 and 33.3% in 2013. Classic melodrama surpassed 35% in 2005, 2014 and 2015. Humorous melodrama had its peak in 2006 (64%), 2008 (52.8%) and 2012 (58.8%).
2005
Classic
melo35%
drama
Sus25%
pense
Suspense
6%
melodrama
Emotional
3%
choir
Humorous
31%
melodrama
Total 100%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
7%
27%
14%
29%
22%
23%
24%
22%
37%
35%
29%
27%
14%
29%
22%
39%
12%
33%
7%
25%
0%
0%
6%
4%
22%
0%
0%
0%
10%
5%
0%
9%
14%
4%
6%
0%
6%
6%
27%
0%
64%
36%
53%
33%
28%
39%
59%
39%
20%
35%
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
This analysis allows to determine that the traditional distinction remains, i.e., telenovelas tend to group with other telenovelas,
and series with series. Nevertheless, the presence of programs of
different genres in these categories allows us to see the constant negotiation constituted by the definition of genre itself and to account
for hybrid narrative patterns. With the complement of the reception
studies, it would be possible to determine the uses and gratifications
that the audiences make of these hybridizations. It is also necessary
to consider the effects of the fiction and non-fiction character (and
160 | Obitel 2017
the fluidity represented by realities and docudramas) in the perception of genres.
Evidently, structural considerations – as the distinction between
chapters and episodes or the duration of a series – are central to the
relationship established between industry, audience and audiovisual
program. It is not the same to commit to watch a show every day or
once a week. But this factor also tensions traditional genres if we
consider online consumption and phenomena as series or telenovelas marathons in platforms such as Netflix.
Producing companies and channels: diversity is independent
Since 96 of the 100 titles included in the top ten of the decade
correspond to Chilean productions, it is possible to identify through
them the underlying production strategies. Two thirds of these titles
were produced by the channels themselves, and the rest by independent producers. With some exceptions, the channels have tended to
reserve the production of telenovelas for themselves and allocate
other independent formats, such as docurealities, dramas, miniseries
and unitarios. An exception to this rule are the telenovelas aired
after lunch time slot, which are the most frequently opened to independent production.
A second phenomenon to observe is that the diversity of formats present in the top ten has been progressively reduced over the
years. The greatest diversity was observed in 2008-2009, when half
of the titles were different from telenovelas, and the minimum diversity occurred in 2016, when there were only telenovelas.
Transmedia production and reception
As stated in the 2015 Obitel report, since 2011 it was possible
to recognize certain cross-platform explorations on Chilean television. At the time there was a discussion regarding the existence of
transmedia viewing – the possibility of viewing chapters or programs on the channel’s website or on YouTube – with limited spaces for interactivity – mainly comments on the official site, Twitter
and Facebook.
Chile: the strengthening of private television | 161
Some previous multiplatform adventures were added to this basic level, such as interactive telenovelas, with Quiero si tú Quieres
(Canal 13, 2004 and 2005) and El Blog de la Feña (Canal 13, 2008
and 2009). In them, the audience voted for the development of the
story by telephone or the internet. Depending on the outcome, decisions were made about the characters or advances of the telenovela.
The only truly transmedia experience was telenovela La Casa
de al Lado (TVN, 2010), which generated specific content for diverse platforms: webseries and webcomics in its website, blogs,
Facebook profiles for the characters and contests to promote the
creative interaction – the audience sends its own videos of a choreography presented in the telenovela.
References
Aprea, G. and Soto, M. (1998). Telenovela, telecomedia y estilo de época.
El sistema de géneros narrativos audiovisuales en la Argentina hoy. In Banco de textos. IV Congreso de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Investigadores en Comunicación – Alaic. Asociación Latinoamericana de Investigadores
en Comunicación. Retrieved on June 10, 2006 from www.eca.usp.br/alaic/
Congreso1999/16gt/Gustavo%20Aprea.rtf.
CNTV (2016). Chilenos ven más de un mes de televisión al año. CNTV. Retrieved on April 29, 2017 from https://www.cntv.cl/chilenos-ven-mas-de-un-mesde-television-al-ano/cntv/2016-07-29/174644.html.
CNTV (2017). Nuevas concesiones de TV digital de libre recepción. CNTV.
Retrieved on April 29, 2017 from https://www.cntv.cl/nuevas-concesiones-detv-digital-de-libre-recepcion/cntv/2017-03-06/164520.html.
CNTV (2017). I Encuesta Nacional sobre contenidos audiovisuales y de TV
por internet. CNTV. Retrieved on April 29, 2017 from https://www.cntv.
cl/i-encuesta-nacional-sobre-contenidos-audiovisuales-y-de-tv-por-internet/
cntv/2016-10-07/121153.html.
Fuenzalida, V., Corro, P. and Mujica, C. (2009). Melodrama, subjetividad e
historia: ensayos sobre la ficción cinematográfica y televisiva chilena en la década del 90. Independent publication financed by Fondo de Fomento Audiovisual. Santiago.
IAB (2016). Chile lidera el uso de smartphones en Latinoamérica con 7,9
millones de usuarios. IAB Trends. Retrieved on April 29, 2017 from http://
162 | Obitel 2017
iabtrends.cl/2016/08/09/chile-lidera-el-uso-de-smartphones-en-latinomaericacon-7-9-millones-de-usuarios/.
Mujica, C. and Bachmann, I. (2013). Melodramatic profiles of Chilean newscasts: the case of emotionalization. IJOC.
Soto, J. A., Valenzuela, A. and Proust, V. (2017). Televisión Digital Terrestre.
In J. Whittle and E. Núñez (ed.). V Panorama del Audiovisual (p. 47-59). Facultad de Comunicaciones Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago,
Chile.
Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones (2016). VII Encuesta Nacional de Accesos, Usos y Usuarios de Internet. Subtel. Retrieved on April 29, 2017 from
http://www.subtel.gob.cl/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Informe-VII-Encuestade-Acceso-Usos-y-Usuarios-de-Internet_VF.pdf.
Tesche, A. (2006). Gênero e regime escópico na ficção seriada televisual. In E.
B. Duarte and M. L. D. de Castro. Televisão: entre o mercado e a academia (p.
73-90). Porto Alegre: Sulina.
4
ColombIA: A decAde of seArches, hybrIdIzAtIons
And exPerImentAtIons
1
Authors:
Borys Bustamante Bohórquez, Fernando Aranguren Díaz,
Hernán Javier Riveros Solórzano
Team:
Diana María Lozano Prat, Adriana Carolina Pérez Gutiérrez,
Olga Lucía Gutiérrez Romero, Luis Alejandro Corredor,
Fernando Guevara Amortegui
Introduction
The analysis of the last decade of television fiction in Colombia allows us to assert that the production and reception processes
in the nation have developed from a dynamic characterized by the
search and experimentation in the matter of genres, formats and narratives, where an increasingly growing preponderance of an emphasis on the quality of production stands out and the emergence of
hybridizations in which the influx of cinematographic narratives is
mixed with the classic elements of melodrama. Thus, national fiction has become a fertile ground for the construction of different
ways of telling stories, and, although the transmedia type design has
not been positioned with total force, the transformation of ways of
producing, communicating and building fictions on the small screen
has become increasingly latent.
The aforementioned tendencies have been accentuated during
the last year, in which, although sociocultural phenomena appear as
For the development of this academic research, we have the signiicant contribution of
Ibope Colombia, a company that kindly provided us with the data and statistics on which
this study is based on.
1
164 | Obitel 2017
the protagonists of television coverage, as in the case of the peace
process, the Olympic Games and other sporting events, in the specific case of fiction, what is evident is a constant growth of series,
both in audience and in the onscreen quota during prime time space,
which they share primarily with reality shows. In addition, the emergence of strategic alliances between major national channels and
international producers has allowed the management of production
techniques anchored in the cinematographic scene and, at the same
time, the exploration of other display possibilities for fictions, such
as: digital platforms, streaming systems and OTT, like Netflix, with
whom Caracol TV established important deals during the last year.
1. Colombia’s audiovisual context in 2016
For Colombia, the year 2016 was marked by a series of events
of significant historical and cultural value. On the one hand, the
peace process with the FARC had a leading role due to the dynamics
of events such as the plebiscite, the Nobel Prize obtained by President Santos and the elaboration of an adjustment to the final peace
agreement for its endorsement through Colombia’s legislation. On
the other hand, the performance of national athletes in the Olympic and Paralympic Games became a space that united the country
around news that emerged in the light of triumphs and the participation in said engagements. Hence, the audiovisual context was filled
with content related to these themes as central elements, without
neglecting the trends that have marked Colombia’s small screen,
which are focused on the prevalence of reality shows and, in the
specific case of television fiction, the marked domain of series as
a preferred format of the two large national private channels. Now,
it is worth noting that 2016 was a year in which television was significantly expanding to the digital scenario and the use of platforms.
1.1. Open television in Colombia in 2016
Open television in Colombia is comprised of five national
channels that are distributed as follows.
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 165
Chart 1. National stations/channels of open television in Colombia
Private stations (3)
Public stations (2)
RCN
Señal Colombia
Caracol
Canal Institucional
Canal Uno
TOTAL TV STATIONS = 5
Source: Obitel Colombia
Private channels continue to lead the consumption of Colombian television and are preferred by the audience due to the variety of
offers presented in their television programming and the administration of efficient marketing strategies in order to have a greater number of spectators. Likewise, the resources invested in these channels
through advertising allow them to have the technical tools and human resources that result in offering higher quality productions.
In the case of public channels, it is worth highlighting the work
carried out by Señal Colombia, which was recognized with 11 India
Catalina Awards. However, its audience, as in other years, is not
really meaningful, despite the creative efforts made to reach more
homes in the national territory.
Graph 1. TV audience by channel
Home
audience
%
Caracol
RCN
Canal Uno
Señal
Colombia
Canal
Institucional
3.23
2.19
0.15
56.47
38.29
2.62
0.05
0.87
TOTAL
5.72
100
Channel
56.47
38.29
2.61
1.75
0.87
60.00
Caracol
50.00
RCN
40.00
Canal Uno
30.00
Señal
Colombia
20.00
0.1
1.75
10.00
Canal
Institucional
0.00
Caracol
RCN
Canal
Uno
Señal Canal InstiColombia tucional
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
The preceding graph shows the preponderance of private channels Caracol and RCN over the public channels, obtaining 94.76%
of interest from the audience.
166 | Obitel 2017
Graph 2. Share by channel
Channel
Caracol
RCN
Canal Uno
Señal Colombia
Señal Institucional
TOTAL
Individual
share
20
14.45
0.78
0.6
%
55.20%
39.88%
2.15%
1.66%
1.10%
60.00
Caracol
55.20
39.88
2.15
1.66
50.00
RCN
0.4
1.10
0.00
36.23
100
40.00
Canal Uno
30.00
20.00
10.00
Caracol
RCN
Canal
Uno
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
As in the case of rating, this graph shows that private channels
continue to dominate when it comes to share, since they present
95.08% of share, and Caracol is the channel referred as outstanding
in television during 2016.
Graph 3. Offer by genre in TV programming
Broadcast
genres
Broadcast
hours
%
Information
5,170
27.7
Fiction
4,990
26.7
Entertainment
5,198
27.8
Religion
Sports
532
1,119
2.8
6.0
Education
247
1.3
Politics
Politics
163
0.8
Other
Other
1,238
6.6
Total
0.8%
1.3%
6.0%
2.8%
6.6%
27.8%
Information
Fiction
27.7%
Entertainment
Religion
Sports
26.7%
Education
18,658:304 100
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
According to the previous graph, in Colombia’s television programming offer for 2016, productions referred as entertainment,
such as realities, magazines, contests and musicals, have greater
importance than other genres, with a demand of 27.8%, closely
followed by the information, with 27.7%. This is due to the live
transmissions of all the details of the peace process and its coverage
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 167
in news and documentaries. Fiction is in third place, with 26.7%,
which is the same position of the previous year.
1.2. Audience trends in 2016
In 2016 the audience trend was significantly influenced by reality shows, information programs and sports specials. This is because, as already mentioned, of the protagonism of events such as
the peace process and the participation of our athletes in Rio 2016,
the eliminations towards the 2018 World Cup and the main cycling
races of the world circuit: Tour of Italy (Giro d’Italia), Tour de
France and Tour of Spain (Vuelta a España).
In the context of digital communication and the technosphere,
social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram showed
how quickly consumers upload their preferences and opinions and
create new elements to generate debate, in addition to being attentive to new applications for greater quality of their products.
Finally, within fiction, series set the standard in this genre, surpassing once again the telenovelas. In their narratives, the themes
revolved around the realities of our country and others evoked past
times whose arguments involved racism, violence, love and social
conflicts. In each of them, attention was paid to the production and
the search for narrative innovation to bring them to the screen.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
In terms of advertising investment, it is necessary to point out
the way in which the digital scenario becomes increasingly important compared to traditional media, which is visible in trend reduction in the so-called traditional media, such as magazines, newspapers, radio, national TV and out of home.
Given this scenario, there was an increase in digital advertising investment, and the five trends that marked said guideline were:
an increase in video marketing of 118% compared to 2015; display
ads, increasingly sought after over text advertising; mobile devices,
whose growth in entertainment applications is of 67% over the pre-
168 | Obitel 2017
vious year; and the use of social media for advertisement, which
grew 104%.
However, returning to traditional media, television retains the
first place in business advertising investment, with Caracol standing
out by receiving an annual investment of 2,090,075,467, followed
by RCN, which received 1,541,531,220, and, in third place, Canal
Uno, which received investments of 160,653,735 in the previous
year. Figures with the highest percentage by time slot are held by
prime time, with a significant rise in investment during sports programs, due to the considerable number of audiences they summon.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
The merchandising and social merchandising processes have
not been alien to the transformation of media environments towards
the digital scenario. To this extent, the actions launched from the
small screen have begun to also be worked using cyberspace and
mobile technology strategies, so that more and more channels appeal to video marketing, display ads, mobile systems, social media
and information blogs, without neglecting campaigns based on the
use of hashtags on Twitter or interactive participation.
However, with regards to social merchandising, the trend consolidated for years continues in order to establish the participation
mechanisms of the channels in events linked to social programs,
such as the “Caminata de la Solidaridad por Colombia” and “Telethon”, which, despite the reduction in audience, still remain as the
fundamental space to establish relationships with community work
from the channels and their alliances with foundations and other
companies located in the social merchandising scene.
1.5. Communication policies
With regards to communication policies, it is essential to emphasize the importance given to guaranteeing the conditions to access digital media and technologies throughout the national territory. The central axis is the establishment of a series of regulations
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 169
addressing issues such as the technical ordering of the electromagnetic spectrum for radio, the update of the Integrated Management
Model of the Ministry, the Fund for Information and Communication Technologies, and Court Judgment 599/2016, which specifies
the obligation for TV networks to guarantee television services of
regional channels at a national level under supervision of the National Television Authority. These are essential aspects within the
framework of Vive Digital Plan, which functions as a route and
main framework for communication in Colombia.
1.6. ICT trends
In terms of ICT trends, it is important to point out the ample
coverage that has been built with broadband internet, 4G technology
and Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT). These three elements have
been essential for the consolidation of an appropriation dynamic
of both mobile technologies and other ways of accessing different
media in today’s communication environments. Likewise, with this
dynamic, it has been possible for open and HD signals of DTT to
reach 81% of the territory and to begin to generate developments in
the production and consumption of mobile TV and a better functioning of free internet connections – both for broadband and Wi-Fi – in
the country.
1.7. Public TV
Public TV in Colombia presents a paradoxical condition, since,
on the one hand, it shows a rather remarkable creative character
that allows its productions to be recognized by critics and seen as
references for the development of quality television products at a
documentary and cultural level; but, on the other hand, the audience
is low compared to private channels, and the investment from the
contributions of the Fund for the Development of Television and
Content is not enough to drive marketing campaigns and processes
that mobilize viewers and make its audience grow. Thus, alongside
award winning initiatives, such as Los Puros Criollos, or even a
170 | Obitel 2017
transmedia production, such as Paciente, the difficulty for a greater
impact on the small screen paradoxically appears in terms of consumption of these valuable contents.
1.8. Pay TV
The processes of trend transformation and possibilities of
watching television that have been driven with the appearance of
OTT platforms, like Netflix, have caused the panorama of pay TV
operators, like DirecTV, UNE, Claro, Movistar and ETB, to change
towards the exploration of concepts and services linked to the idea
of “TV everywhere”. It means the possibility of consuming television content at any time, place and with any type of screen. Thus,
systems like Movistar Video, Claro Video and DirecTV on demand
emerge as part of the offer to watch television.
Similarly, channels like HBO, Fox and others also began to
organize their own platforms consistent with this idea. The intention
is to keep the audience against the strong competition that has been
generated from the OTT and that makes pay TV present a blunt
shift to other ways of seeing and consuming television fiction in the
contemporary scenario.
1.9. Independent producers
The opening of international markets, the use of digital platforms by television operators and a growing audiovisual industry
reinforced by the consolidation of even greater academic programs
in the field at a university level have allowed the growth and consolidation of a large sector of independent producers that have been
placed in the possibility of constructing content for the web, advertising campaigns and, in the case of the bigger ones, for national or
international productions. Thus, independent production has grown
considerably in 2016 and has managed to position different products
in today’s multiscreen environments.
Nevertheless, in the middle of growth, a central contradiction
appears: the producers with greater development are those with
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 171
commercial sense, since those inclined to social or community work
remain invisible and, paradoxically, in spite of its cultural function
and even the prizes that can reap for their work, remain under the
shadow of the success of those who co-produce with or for the private sector.
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction broadcast in 2016 (national and imported;
premiere and reruns; and co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES – 15 RERUN TITLES – 15
Caracol – 8 national titles
1. Cuando Vivas Conmigo (series)
2. La Niña (series)
3. Sin Tetas Sí Hay Paraíso (series)
4. La Esclava Blanca (telenovela)
5. Sinú, Rio De Pasiones (telenovela)
6. El Tesoro (telenovela)
7. Tu Voz Estéreo (series)
RCN – 7 national titles
8. Bloque de Búsqueda (series)
9. Contra el Tiempo (series)
10. La Ley del Corazón (telenovela)
11. Sala de Urgencias 2 (series)
12. Todo es Prestao (telenovela)
13. Las Vegas (telenovela)
14. Azúcar (series)
15. Hilo de Sangre Azul (telenovela)
Caracol – 4 titles
1. Los Caballeros las Prefieren Brutas
(series)
2. La Tormenta (telenovela)
3. El Baile de la Vida (telenovela)
4. Historias de una Madame (telenovela)
RCN – 11 titles
5. Ecomoda (series)
6. Yo Soy Betty, la Fea (telenovela)
7. Chepe Fortuna (telenovela)
8. La Hija del Mariachi (telenovela)
9. A Mano Limpia (series)
10. A Corazón Abierto (series)
11. Las Santísimas (telenovela)
12. Tres Milagros (telenovela)
13. Casa de Reinas (series)
CO-PRODUCTIONS – 1
14. El Man es German (series)
Caracol – 1 title
1. El Señor de los Cielos 2 y 3 (Mexico, 15. En la Boca del Lobo (telenovela)
Colombia, United States – series)
RCN – 0 titles
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 21
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES – 5
TOTAL RERUN TITLES: 15
Caracol – 0 imported titles
RCN – 5 imported titles
1. Por Siempre Joan Sebastián (series – TOTAL TITLES BROADCAST: 36
Mexico)
2. Hasta que te Conocí (series – Mexico)
3. Tres Veces Ana (telenovela – Mexico)
4. Simplemente María (telenovela – Mexico)
5. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (telenovela –Mexico)
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
172 | Obitel 2017
Table 1 shows that, in productions that premiered in 2016, there
is a prevalence of series and telenovelas. In terms of imported titles,
the presence of fiction from Mexico and Turkey stands out. From
the latter, there are telenovelas such as Elif, el secreto de Feriha,
Kara para Ask and Kara Sevda.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
Titles
%
NATIONAL (total)
15
71.4
OBITEL COUNTRIES
5
23.8
(total)
NON OBITEL COUN0
0.0
TRIES (total)
Argentina
0
0.0
Brazil
0
0.0
Chile
0
0.0
Colombia
15
71.4
Ecuador
0
0.0
Spain
0
0.0
United States (Hispanic
0
0.0
production)
Mexico
5
23.8
Peru
0
0.0
Portugal
0
0.0
Uruguay
0
0.0
Venezuela
0
0.0
CO-PRODUCTIONS
1
4.8
(total)
Colombian co-productions
1
0.0
Ibero-American co-pro0
0.0
ductions
GENERAL TOTAL
21
100.0
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
Chapters /
episodes
1363
78.0
979:34
70.2
385
22.0
416:16
29.8
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0
0
1363
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
78.0
0.0
0.0
0:00
0:00
0:00
979:34
0:00
0:00
0.0
0.0
0.0
70.2
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
385
0
0
0
0
22.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
275:16
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
19.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
188
100.0
141:00
10.1
188
0.0
141:00
10.1
%
Hours
%
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
1748
0.0
1395:50
100.0
In the premiere fictions for 2016, national productions prevail,
with a significant presence of series and Mexican telenovelas. For
this year, only a co-production premiered, by Mexico, Colombia
and the United States.
Premieres in national productions are mostly broadcast at prime
time, while Ibero-American premieres also appear in the morning,
afternoon and night slots.
National
Ibero-American
Total
Time slot
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
Morning (6:00-12:59)
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
126
Afternoon (13:00-18:59)
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
128
84.7
15.3
100.0
833:38:00
145:36:00
979:14:00
85.1
14.9
100.0
31
188
473
Prime time (19:00-22:59)
1155
Night (23:00-2:00)
208
Total
1363
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
26.6
90:18:00
21.6
126
6.9
90:18:00
6.5
27.1
163:24:00
39.2
128
7.0
163:24:00
11.7
6.6
39.7
100.0
22:36:00
141:00:00
417:18:00
5.4
33.8
100.0
1186
396
1836
64.6
21.6
100.0
856:14:00
286:36:00
1396:32:00
61.3
20.5
100.0
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
National
Ibero-American
Format
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
7
46.7
554
40.6
408:13:00
41.7
3
50.0
354
74.8
253:42
60.9
Series
8
53.3
809
59.4
571:21:00
58.3
3
50.0
119
25.2
162:34
39.1
Miniseries
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Total
15
100.0
1363
100.0
979:34:00
100.0
6
100.0
473
100.0
416:16:00
100.0
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 173
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast by time slot
174 | Obitel 2017
As for fiction formats, in both the national and Ibero-American
productions, the series and telenovelas prevail.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
MornAfterPrime
%
%
ing
noon
time
Format
%
Night
%
Total
%
Telenovela
0
0.0
0
0.0
7
50.0
0
0.0
7
46.7
Series
0
0.0
0
0.0
7
50.0
1
100.0
8
53.3
Miniseries
Teleilm
Unitario
Docudrama
Others
(soap opera,
etc.)
Total
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
14
100.0
1
100.0
15
100.0
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
The national series and telenovelas are almost entirely broadcast at prime time, and only one series was aired in the night time
slot.
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Titles
%
Present
Time
19
90.5
Period
1
4.8
Historical
1
4.8
Other
0
0.0
Total
21
100.0
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
With regards to the time period in which fictions are set, the
majority of them are developed in the present, that is, 19 out of 21
productions. As for the two remaining, one corresponds to historical
fiction, as it narrates aspects related to drug trafficking in Colombia
in the 1990s, and the other is a period fiction, as it recreates the
colonial period.
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 175
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Country
of original
idea or
script
Producer
company
Channel
1 La Niña
Colombia
Caracol,
CMO (Colombia)
Caracol
Juana Uribe
11.25
36.45
Las Her2 manitas
Calle
Colombia
Caracol
(Colombia)
Caracol
Cesar A
Betancourt
10.38
22.85
Colombia
Caracol
(Colombia)
Caracol
Claudia F.
Sánchez, Said
Chamie, Andrés Burgos
10.35
21.92
Colombia
Fox Telecolombia
(Colombia)
Caracol
Gustavo
Bolívar
10.25
21.91
Peru,
Colombia
Caracol
(Colombia)
Caracol
USA
Sony Pictures
Television
(USA)
RCN
Title
3
La Esclava
Blanca
Sin Tetas
4 Sí Hay
Paraíso
Cuando
5 Vivas Conmigo
6 Anónima
Scriptwriter
or author
Rating Share
of original
idea
Mario Vargas
Llosa / Ana
10.24
María Parra
Juan Andrés
Granados
Juan Francisco
9.75
Domínguez
Gerardo
Pinzón
18.15
34.62
7
Hasta que
te Conocí
Mexico
Disney Latino, Somos
Productions
(USA)
RCN
Raúl Olivares
8.80
23.81
8
Bloque de
Búsqueda
Colombia
Teleset (Colombia)
RCN
Jörg Hiller
8.35
22.34
Colombia
Fox Telecolombia
(Colombia)
RCN
7.76
24.15
Colombia
Fox Telecolombia
(Colombia)
RCN
7.07
20.48
9 Celia
10
Contra el
Tiempo
Total productions: 10
100%
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
Andres
Salgado y Paul
Rodriguez
Alberto "Albatroz" Gonzales
- Alejandro
Torres Reyes
Foreign scripts: 3
33%
In the ten most watched titles, the fictions are imposed in the
series format. As far as the channels, Caracol is positioned with the
176 | Obitel 2017
highest audience levels. On the other hand, in the case of producer
companies, we find that national producers prevail, and only in two
of the fictions there is a foreign producer.
Table 7A. The ten most watched national titles:
rating, format, producer, time slot
Title
1 La Niña
2 Las Hermanitas Calle
3 La Esclava Blanca
Sin Tetas Sí Hay
4
Paraíso
Cuando Vivas Con5
migo
6 Bloque de Búsqueda
Rating
11.25
10.38
10.35
Format
Series
Series
Series
10.25
Series
10.24
Series
Caracol
Prime time
8.35
Series
Prime time
7 Celia
7.76
Telenovela
8 Contra el Tiempo
7.07
Series
9 Azúcar
6.72
Telenovela
RCN, Teleset
RCN, Fox Telecolombia
RCN, Fox Telecolombia
RCN, Fox Telecolombia
Caracol
10 El Tesoro
6.59 Telenovela
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
Channel/producer
Caracol, Caracol
Caracol, Caracol
Caracol
Caracol, Foxtelecolombia
Time slot
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Night
Among the most watched national titles, only three correspond
to the telenovela format, and the rest are series that are broadcast at
prime time. On the other hand, Caracol takes the lead, with five out
of ten fictions in the first places of audience.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, duration, time slot
Title
Format
Genre
1 La Niña
Las Hermanitas
2
Calle
3 La Esclava Blanca
Sin Tetas Sí Hay
4
Paraíso
Cuando Vivas
5
Conmigo
Series
Drama
Number
of chap./
ep. (in
2016)
86
First and
last transmission (in
2016)
04/23-09/16
Prime time
Series
Drama
21
01/04-01/25
Prime time
Series
Drama
62
01/26-04/25
Prime time
Series
Drama
90
07/19-11/28
Prime time
Series
Drama
72
09/19-12/30
Prime time
Time slot
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 177
6 Anónima
Hasta Que Te
Conocí
Bloque De
8
Búsqueda
7
Telenovela
Telenovela
60
01/04-03/18
Prime time
Series
Drama
13
04/18-07/04
Prime time
Series
Drama
74
04/26-08/29
Prime time
5
01/04-01/08
Prime time
100
01/26-08/10
Prime time
TeleTele9 Celia
novela
novela
10 Contra El Tiempo
Series
Drama
Source: Ibope Colombia-Obitel Colombia
The genre that prevails in the ten most watched productions is
drama, with eight out of ten fictions. The other two are telenovelas
that were released in 2015, but continued to be broadcast in 2016.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
1
2
3
4
Dominant themes
Conlict, achievement,
La Niña
guerrilla, demobilization,
violence.
Brotherhood, family ties,
Las Hermanitas
popular music, corrupCalle
tion.
Slavery, colonial society,
La Esclava Blanca
love, oppression.
Sin Tetas Sí Hay
Paraíso
Poverty, family relations,
drug traficking, prostitution.
Family relations, sisters,
adventure, inidelity, corruption.
Injustice, impunity, cor6 Anónima
ruption, drug traficking.
Hasta que te
Music, fame, violence,
7
Conocí
poverty.
Corruption, violence,
Bloque de
8
drug traficking, inidelBúsqueda
ity, terrorism.
Music, fame, politics,
9 Celia
corruption.
Traficking, corruption,
10 Contra el Tiempo
violence, love.
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
5
Cuando Vivas
Conmigo
Social themes
Armed conlict, demobilization,
socioeconomic problems in
Colombia.
Poverty, social inequality,
socioeconomic problems in
Colombia.
Slavery, discrimination, racism.
Drug traficking, socioeconomic
problems in Colombia related to
prostitution and beauty stereotypes (plastic surgeries).
Poverty, displacement, extortion, violence.
Corruption, drug traficking,
domestic violence, hired killers.
Poverty, domestic violence,
discrimination.
Drug traficking, socioeconomic
problems in Colombia, corruption.
Discrimination, xenophobia,
poverty, exile, alcoholism.
Organ traficking, corruption,
maia.
178 | Obitel 2017
The most watched fictions during 2016 include narratives related to violence, corruption, family conflicts and drug trafficking,
reflecting problematic characteristics of the Colombian society in
recent decades.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles:
gender, age, socioeconomic status
Titles
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
La Niña
Las Hermanitas Calle
La Esclava Blanca
Sin Tetas Sí Hay Paraíso
Cuando Vivas Conmigo
Anónima
Hasta que te Conocí
Bloque de Busqueda
Celia
Contra el Tiempo
Title
Channel
Caracol
Caracol
Caracol
Caracol
Caracol
RCN
RCN
RCN
RCN
RCN
Gender %
Women Men
12.6
9.0
13.8
7.8
12.9
8.3
13.0
8.4
12.1
8.3
9.9
8.0
9.3
8.0
10.5
5.9
9.2
5.6
12.6
9.0
Channel
1 La Niña
Caracol
2 Las Hermanitas Calle
Caracol
3 La Esclava Blanca
Caracol
4 Sin Tetas Sí Hay Paraíso
Caracol
5 Cuando Vivas Conmigo
Caracol
6 Anónima
RCN
7 Hasta que te Conocí
RCN
8 Bloque de Busqueda
RCN
9 Celia
RCN
10 Contra el Tiempo
RCN
Source: Ibope Colombia – Obitel Colombia
4-11
7.0
4.6
7.0
5.0
5.3
6.2
7.0
4.0
6.0
3.0
12-17
14.0
12.5
15.4
17.2
13.3
15.4
7.6
12.4
10.8
9.6
Socioeconomic status %
AB
C
DE
8.4
11.3
10.7
9.9
10.0
10.8
7.5
9.5
11.7
7.9
10.2
11.1
8.9
9.5
11.0
7.4
7.9
8.2
5.2
9.0
9.1
5.9
7.8
7.7
4.9
7.2
7.8
8.4
11.3
10.7
Age range
18-24
13.0
12.3
11.2
16.6
12.1
11.5
9.5
10.8
9.2
8.3
25-39
18.5
14.1
17.6
18.5
16.4
17.9
12.7
15.9
13.4
11.8
40+
31.4
31.6
29.1
25.3
29.1
26.1
26.5
21.3
22.0
20.1
With regards to the profile of the audience, it is evident that
those with a low socioeconomic status present the highest levels of
reception, as well as the adult population over the age of 25. On the
other hand, women show higher levels of reception to fiction than
men.
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 179
3. Transmedia reception
In the year 2016 in Colombia, the transmedia reception processes are strongly linked to the possibilities of developing productions that allow the carrying out of narratives and creative openings
that would make the integration of multiple media viable. This is
how the advances in this level have been slow and are quite paradoxical, because, although the nation has entered decidedly in the
frame of the digitalization and, consequently, bets have been drawn
in this order from the independent and public sector, a transmedia
production and reception that allows a clear placing of a transformation process of television media has not yet been consolidated, and
particularly of the fiction, which would take it to be epicenter of a
possible media ecology, like the one indicated by Scolari (2015).
On the contrary, even the small screen is still closed and the digital
systems establish more of a relation of repetition than of narrative
connection to generate transmedia universes.
In the midst of this panorama, it is an interesting fact that on
April 21, 2016 the first transmedia production made in Colombia
was released, which, although not fiction, is a clear example of the
production power of this type of works in the nation. It was Paciente, a documentary that responds to an investigative process considering the facts it reports, focusing on the Colombian health system,
and the capacity to generate a narrative system that expand through
different media and allows the audience to get to know the multiple
faces of the problems that arise in hospitals and clinics in the nation.
Paciente is a transmedia written by Jorge Caballero, formed
by a documentary of 70 minutes, nine short films, one webdoc, one
webook, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, one YouTube
channel and one website. It is a Gusano Films production (private
sector), with co-production of Señal Colombia, Proimagenes Colombia Cinematographic Fund and Tribeca Film Institute (public
sector). Additionally, it is complemented by the books of scriptwriter Carol Ann Figueroa: chronicles book Casting para una Muerte
(plain text that is also webook) and Sala de Espera, which is a cre-
180 | Obitel 2017
ative exercise of accompaniment to the realization of the product in
a meta-reflection work.
Thus, within this universe, the different resources fulfill a
specific function directly related to the critical bet of the product.
Thereby, the documentary tells the story of the mother of a cancer
patient who is forced to solve different situations to get access to
medication and care for her daughter. The short films, on the other
hand, are nine stories that tell the life of different patients who come
to the health system seeking care due to various diseases or situations. This would then be a first axis thought for the movie screen
and the small screen, being exhibited in both scenarios by the independent sector (in cinemas) as well as by the public television,
through Señal Colombia.
However, in the digital scenario, the narrative expands towards
the exploration of other possibilities to give meaning to the content
of the audiovisual product and to generate possibilities for another
type of interaction. In this measure appears the webdoc, an interactive online game named Impaciente, which could be downloaded
in tablets and cell phones in order to live the multimedia experience. The narrative of the game focuses on the bureaucratic procedures that a patient must face in order to obtain medication from the
healthcare providers. Finally, the webook Casting para una Muerte
gathers the stories of the people who were part of the documentary
and the short films.
Transmedia ends up establishing a last line of work in a written level and book format, with the webook version and, especially,
Sala de Espera, which collects the entire elaboration and production
process of transmedia work.
Thereby, the final product includes three languages: the audiovisual as a starting point and entry into the problem; the digital
space as a place for interactivity from the notion of gamification
itself of the video game; and, finally, the use of the written media as
memory and critical compilation of the process carried out for the
construction of this narrative. Aspects that are complemented by the
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 181
use of social networks and the webpage of the material as places
for the encounter and the discussion about what is presented in the
transmedia content.
Thus, in relation to the different social networks, the activity
from the production consisted in the posting of trailers, images and
photographs of the different elements that made up the transmedia
and related events, like release, conferences, conversations, as well
as the advertisement of nominations and awards obtained in different film festivals, and, at the time, the invitation to see the material
through Señal Colombia. In this way, an entire universe was created, made up of multiple possibilities of interaction and the open
invitation to debate about very deep problems of the national life.
However, the paradox of this process is precisely the fact that,
despite the complexity of its elaboration, the non-commercial nature
of the product has led to it being practically unnoticed in terms of
audience, consumption and diffusion. The producers’ efforts were
partially rewarded with the participation in networks by viewers
who saw the production on Señal Colombia, the attendance to the
cinemas in which the documentary was exhibited (and which also
correspond to the independent sector) and the invitation to the release of book Sala de Espera at the Bogota Book Fair in 2017, but
that, paradoxically, if seen from the reception process, is not even
close to other products distant from transmedia.
Thus, by reviewing the reception processes, it can be observed
that participation in comparison with other products, such as those
that occupy the first places among the most seen fictions of public
channels, is less than 10% in total. For example: while La Niña’s fan
page has 15,000 likes, Paciente’s has scarcely 1,000. Although there
is no development of fan fiction processes in either, it does become
evident that issues like the construction of memes, the integration of
phrases, words or language modifications related to what is seen on
screen only appear in the most seen products and are carried out by
the private sector.
182 | Obitel 2017
4. Highlights of the year
In 2016, the production of Colombian television fiction was
marked by three fundamental tendencies: the hybrid character of
some products, which allowed to find in them characteristics of
both the series and the telenovela; the consolidation of the biopic
as a narrative style, with greater force in the small screen and the
almost guarantee of success at a production level; and, finally, the
preponderance of the theme of violence as a narrative axis that remains central to the construction of the stories that pass through the
screens.
In the first case, productions such as Cuando Vivas Conmigo
and La Esclava Blanca are highlighted as examples, in which it is
possible to prove the way in which there is an intersection of different sources for the assembly of the narrative as well as hybridization
processes at the time of its materialization as a television product.
Thus, in the case of the first one, the original literary text becomes a
product that integrates the speed of the series with the melodramatic
character of the story of the two sisters. The result is a story of rapid
development, but with certain moments in which the melodrama is a
central element. The same happens with the second proposal, where
the historical frame of events is joined to a high technical invoice
of cinematographic type and a classic love story intersected with
moments of narrative dynamism and recurrence to issues such as
seriality for the connection of events in fiction.
On the other hand, productions such as Hasta que te Conocí,
Celia and Las Hermanitas Calle show a growing phenomenon in
Colombian television production, which is the recurrence to make
use of the biographical stories of popular idols in order to be able
to establish from the narrative what characterizes the life of each
person, through processes of identification and acceptance by the
audiences.
The five remaining fictions of the top ten, that is, La Niña, Sin
Tetas Sí Hay Paraíso, Anónima, Bloque de Búsqueda and Contra el
Tiempo, are situated in a trend that has endured during the last years
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 183
and that, in addition, serves as a good way for building narrative
perspectives at a dizzying pace of the series format and the need for
rapid developments and high visual stimulus. It is about the use of
violence and its different forms and effects as a central theme for the
construction of stories, either from a common place, such as drug
trafficking, armed conflict, legal problems, or the search for other
scenarios, such as organ trafficking. At all times, folding on violent
facts is constituted in a narrative element that allows generating tension, maintains seriality and, above all, as in the case of these products, guarantees a leading role among the most viewed.
This is evident by the fact that the most viewed fiction, La
Niña, is precisely centered on the peace processes and reintegration.
It shows a relationship with violent events and with a dynamic of
persecution and finger-pointing that is maintained throughout the
entire narrative development of the series. On the other hand, Sin
Tetas Sí Hay Paraíso stands as the continuation of the well-known
production released a few years ago and takes up the narrated story
that goes back to drug trafficking as a central point and the body as
an element that comes in to play a strategic place in the relationships with the violent universe. Violence as a source, as a starting
point for transformations and transitions, but finally as a central element of narrative construction, which is also the case of Bloque de
Búsqueda.
In cases such as that of Anónima and Contra el Tiempo, it is interesting to observe the exploration of other scenarios that, although
distant from the relationship with drugs and their commercialization, also offer views of other forms of violence in social environments that have to do both with organ trafficking networks, in the
second case, and with the judicial apparatuses and the bureaucracy,
in the first, leading the anguish to be a protagonist of forms of narrating and to become the axis that connects the speed and the rhythm
of what appears onscreen.
184 | Obitel 2017
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Colombia.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
During the last decade, television fiction in Colombia has undergone a series of transformations that show the changing character presented both in the production processes and in the field of the
audiences, without leaving aside the decisive role that the digitization and structural changes have played in the last couple of years,
which have emerged in terms of narratives, formats and genres in
connection with processes such as the dominance of series, the irruption of cinematographic aspects in the level of production and
the opening to international audiences. However, to understand each
element of these trends inherent to this decade, we will point out
how these transformations have developed.
Audiences
Audiences have changed drastically in terms of channel and
format. During the first part of the decade, RCN managed to place
between three and four of its telenovelas in the top ten, with a rating
between eight and ten points. In the second lustrum and in a progressive manner, Caracol has been occupying outstanding places,
primarily with series, and obtaining first places both in the consolidated rating as well as in the share. So, in the last year, the five most
viewed fictions correspond to this channel, and the format of all of
them is series.
Thus, as can be inferred from the data consolidated in this balance of the last decade as far as television fiction is concerned, we
find that the rating and share of television fiction maintained a stable
trend in said period, that is, without major percentage changes in
television fiction program indicators, as stipulated in the analytical
framework shared by Obitel.
However, the above assertion allows the explanation of some
of the changes that this means of communication has faced in the
decade. Within the entertainment genre, there has been a notable
increase in the presence of reality shows, a trend that has stabilized
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 185
and is still in force to this day. As fiction is one of the genres with
the greatest participation in the field of entertainment, what is interesting to note is that, despite this mutation and the transformations
that the television fiction programming has undergone in the country, the genre has been able to change in order to maintain its audience and participation quotas in small screen programming, which
is the second aspect of importance to highlight at this point.
Likewise, it should be emphasized that, according to the trend
described, the main channels – at the same time producers of television content, Caracol and RCN – have also felt the changes that
have arisen in the media, which, in the specific case of television
fiction, show a restoration in terms of rating and share, favoring
Caracol in the last five years at least, while RCN loses the primacy it
held at the beginning of the decade. This indicates that the programming adopted by Caracol, privileging the series format instead of
telenovela, and mixing them in many cases, in order to adapt them
to the specific situations, stories and national themes, have become
decisive factors for its positioning in the first place in the decade.
It should be noted that this reorientation is associated in the
country to increased consumption of cable television and the positioning of OTT and streaming platforms, such as Netflix, whose offer, as mentioned, constitutes a challenge for television production.
Hence, many audiences, particularly young ones, are migrating to
these other channels and multiscreen sites, with the usual impact on
indicators that determine the production of the media.
This point could be rounded off in the following terms: audiences that, in the decade, are consolidated as those who demand a
more open, quality television, with new formats, themes and treatments in line with global trends that dominate the world of audiovisual narratives, of the very nature of fiction or the reinvention of
formats in the relationships between movies and television. Viewers can either increasingly separate themselves from the channel,
because they see other options in multiple formats, or make the requirement to the channel, which has to reinvent or reposition itself.
186 | Obitel 2017
Communication policies
The communication policies that have contributed most to the
development of television fiction in the country are, in our opinion,
those listed below.
One of them is the transformation of the Ministry of Communication into the Ministry of Technologies of Information and
Communication (MinTIC), which refers to a structural change in
the public policy of communication by incorporating it in the set of
innovations and adaptations in technological, informative and digital form, which are transforming communicative ecosystems at a
global level.
In line with this measure, the National Television Commission
gave way to the National Television Authority, which implicated a
political ascription of the media to the executive branch because it
somehow lost the autonomy with which the Commission operated.
This means that major decisions regarding implementation, adoption of contents and budget management now gravitate around the
relationship maintained by the authority with MinTIC.
The increasingly ambitious and accelerated implementation of
Vive Digital Plan as a national policy in terms of modernization
and technological innovation constitutes part of the country’s response to global challenges for the neutralization of the digital gap
and to secure itself a place. This implies a decision to draw up, by
technological convergence, the television to the diverse digital multiscreen platforms that determine the circulation of contents and of
audiences to a general level.
Finally, the implementation of Digital Terrestrial Television
(DTT) can be highlighted as part of these communication innovation
policies, with the advantages of quality and flexibility that it brings
in connection with networks and digital technological platforms.
Also, it is important to mention the Cinema Law, which is a measure
to stimulate the national film industry, co-productions with international producers and the development of audiovisual production, in
which television has always played and plays a prominent role.
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 187
It should be noted that this set of communication public policies in Colombia have had a double effect. On the one hand, it
has increased the modernization process and instrumentation of
information and communication technologies, which has allowed
the consolidation of the various technological platforms that are an
essential condition for the development of markets and economic
growth of the communication industry itself. On the other hand,
alongside these policies, the industry’s level of concentration in two
or three large economic groups linked to transnational capital has
been clearly reinforced, with all that said situation implies regarding
social democracy, cultural diversity and a social vocation of television media.
Thematic narrative
The decade begins with the boom that, in the matter of television fiction, brought the telenovela like a major format in this genre.
It should be remembered that, during the 1990s and the first decade
of the 21st century, the telenovela in its various forms of production
and significance – as Martín Barbero (1992) pointed out – was the
meeting point of a country separated by its geography, violence,
the excess of centralism. The telenovela was the place where the
regions, with their diversities, searches and cultural identities, were
manifested, emerged and fed from our own sense of nation.
This situation will continue to develop during the decade due
to the appearance of themes that have a profound impact on national
events: drug trafficking, paramilitarism, political conflict with the
guerrillas and various forms of violence associated with multiple
emerging factors. The consequence was the beginning of a multitude of national productions – and also in international co-production – approaching said themes, which positioned the expression
narconovela as one of the particular and proper forms of television
fiction in the country in order to account for what was and is happening all over the national territory.
188 | Obitel 2017
A set of productions in which other situations typical of social
daily life are presented should also be included here, suitable for the
gratifying function of television fiction and that go through recreating the biography of different protagonists of national life in the
field of sports, folk music, religion and even picturesque characters
that enrich the possibilities of genre identification among audiences.
Forms of narrating
As for the forms of narrating and their development in relation to television fiction during the decade, it is pertinent to point
to the determinant influence of the cinematographic language and
discourse in the small screen; that is, television will be increasingly
another scenario in which new audiovisual narratives reorient the
forms of narrating on television heavily influenced by cinematography (Lipovetsky and Serroy, 2009). Particularly, there is the case of
series, miniseries and film formats, which, after a timid incursion on
television programming, began, throughout the decade, to escalate
positions until becoming dominant and even to “contaminate” the
traditional forms of narration of the telenovela and produce narrative fusions, which, ultimately, are the ones that predominate today
in the production of national television fiction.
If the top ten of the decade are examined and correlated with
the way the predominant formats have been positioned or dispossessed, the decline of the telenovela – of the traditional television
narrative, characterized primarily by linearity, extension in time of
a unitary theme to which characters, roles, situations were subordinated, and whose climax advanced in that slow time – and the rise of
the series format, in its different modalities and even mixtures with
the formats of the traditional telenovela, are explained by the spacetime opening that this format brings. Its immediate cinematic heritage, which generates the themes, treatments, languages, situations
and roles, gives great weight to the unforeseeable and, especially,
the characters and, in general, the ones created become very close to
the viewers, who recognize, applaud and follow them on the televi-
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 189
sion programming. In the series a story tells many stories that run in
parallel or complementarily and involve various aspects of reality,
but also a lot of activity on the part of the viewer to give the unity of
the case to what is shown on the small screen.
To summarize, television fiction in the country during the decade shows this clear trend of positioning – we believe that for a
long period – of the series format for the expressive and creative
richness that is inherent to it, This format is able to approach the
imaginaries and sensibilities of the audience and successfully recreate from there what is a reason for attention and collective interest
in social daily life, besides the definite market advantage and profitability associated with this product in the global audiovisual market.
Producers and channels
The television channels and the producers that dominated the
production of television fiction at a national level during the decade
are essentially the same. We refer to the two large television networks, Caracol and RCN, and the production houses of media associated to them or strategically allied to control the domestic market
and the export of television products at an international level.
What television fiction shows in Colombia reflects the policies of the owners of the big channels, of the big cable operators
and their ability to control not only the markets but above all the
processes linked to the cultural consumption of large audiences, to
that market of symbols, values, referents that cover the global space
and find in the networks and digital platforms the appropriate places
to hegemonize the tastes, inclinations and tendencies of the spectators. Consequently, this television fiction programming shows
everything that is capable of apprehending the viewers’ attention,
their emotionality, their search for leisure compensation through an
entertainment that connects them through the fiction with an environment where contradiction between what is real and the symbolic
helps make things viable, to bear the weight of the facts that, in
many cases, would become indigestible for the common user.
190 | Obitel 2017
It is also important to note the relevance and growth of co-productions with international impact and projection to the construction of contents for increasingly broad audiences and with a strong
investment in the technical aspects of productions. Thus, the great
national channels and producers have developed strong alliances
with international groups, such as Sony, Disney and Fox, among
others, which have allowed them to export their products to other
markets. Also, in cases like Caracol and independent production
company Dynamo, relationships have been established with OTT
platforms, such as Netflix. The field of co-production is, to this extent, in growth and development in the last decade and a strategic
element in terms of development and growth in both the technical
level of elaboration of products and the emergence of other market
possibilities for fictions.
Transmedia production and reception
The transmedia process in Colombia, both of production and
reception, has been full of paradoxes, since this is a field of experimentation and search that has not been clearly established yet,
despite transformations of the audience towards a larger participatory group and with greater access to the internet, and counting with
transmedia narrative attempts in private channels, as well as with a
transmedia product itself, but invisible since it is in a co-production
between the public and independent sectors.
This is explained by reviewing that, historically speaking, only
few years ago, that is, since 2012, products started to be conceived
for multiple channels, in order to connect, with a certain commercial
sense, the television fiction with other media and generate, from
the producer, a transmedia narrative. This is the case of Escobar,
el Patrón del Mal, which relied on the channel’s page, but also in
the documentary format and in the weekly coverage of newspaper
El Espectador. In line with this bet, other productions used the web
platform as a setting to establish a certain transmedia universe, but
Colombia: a decade of searches, hybridizations and experimentations | 191
without being able to disconnect from the television narrative and
without fully allowing the audience’s participation.
The opposite occurred in 2016, when Paciente appears, which
was paradoxically contemplated from its development as a transmedia narrative, but which was neither visible nor had a definite
reception. It reflects the poor visibility of the products that appear
in public channels and in a certain independent and non-commercial
sector, as well as the fact that the nation has not only failed to cement transmedia production clearly, but also in terms of reception,
since it is still necessary to build possibilities for the critical and creative participation of these audiences, which still have the challenge
of a real and representative interactivity.
References
Lipovetsky, G. and Serroy, J. (2009). La pantalla global. Barcelona: Anagrama.
Martin Barbero, J. (1992). Televisión y melodrama. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo.
Scolari, C. (2015). Ecología de los medios. Barcelona: Gedisa.
5
ecuAdor: the nAtIonAl fIctIon Is ImPosed And
exPressed In the bAttle for rAtIng
Authors:
Alexandra Ayala-Marín, Pamela Cruz Páez
Team:
Patricia Castañeda, Juan Camilo Molina, Andrés Valarezo1
1. Ecuador’s audiovisual context in 2016
In 2016, a new open signal channel, Televicentro, appears in
the radioelectric spectrum. It is part of group El Comercio, from
Quito, with the newspaper of the same name as the main company.
The newspaper was sold by the descendants of the Mantilla Ortega
family, who founded it in 1906, to a Mexican-Guatemalan media
entrepreneur, Ángel Remigio González, who has been, for some
years, the owner of ten other Ecuadorian media, among which is
RTS channel (Red Telesistema)2, based in Guayaquil; this channel
passed its frequency in Quito to Televicentro.
Another fact that marks the year is the call for the competition of frequencies, which involves González media conglomerate,
requesting 104 radio and television frequencies3; the Agency of
1
Research assistants: Margarita Cárdenas, Mishel Dillon, Priscilla Imbaquingo, Nicole
Mendoza, Karina Naranjo.
2
El Universo (2016, Feb. 22). Un magnate de Estados Unidos controla 10 medios nacionales. El Universo. Retrieved on April 21, 2017 from http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2015/02/22/nota/4574356/magnate-eeuu-controla-10-medios-nacionales.
3
According to Fundamedios, a NGO that monitors the media in Ecuador, it ran for 60
TV frequencies, 43 FM radio and one AM radio, and did so through 18 companies, ten
of which were already part of its media oligopoly. None was disqualiied, they went on
to the second phase of the tender. In April 2017, there are still no results, due to claims
and even a complaint of bribery claims. Retrieved on April 25, 2017 from http://www.
fundamedios.org/la-mitad-de-la-tv-de-quito-y-guayaquil-manos-de-un-magnate-mexicano-de-medios.
194 | Obitel 2017
Regulation and Control of Telecommunications (Arcotel) receives
applications; the means that are renewing their frequency start from
zero for the next stage, which is commissioned by the Council for
Regulation and Development of Information and Communication
(Cordicom). The means recognized as community will have an additional score, considering that this is the first time that they participate in public tender made for the granting of frequency, in compliance with the Constitution (2008)4 and the Law of Communication
(2013), which requires 34% of frequencies for equitable distribution
with public and private means.
Chart 1. National networks/channels of open television in Ecuador
Private networks/channels (5)
Public networks/channels (1)
Seized networks/channels (2)
Teleamazonas
Televicentro
Televisora Nacional
(Ecuavisa)
Red Telesistema (RTS)
Canal Uno
Ecuador TV (ECTV)
Televisión del Pacíico
(Gama TV)
TC Televisión
TOTAL CHANNELS = 8
Source: Obitel Ecuador
This tender has led the media that want to renew their frequency, but have no editorial line related to the government, to protest
against the way it was conducted. According to newspaper El Universo, 1,472 frequencies are participating, of which 846 will be for
radio stations on FM, 148 on AM, and 478 for UHF (Ultra High
Frequency) channels.5
4
Article 16: All persons, individually or collectively, have the right to: the creation of
social communication media; and equal access to the use of radio spectrum frequencies
for the management of public, private and community radio and television stations; and
free bands for the exploration of wireless networks.
5
El Universo (2016, 12 de abril). Arcotel y Cordicom abren concurso para adjudicar
frecuencias de radio y TV. El Universo. Retrieved on March 8, 2017 from http://www.
eluniverso.com/noticias/2016/04/12/nota/5520165/arcotel-cordicom-abren-concursoadjudicar-frecuencias-radio-tv.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 195
1.1 Open television in Ecuador
Chart 1 shows that the seized television stations (Gama TV and
TC) have not changed their ownership status. In the private part,
on the other hand, there is one more channel, Televicentro, which
also increases stations in VHF (Very High Frequency) and, besides,
competes for advertising investment.
Regarding the rating, Ecuavisa leads the list, with 13.2%, followed very closely by TC (a difference of only 0.8%). Third is RTS
(7.7%) and fourth, Teleamazonas (1.1 point less). Gama TV and
Televicentro, the new channel, share the same level of audience.
The share confirms the rating of each channel and maintains the
same positions.
Graph 1. TV rating and share by network6
Home
Share
%
audience
(%)
Gama TV
1.8
4.1
7.4
Teleamazonas
2.9
6.6 11.8
Televicentro
1.8
4.1
7.4
RTS
3.4
7.7 14.0
Ecuavisa
5.8
13.2 23.9
TC Televisión
5.4
12.4 22.4
Canal Uno
3.2
7.3 13.2
Others
19.8
44.7
TOTAL
44.31
100 100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
Station
45.0
40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Gama
TV
Teleama- Televicentro
RTS
Ecuavisa
zonas
Home audience
TC
Canal Uno
Televisión
Others
Share (%)
In the television genres, fiction dominates, with 35.8%, which
implies an increase of 3.7 points with respect to the previous year;
while entertainment fell to third place, with 19.1%, and two points
compared to 2015. The information genre exceeded that of entertainment, with 0.4%, and in one year it grew 0.6%, unlike sports,
which dropped one point. It is important to highlight that the educational genre stands at 1.8% more than the previous year.
6
Public channel Ecuador TV is not included in Kantar Ibope Media’s measurement this
year.
196 | Obitel 2017
Graph 2. Genres and hours broadcast on TV programming
Broadcast
genres
Hours of
exhibition
%
Sports
6 252:21
5.2
Education
5 648:06
4.7
Entertainment 23 217: 47
19.1
Fiction
43 484:78
35.8
Information
23 705:12
19.5
Others
1 6785:2
13.8
Politics
1 026:72
0.8
Religion
1 457:06
1.2
TOTAL
Information
1%
14%
5%
5%
1%
19%
19%
Fiction
Entertainment
Religion
36%
Sports
Education
Politics
Others
121 576:62 100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media and Obitel Ecuador
1.2. Audience trends
The commitment to national production has marked the television screens, and two channels in particular have given space to the
realization of their own telenovelas.
Ecuavisa leads the top ten this year with miniseries El Más
Querido, biopic of Gerardo Morán, one of the most important popular singers in the country, and former Assemblyman. With two
additional telenovelas, it becomes the channel that most produced
fiction in 2016: La Trinity, which is set in a popular neighborhood
of Guayaquil, where there is a large number of Afro-descendants,
some of whom act as “extra”, sellers of a supermarket, which is the
main location; and 3 Familias, which in 2015 was a weekly series,
but in the current telenovela continues to present the incidences of
families of three different social classes (high, medium and low or
popular), which turn their everyday into humor.
TC Televisión continued with Los Hijos de Don Juan, in its
second season. This fiction develops its story in a market of Guayaquil, where the characters conjugate their daily and affective activities with their economic activities.
It should be noted that, in the case of these two telenovelas, it is
evident what constitutes the core of life in Guayaquil: commercial
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
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activity – because, in both cases, the epicenters of fiction scenarios
are spaces for buying and selling. On the other hand, the fact that
national productions are positioned in several top ten lists indicates
that Ecuadorian television is still faithful to their fictions, certainly
because of their level of identification with characters, scenarios,
situations, themes, narratives and language.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
Advertising investment is not always based on the rating
achieved by the channels, except in the case of Ecuavisa, which
leads audience and share levels, and has an advertising investment
of 27.89%, the highest among channels of open signal. In the rest,
the situation is different, as for example the case of TC, which has
only 0.8% of difference in audience with respect to the previous
year, but an advertising investment of 6.9%, quite smaller, perhaps
because it is a channel managed by the State. RTS has 13.30% and
is also in third place. Teleamazonas covers 11.92%, followed by
Gama TV, with 10.95%; for this channel, the decrease is due to the
divestment of advertising in sports programming, but, in spite of
that, it has better economic income than Televicentro, with the same
rating level. It should be noted that other channels that are not in
VHF carry 5.43% of advertising investment. ECTV, public channel,
does not reach 1%.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
As in previous years, 2016 did not register actions or strategies
of merchandising in any of the TV fictions. However, actors and
actresses, taking advantage of the fame they acquire, also through
the programs on entertainment, participate in certain campaigns for
social purposes independently, not having live theatrical performances, in which they make use of their TV characters.
198 | Obitel 2017
1.5. Communication policies
Supercom printed 300,000 copies of the Organic Law of Communication (LOC) with the regulation that contains the transitional
provisions. In the sixth transitory, second paragraph, which refers to
article 102 of the LOC, on the promotion of national production and
independent national production, an error occurred, which cost a lot
to 11 radio stations, as it should refer to article 103, about the dissemination of musical content.7 The error resulted in the sanctioning
of broadcasters with monetary fines.
In the case of Televicentro, it used RTS’s frequency, as already
indicated, because “its operation as a repeater was authorized, in
order to test the technology called isofrequency, whose purpose is
to assign a single channel to the television medium, and which has
a greater capacity [...]”.8 This fact was obviously a trick, because
it is an independent signal and with programming different from
the other channel. As mentioned, this station belongs to a media
conglomerate, which includes RTS, the newspapers El Comercio
and Últimas Noticias, and several radio stations. Even knowing that
only one frequency can be demanded by competition, businessman
Ángel Remigio González, known by the nickname “El Fantasma”,
postulated “104 frequencies: 60 TV, 43 FM radio and one AM
radio”9, which means 7.07% of the 1,472 frequencies that are in
competition, despite the constitutional prohibition with respect to
the possession of monopolies and oligopolies.
7
El Universo (2016, July 4). Supercom cambia transitoria de la Ley de Comunicación.
El Universo. Retrieved on April 10, 2017 from http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2016/07/04/nota/5672670/supercom-cambia-transitoria-ley-comunicación.
8
El Universo (2016, Feb. 18). Señal al aire de Televicentro no es por concesión de frecuencia sino por prueba tecnológica, dice ministro. El Universo. Retrieved on April 10,
2017 from http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2016/02/18/nota/5411892/senal-airetelevicentro-no-es-concesion-frecuencia-sino-prueba.
9
El Periódico (2016, 22 de enero). La mitad de TV de Quito y Guayaquil, Ecuador, a
manos de Ángel González. El Periódico. Retrieved on April 10, 2017 from http://elperiodico.com.gt/pais/2017/01/22/la-mitad-de-tv-de-quito-y-guayaquil-ecuador-a-manosde-angel-gonzalez/.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
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In this issue, Arcotel was expected to allocate the frequencies,
but then it was arranged that, in the second stage, it would be Cordicom, body presided by a delegate of the president of the Republic.
The score obtained in the first stage will be discarded; on the contrary, the contestants that are denominated community will have additional score.
1.6. ICT trends
In 2016, internet accounts reach 56.80% of the population; of
these, 47.04% are mobile, which represents an increase of 12.07%
compared to 2015.
As for the fixed internet, the largest supplier is the National
Telecommunications Corporation (CNT), a public company that
controls 56% of the market. The provinces with greater presence of
fixed internet are Pichincha and Guayas, where Quito and Guayaquil, the most populated cities are. The largest provider of mobile
internet is company Claro, which belongs to multinational América
Móvil, owned by Mexican Carlos Slim, with 57% of the market,
which means a decrease of 1.9% in relation to the previous year.
The data do not include virtual mobile operators (OMV), such
as Tuenti, which was secured in 2016, surely due to the fact that this
brand belongs to company Teléfonos, from Spain, which under the
name of Otecel, also manages Movistar operator and works with its
infrastructure.
1.7. Public TV
A product of the Ministry of Education, Educa. Televisión para
aprender, is broadcast daily, between 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., and for
one hour, on all channels with VHF frequency. In 2016 the website
of this product was improved, so that the content was always available to viewers. The children’s project Veo Veo, of the Ministry of
Economic and Social Inclusion (Mies), was a finalist for the Fan
Chile 2016 Audiovisual Festival with two series: Oli Sabor y la Cocina Creativa and Wawa Kichwa.
200 | Obitel 2017
In addition, the Ministry of the Interior, on which the National
Police of Ecuador depends, financed a miniseries called Tierra de
Serpientes, with which the State began as a television fiction producer. Former Minister Jose Serrano said that this miniseries sought
to show the changes in the police institution. It cost US$ 100,000
per chapter and was released on TC, a state-run channel.10
1.8. Pay TV
Pay TV subscription decreased by 1.03% over 2015 and represents 30.52% of the market. The largest provider of this service is
DirectTV, with 34.55% of subscribers, followed by public company
CNT, with 27.69%. Besides, 17.21% include various suppliers that
provide the service locally and regionally.
Pay TV has made it possible to see fiction from different countries in Ecuador. Argentina has a varied fiction presence on pay TV
with series such as Historia de un Clan (police) and Educando a
Nina (telenovela). From Brazil, there are series like Mandrake y el
Negocio, emitted by premium channel HBO. Diarios de Tricicleta is
a documentary series broadcast by TV Chile.
Despite the diversity of fiction formats produced in Colombia,
telenovelas dominate with titles such as Los Hombres También Lloran, La Teacher de Inglés and Made in Cartagena. From Spain, it is
possible to mention Cuéntame Cómo Pasó, El Ministerio del Tiempo
and Pulseras Rojas. From the United States, with wide diversity in
genres and fictional pieces, the audience watched since children’s
comedy series, like Kirby Buckets, until drama series Grey’s Anatomy, besides previous series as Casados con Hijos. Mexico continues to excel with telenovelas, especially Canal de las Estrellas and
TLNovelas. To a lesser extent, Venezuelan productions can be seen
with fictions such as La Viuda Joven and Cosita Rica.
10
El Universo (2016, Sept. 22). Estrenan serie policial Tierra de serpientes, que vale $
100 mil por capítulo. El Universo. Retrieved on April 20, 2017 from http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2016/09/22/nota/5814310/estrenan-serie-policial-que-vale-100-milcapitulo.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
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1.9. Independent producers
Supercom promotes the Ecuadorian audiovisual producers and,
in particular, the independent ones to present new contents through
audiovisual platform ProducEcuador, which seeks to comply with
article 97 of the LOC. This article indicates that 60% of the programming at times suitable for all audiences will be national, and
that of that percentage 10% will be independent production. Article
102 of the same law establishes that the channels from Ecuador must
annually issue at least two feature films of independent national production. In summary, Supercom continues in the application of the
rule, and, despite being attributed functions with the application of
the law, there is no compensation from the Superintendence in this
area, in addition to its punitive policy.
Open TV channels have increased the information space, which
contrasts with previous years, although it may be due to the fact that
it is a pre-election period. There is also evidence of an increase of
national fiction and its audience: for the first time, an Ecuadorian
miniseries ranks first in the top ten. At the same time, the difference
in rating and share between Ecuavisa and TC diminishes, but the
first continues in the leadership of the national fiction, due to the
production of two telenovelas and a miniseries. In addition, a new
channel, Televicentro, is created, but without a public tender, and
the owner owns a significant media conglomerate.
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere
fiction
In relation to 2015, the fictions present this year two titles less,
summing up 110 titles: 52 were premieres and 58, reruns. The Ecuadorian premiere production was maintained in eight titles: four
of Ecuavisa and four of TC Televisión. Among the Ibero-American
premiere titles, Televicentro, the new channel, broadcast the same
seasons of two series that also were released by Gama TV. It was,
also, the channel with more international titles.
202 | Obitel 2017
Table 1. Fiction broadcast in 2016
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES – 8 9. El Juramento (telenovela – United
Ecuavisa – 4 national titles
States, Mexico)
1. 3 Familias (telenovela)
10. Eva Luna (telenovela – United
2. 3 Familias (sitcom)
States)
3. El Más Querido (series)
11. La Rosa de Guadalupe 1st season
4. La Trinity (telenovela)
(series – Mexico)
12. La Rosa de Guadalupe 2nd season
(series – Mexico)
13. La Rosa de Guadalupe 3rd season
(series – Mexico)
14. La Tormenta (telenovela – Colombia)
15. María Mercedes (telenovela –
Mexico)
16. Niños Ricos, Pobres Padres (teleCO-PRODUCTION – 0
novela – United States)
17. Pantanal (telenovela – Brazil)
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES – 44
18. Quién Mató a Patricia Soler (teleTelevicentro – 12 titles
novela – Colombia)
19. Santa Diabla (telenovela – United
1. A que no me Dejas (telenovela – Me- States)
TC Televisión – 4 national titles
5. Estas Secretarias 5th season (sitcom)
6. Tierra de Serpientes (series)
7. Los Hijos de Don Juan 1st season (telenovela)
8. Los Hijos de Don Juan 2nd season (telenovela)
xico)
2. Amo Despertar Contigo (telenovela –
Mexico)
3. Antes Muerta que Lichita (telenovela –
Mexico)
4. Como Dice el Dicho 6th season (series
– Mexico)
5. Corazón Indomable (telenovela – Mexico)
6. Corazón que Miente (telenovela – Mexico)
7. La Rosa de Guadalupe 6th season (series – Mexico)
8. La Viuda Negra (telenovela – Colombia)
9. Las Amazonas (telenovela – Mexico)
10. Lo que la Vida me Robó (telenovela –
Mexico)
11. Simplemente María (telenovela – Mexico)
12. Yo no Creo en los Hombres (telenovela
– Mexico)
Gama TV– 8 titles
13. Así es la Vida (series – Peru)
14. Como Dice el Dicho 6th season (series
– Mexico)
15. Esperanza Mía (telenovela – Argentina)
Canal Uno – 10 titles
20. Ciudad Quinde (series – Ecuador)
21. Hasta que la Plata nos Separe
(telenovela – Colombia)
22. La Hija del Mariachi (telenovela
– Colombia)
23. La Teacher de Inglés (telenovela
– Colombia)
24. Las Juanas (telenovela – Colombia)
25. Néctar en el Cielo (telenovela –
Peru)
26. Nuevo Rico, Nuevo Pobre (telenovela – Colombia)
27. Pedro, el Escamoso (telenovela –
Colombia)
28. Prisionera (telenovela – United
States)
29. Vecinos (telenovela – Colombia)
TC Televisión – 8 titles
30. Archivos del Destino (series – Ecuador)
31. Fanatikda (telenovela – Ecuador)
32. Celia (telenovela – Colombia)
33. El Man es Germán (telenovela –
Colombia)
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16. La Querida del Centauro (telenovela –
United States, Mexico)
17. La Rosa de Guadalupe 6th season (series – Mexico)
18. Lo Imperdonable (telenovela – Mexico)
19. Los Herederos del Monte (telenovela
– Colombia)
20. Mujeres Ambiciosas (telenovela – Brazil)
Ecuavisa – 8 titles
21. El Tiempo entre Costuras (series –
Spain)
22. Al Fondo Hay Sitio – 6th season (telenovela – Peru)
23. Hermanitas Calle (telenovela – Colombia)
24. Los Miserables (telenovela – Mexico)
25. Reglas del Juego (telenovela – Brazil)
26. Señora Acero (telenovela – Mexico)
27. Verdades Secretas (telenovela – Brazil)
28. Imperio (telenovela – Brazil)
Teleamazonas – 6 titles
29. Hasta que te Conocí (series – Mexico)
30. Azúcar (telenovela – Colombia)
31. El Tesoro (telenovela – Colombia)
32. En la Boca de Lobo (telenovela – Colombia)
33. Sinú, Río de Pasiones (telenovela –
Colombia)
34. Válgame Dios (telenovela – Venezuela)
RTS – 6 titles
35. A Cada Quien su Santo (series – Mexico)
36. Las Bravo, Corazones Desnudos (telenovela – Mexico)
37. Pasión y Poder (telenovela – Mexico)
38. Siempre tuya Acapulco (telenovela –
Mexico)
39. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (telenovela – Mexico)
40. Un Escenario para Amar (telenovela
– Mexico)
34. Kandela (telenovela – Ecuador)
35. Los Barriga (telenovela – Peru,
Ecuador)
36. Pasionaria (telenovela – Venezuela)
37. Piel Salvaje (telenovela – Venezuela)
Televicentro – 9 titles
38. Como Dice el Dicho 2nd season
(series – Mexico)
39. Como Dice el Dicho 3rd season
(series – Mexico)
40. Como Dice el Dicho 4th season
(series – Mexico)
41. Como Dice el Dicho 5th season
(series – Mexico)
42. Cuando me Enamoro (telenovela
– Mexico)
43. Destilando Amor (telenovela –
Mexico)
44. La Rosa de Guadalupe 2nd season
(series – Mexico)
45. La Rosa de Guadalupe 3rd season
(series – Mexico)
46. La Rosa de Guadalupe 4th season
(series – Mexico)
Ecuavisa – 7 titles
47. 3 Familias (sitcom – Ecuador)
48. Así Pasa 2nd season (sitcom – Ecuador)
49. Así Pasa 1st season (sitcom – Ecuador)
50. El Combo Amarillo 4th season
(sitcom – Ecuador)
51. El Combo Amarillo 6th season
(sitcom – Ecuador)
52. Carita de Ángel (telenovela –
Mexico)
53. La Dama de Rosa (telenovela –
Venezuela)
RTS – 3 titles
54. Abismo de Pasión (telenovela –
Mexico)
55. El Privilegio de Amar (telenovela
– Mexico)
TC Televisión – 4 titles
56. Triunfo del Amor (telenovela –
41. Contra el Tiempo (series – Colombia) Mexico)
204 | Obitel 2017
42. Diómedes, el Cacique de la Junta (telenovela – Colombia)
43. El Capo 3 (telenovela – Colombia)
44. Quién es Quién (telenovela – United
States)
RERUN TITLES – 58
Gama TV – 19 titles
1. Así es la Vida II (series – Peru)
2. Así es la Vida III (series – Peru)
3. Café con Aroma de Mujer (telenovela –
Colombia)
4. Como Dice el Dicho 2nd season (series
– Mexico)
5. Como Dice el Dicho 3rd season (series
– Mexico)
6. Como Dice el Dicho 4th season (series
– Mexico)
7. El Clon (telenovela – Brazil)
8. El Joe (telenovela – Colombia)
Teleamazonas – 2 titles
57. Aída (series – Ecuador)
58. Anónima (telenovela – Colombia)
PREMIERE TOTAL TITLES: 52
RERUN TOTAL TITLES: 58
TOTAL TITLES BROADCAST:
110
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
In the reruns, national productions were also broadcast by Ecuavisa (5), TC Televisión (4), Canal Uno (1) and Teleamazonas (1).
Despite this, the contribution of the fictional did not cover for the
second consecutive year the quota of 60% of Ecuadorian production.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Titles
%
Episodes
%
Hours
%
NATIONAL (total)
8
15.7
554
12.0
519:40:00
12.4
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
44
84.3
4064
88.0 3676:05:00
87.6
Argentina
1
2.0
109
2.4
149:00:00
3.6
Brazil
4
5.9
195
4.2
206:30:00
4.9
Chile
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Colombia
9
17.6
691
15.0
588:05:00
14.0
Ecuador
8
15.7
554
12.0
519:40:00
12.4
Spain
United States (Hispanic production)
1
2.0
3
0.1
7:55:00
0.2
2
3.9
125
2.7
121:20:00
2.9
Country
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 205
Mexico
22
43.1
2130
46.1
1753:50:00
41.8
Peru
2
3.9
11
0.2
10:30:00
0.3
Portugal
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Uruguay
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Venezuela
1
2.0
75
1.6
63:15:00
1.5
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
National co-productions
2
0
0.0
0.0
171
0
0.0
0.0
180:00:00
0:00:00
100.0
0.0
Ibero-American co-productions
2
0.0
171
0.0
180:00:00
100.0
TOTAL GENERAL
52
100 4618
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
100
4195:45:00
100
Mexico confirmed its export leadership. National titles (8) and
international titles (44) totaled 4,195 hours and 45 minutes, including advertising.
Regarding national production, it is important to emphasize
that about 60% were broadcast during prime time, and the rest at
night. Ibero-American fiction, on the other hand, was distributed at
different times, although almost 64% were also at prime time.
National
Time slot
Morning (06:00-12:59)
Ibero-American
Total
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
332
8.2
307:15:00
8.4
332
7.2
307:15:00
7.3
Afternoon (13:00-17:59)
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
1112
27.4
1089:05:00
29.6
1112
24.1
1089:05:00
26.0
Prime time (18:00-23:29)
328
59.2
329:20:00
63.4
2608
64.2
2264:15:00
61.6
2936
63.6
2593:35:00
61.8
Night (23:30-02:00)
226
40.8
190:20:00
36.6
12
0.3
15:30:00
0.4
238
5.2
205:50:00
4.9
Total
554
100
519:40
100
4064
100
3676:05:00
100
4618
100
4195:45:00
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
Format
National
Ibero-American
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
4
50.0
380
68.6
235:05:00
45.2
34
79.1
3525
86.7
0:00:00
0.0
Series
2
25.0
18
3.2
154:15:00
29.7
9
20.9
539
13.3
492:50:00
13.0
Sitcom
2
25.0
156
28.2
130:20:00
25.1
0
0.0
0
0.0
3183:15:00
87.0
Total
8
100
554
100
519:40:00
100
43
100
4064
100
3676:05:00
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
206 | Obitel 2017
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast by time slot
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 207
The telenovela continued as the main fiction format. In the
case of national titles, this format rose from one in 2015 to four in
2016.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
Format
Morning
%
After%
noon
Telenovela
0
0.0
0
Series
0
0.0
0
Prime
time
%
Night
%
Total
%
0.0
3
42.9
1
100.0
4
50.0
0.0
2
28.6
0
0.0
2
25.0
Sitcom
0
0.0
0
0.0
2
28.6
0
0.0
2
25.0
Total
0
0.0
0
0.0
7
100
1
100
8
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
Series El Más Querido was the only title that went back in time
to recreate the childhood, adolescence and youth of rock music artist
Gerardo Morán. All other titles were set in the present.
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Time period
Titles
%
Present
7
87.5
Period
1
12.5
Total
8
100
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
Regarding origin, Ecuador concentrated six titles, and two of
them in the first places. There were two titles from Brazil and other
two, respectively, from Colombia and Mexico.
208 | Obitel 2017
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Title
Country
of original idea
or script
Production
Channel
house
(country)
1
El Más
Querido
Ecuador
Ecuavisa Ecuavisa
2
3 Familias
(telenovela)
Ecuador
Ecuavisa Ecuavisa
Diómedes,
3 el Cacique
de la Junta
Colombia
RCN
TC TeleTelevisión visión
4 La Trinity
Ecuador
Ecuavisa Ecuavisa
5
Verdades
Secretas
6
3 Familias
(sitcom)
Ecuador
Ecuavisa Ecuavisa
Los Hijos
de Don
7
Juan (2nd
season)
Ecuador
TC Tele- TC Televisión
visión
Los Hijos
de Don
8
Juan (1st
season)
Ecuador
TC Tele- TC Televisión
visión
9 Imperio
Brazil
Brazil
Globo
Globo
Ecuavisa
Scriptwriter
or author of
original idea
Rating Share
Peky Andino,
María Beatriz
16.73
Vergara
E. González,
C. Cortez,
C. Stacio, E.
14.78
Landín, A.
Piguave, D.
Jiménez
F. Rivera,
S. Gaitán, J.
13.58
Troncoso, P.
Hernández
X. Hidalgo,
A. Piguave,
C. Stacio, E.
13.53
Valverde, P.
Velázquez
Walcyr
Carrasco, María 13.32
Elisa Berredo
Eddie González,
13. 13
Alfredo Piguave
José Navarrete,
Bertha Tejada,
Karina Villavicencio,
13.04
Ángela Chavarría, Ronald
Hidalgo
J. Navarrete,
B. Tejada, K.
Villavicencio,
11.59
Á. Chavarría, R.
Hidalgo
Ecuavisa Aguinaldo Silva
10.45
Argos
Roberto
Comuni- Ecuavisa
10.37
Stopello
cación
Total of productions: 10
Foreign scripts: 4
100%
40%
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
10
Señora
Acero
México
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 209
It is noteworthy that six of the eight national titles released have
been placed among the ten most watched productions of 2016. Ecuavisa continued to lead the top ten list, with seven national and international telenovelas.
Table 7A. The most watched national titles:
rating, format, producer, time slot
Title
Rating
Format
El Más Querido
16.7
Series
Telenovela
3 Familias (telenovela)
14.7
La Trinity
Telenovela
13.5
3 Familias (sitcom)
13. 1
Sitcom
Los Hijos de Don Juan (2nd
Telenovela
5
13.0
season)
Los Hijos de Don Juan (1st
Telenovela
6
11.6
season)
7 Tierra de Serpientes
3.9
Series
8 Estas Secretarias
1.0
Sitcom
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
1
2
3
4
Channel/
producer
Ecuavisa
Ecuavisa
Ecuavisa
Ecuavisa
Time slot
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
TC Televisión Prime time
TC Televisión Prime time
TC Televisión Prime time
TC Televisión
Night
The telenovela as a leader format returned strongly to the national screen, incorporating the humor of the Ecuadorian sitcom, as
well as the melodrama, with the title that occupies the first place of
the top ten and among the national fictions.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, duration, time slot
Title
Format
1 El Más Querido
Series
2 3 Familias
Diómedes, el
3 Cacique
de la Junta
4 La Trinity
Verdades Secre5
tas
6 3 Familias
Telenovela
Genre
Drama/
biopic
Humor
Number
of episodes
First and
last transmission
(in 2016)
Time slot
10
06/28-07/11
Prime time
101
04/04-08/23
Prime time
Telenovela
Drama/
biopic
189
03/15-12/30
Prime time
Telenovela
Humor
79
09/07-12/30
Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
45
01/04-03/16
Prime time
Sitcom
Humor
10
02/24-04/06
Prime time
210 | Obitel 2017
Los Hijos de
7 Don Juan (2nd
season)
Los Hijos de
8 Don Juan (1st
season)
Telenovela
Humor
82
10/03-12/25
Prime time
Telenovela
Humor
115
03/01-06/30
Prime time
9 Imperio
Telenovela
Drama
61
10 Señora Acero
Telenovela
Drama
79
01/04-04/01
(cont.)
09/12-12/30
Prime time
Prime time
Regarding the dominant themes, the interest of the audience
in biographies is emphasized, and the taste for humor is confirmed,
mainly in the case of female viewers.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
Dominant themes
Biography of popular singer
El Más
Gerardo Morán, music, success,
Querido
fame, socioeconomic ascent.
Daily life, differences of behav3 Familias
iors and attitudes between social
classes.
Diómedes, el Biography of a popular singer,
Cacique de la music, drugs, tradition, love,
Junta
alcohol, fame.
Daily life and labor and affective
relations between employers and
La Trinity
workers, socioeconomic rise,
treachery, maias.
Verdades
Power and money, pleasure,
Secretas
passion.
Daily life, differences of
3 Familias
behaviors and attitudes between
different social classes.
Social themes
Struggles to achieve musical
success and the implications
and consequences of fame.
Socioeconomic and cultural
differences and similarities.
Musical and cultural tradition,
professional success.
Labor insertion of Afrodescendant groups, ight for
survival.
Underage prostitution, poverty,
inidelity.
Socioeconomic and cultural
differences and similarities.
Migration, popular and middle
class social environment,
stereotypes about men and
women, solidarity.
Los Hijos de History of love conlicts, every- Popular and middle class social
environment, stereotypes about
8 Don Juan (1st day and economic problems in
season)
humor.
men and women, solidarity.
Economic power, conlicting
Constitution of economic
intra-family relations, marriages power through illegal activi9 Imperio
of appearance, ambition of
ties, rivalry and ilial revenge,
power.
parricide.
Deaths, drug traficking, power, Drug traficking, widowhood,
10 Señora Acero
corruption, persecution, love.
love.
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
Los Hijos de History of love conlicts, every7 Don Juan (2nd day and economic problems in
season)
humor.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 211
The female audience is the majority in the case of all fictions,
but the men had preference for the biographies, which in both cases
presented, were on popular music performers from Ecuador and
Colombia, respectively. By socioeconomic level, the biographical
contents were also chosen, besides humor, which is the fundamental
ingredient of 3 Familias and La Trinity. The same happened with
the adults, but it should be noted that the children mostly prefer Los
Hijos de Don Juan, in its two seasons.
In terms of audience levels, the growing preference for national
fictions, telenovelas and/or sitcoms, highlighting the popular and
the identity traits of the Ecuadorian people, especially in the Costa
region, is emphasized, although in 3 Familias these features are presented according to the ways of life and the imaginary of three different socioeconomic sectors, which also exist throughout the country, and can converge for life in society.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles: gender,
age, socioeconomic level
Socioeconomic level
%
Title
Channel
AB*
AB
Women Men
rating share
1 El Más Querido
Ecuavisa
8,6
5,4
7,3
25,5
2 3 Familias
Ecuavisa
7,4
4,7
6,4
22,3
Diómedes, el CaciTC Tele3
6,5
5,4
4,3
15,4
que de la Junta
visión
4 La Trinity
Ecuavisa
6,5
4,7
5,3
20,1
5 Verdades Secretas
Ecuavisa
7,1
3,8
6,1
22,3
6 3 Familias
Ecuavisa
6,2
4,2
5,1
18,5
Los Hijos de Don
TC Tele7
6,1
5,1
4,1
14,2
Juan (2nd season)
visión
Los Hijos de Don
TC Tele8
5,7
4,5
4,1
13,6
Juan (1st season)
visión
9 Imperio
Ecuavisa
5,8
3,3
5,7
19
10 Señora Acero
Ecuavisa
6,0
3,0
4,1
18,2
Source: Kantar Ibope Media. Elaboration: Obitel Ecuador
Gender %
* AB means upper middle economic level.
Age group %
5,9
5,4
1217
6,3
5,8
7,5
5,9 5,9
4,5
3,3
4,6
4,8 5,6
4,2 5,5
4,6 5,2
7,6
5,6 5,6
3-11
1899
7,1
6,2
7,8
4,3 5,1
2,7
3,2
1,9 5,1
3,2 4,6
212 | Obitel 2017
In summary, the fictions transmitted by seven open TV channels in Ecuador were 110, two less than in 2015, of which 52 were
premieres and 58 were reruns. Although there was the same number
of national titles as in the previous year (eight), it is worth noting
that the first place in the top ten is occupied, for the first time in
Obitel Yearbook (which started in 2011), by a national miniseries,
and that in the same ranking there are six Ecuadorian productions.
In the endless struggle for rating, Ecuavisa continues to lead television and placed seven of its fictions among the top ten; the other
three correspond to TC, which follows Ecuavisa in audience level.
3. Transmedia reception
For the analysis of 2016, we applied the cybergraphy, which
analyzes the transmedia interaction and allows to review the approach of new practices of audience (Obitel Yearbook 2015).
However, this year some nuances were incorporated, since the
analysis was done in three levels: 1) review of the data of internet
use in the country, to find the most used network and to choose
it as a unit of analysis in the transmediation; 2) application of six
comparative categories between each page and that characterize
the transmediation: a) analysis of the official pages of the series; b)
analysis of the interactivity of users based on comments, responses
and shared information; c) evaluation of the reactions of the audience to the content in the buttons “I love”, “I like”, “I am amazed”,
“amuses me”, “makes me sad”, “makes me angry”; d) personalization, through the number of subscribers and publications, and the
type of medium used (video, images); e) management of the official website, emphasizing the original content, new videos and
activities generating transmediation; f) application on all pages of
a temporary cut (December), although not all had publications in
this period; 3) creation of a top ten list of series with presence on
Facebook to explore the interaction of users and their use in the
official accounts of the series. For that, we analyzed the users’ activities (interactivity in comments, responses and shared content),
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 213
their evaluation of publications (with the various emoticons), the
possibility of personalization (number and type of publications) and
proposals of changes in the plot by the users (comments in which it
is proposed, and replicas); and, on the other hand, the activities of
the administrators (videos of chapters, different videos and activities generating transmediation).
At level (1), it is confirmed that the social network with greater
penetration in Ecuador is still Facebook; for this reason, the top 20
television fiction productions were reviewed in this network, according to data from Kantar Ibope.
In level (2), among the series with the highest presence by number of followers and Facebook pages or accounts in the top 20, first
is Señora Acero, from Mexico (three pages and 2,518,992 followers,
2,209,452 of these in the official page). Between the second and the
fourth places, there are three national fictions: La Trinity, with four
accounts and 13,380 followers (12,601 in the official page); Los Hijos de Don Juan, with four pages and 130,531 followers (130,468
in the official page); Así Pasa, with two pages and 35,624 followers
(33,695 in the official page). These are followed by ¿Qué Culpa
Tiene Fatmagül?, a Turkish telenovela, with 32,244 followers (almost all in the official page). In penultimate place, out of 11, is
Imperio (Brazil), with 6,266 (5,514 in the official page).
The interaction has a correspondence between followers and
the evaluation of “I like”, but there are cases like Los Hijos de Don
Juan, in which one of the unofficial pages has no followers, but does
register a considerable number of approvals (1,661); unlike pages
without this valuation, like those of ¿Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül?
(despite having 32,244 followers), Así Pasa and Imperio.
With respect to other types of interaction, comments are the
most frequent, although it is low in relation to the number of followers. After Hasta que la Plata nos Separe (Colombia, with 218
comments, 8.1%) and Señora Acero (with 5,784 comments in an
unofficial page, 3.7%), come national telenovela La Trinity, with
2.6% (327 comments), and, to a lesser extent, Los Hijos de Don
214 | Obitel 2017
Juan, with 0.6% (800 comments). The other pages have less than
1% of interaction.
The use of audiovisual formats was also low in Los Hijos de
Don Juan, with 36 videos and 22.2 comments on average per video
(c/v); La Trinity had 17 videos and 19.24 (c/v). With less repercussion are Verdades Secretas (Brazil), with 44 videos and 2.27 (c/v),
and Señora Acero, with 350 videos in the official account and 47.2
(c/v). The other pages did not submit videos.
In the third level, the filter was applied to obtain the top ten,
but only four fulfilled several characteristics of transmediation (the
others did not have transmission generating activities or incorporation of fans’ content): Los Hijos de Don Juan, La Trinity, Verdades
Secretas and 3 Familias. Señora Acero was left aside, since most of
its content and users came from Mexico.
In these fictions, the interaction with the users used several elements. In relation to the number of comments by number of shared
content, Verdades Secretas (Brazil) stood out, with 67% (100/67),
followed by La Trinity, with 52% (52/103). Then, by responses
among commentators, only in 3 Familias this dynamic can be appreciated (although low, with only 20). By number of subscribers
compared to the number of publications, there was little personalization of the content, only 1.3% in Verdades Secretas (500 publications of 13,048 subscribers). In the proportion of subscribers who
value content, something similar happens, and the most important
series is La Trinity, with 1.033% (7,102 evaluations). Within the
types of publications (videos and images), in the four fictions, none
reaches 1% (Verdades Secretas has less than 0.1% and 125 videos).
In the official pages of national fictions Los Hijos de Don Juan
and La Trinity, quizzes and contests were made among the followers. They published videos of the children fulfilling the challenges
demanded in dances. The video with more likes would be the winner of a prize (a cell phone). In the account of Los Hijos..., the majority of publications correspond to advertising and to rules that a
protagonist of the series gave.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 215
There are also some outliers. Emphasizing Ecuadorian fictions,
El Más Querido, first place in the top ten, does not have an official
account, although it has an unofficial one, but with very low activity. In Así Pasa, its main page is prior to 2016. The only account
without a production company as an administrator is La Trinity. The
same happens with Diómedes (Colombia), Reglas del Juego (Brazil)
and Milagros (Mexico).
As for fan pages, some do not generate content regularly. The
only one that incorporates fan photos is Hasta que la Plata nos Separe (Colombia). Information about other TC productions is included in Los Hijos de Don Juan, and since February 2016 it has presented Facebook chats and videos of the actors, who tell their stories
about their lives and their perceptions about the series. It is striking
that El Más Querido (Ecuador) and Milagros have no followers in
their pages, and that Reglas del Juego has no page.
In summary, Facebook remains as the main social network in
Ecuador. The review of the pages of the top 20 series showed that
three national fictions, among the eight released in 2016, make up
the top four, according to the number of followers, interactions and
multimedia, after Senõra Acero (Mexico). Los Hijos de don Juan,
La Trinity and 3 Familias had characteristics of appropriation of
content, but with low proportionality, that is, low relation between
users and likes, which diminishes with respect to the content, the
comments and their evaluation, besides the scarce multimedia use
(less than 1%). There is hardly any use of network transmissions by
the protagonists, photo publications or quizzes. El Más Querido,
first place in the top ten, did not have an official Facebook account,
but the three national fictions mentioned above are the ones that
most comply with the parameters of transmediation.
4. Highlights of the year
In 2016, three themes stood out around the television fiction industry: 1) the “battle for rating” between Ecuavisa, a private broadcaster, and state-run TC Televisón, which has influenced national
216 | Obitel 2017
fiction production; 2) the entrance of Televicentro, which, without
being part of the tender for the redistribution of 1,472 frequencies,
obtained its signal and reached the same audience as Gama TV, the
other channel with public administration; and 3) the incorporation
of the State as a fiction producer to promote police work.
Ecuavisa and TC Televisión: new strategies for more audience
Although Ecuavisa returned to lead the 2016 rating, its hegemony since 2013 is in danger. TC not only reduced the percentage
difference, from 11.8% (2015) to 12.4% (2016), but also managed
to put three of the titles transmitted among the ten with the highest
audience, including its telenovela Los Hijos de Don Juan. Ecuavisa
premiered two telenovelas and a miniseries, El Más Querido, which
reached the first place in the top ten.
Perhaps in order to maintain the high ratings, the second season
of Los Hijos... incorporated in March actor David Reinoso, director
and star of La Pareja Feliz (sitcom), which was in the top ten of 2011
(Obitel Yearbook 2012) and went out of the air in 2014, within the
framework of the application of the Organic Law of Communication
(LOC). Five months later, in the same prime time, Ecuavisa returns
to the telenovelas with La Trinity (in 2010, Rosita, la Taxista was
transmitted). For this new production, actor, director and producer
Fernando Villarroel was hired to play a leading role. He belonged
to TC’s staff for more than ten years, one of whose most successful
titles was Mi Recinto, a sitcom that reached 14 seasons and stopped
broadcasting in 2014, also by application of the LOC, although it was
among the ten most viewed fiction titles from 2010 to 2012.
However, Ecuavisa’s strategy was not limited only to the cast
and the schedule, but also to the change of format, as the other telenovela, released in April, was a result of series 3 Familias, ranked
eighth in the top ten in 2015, and second in 2016, when it was exported to Bolivia.11
11
Moyano, Bolívar (2016, Sept. 2). 3 Familias llegó a Bolivia. El Detective Diario. Retrieved on April 15, 2017 from http://www.eldetectivediario.com/201609022447.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 217
As noted at the beginning, this channel also made miniseries El
Más Querido, about the life of Gerardo Morán, a well-known popular singer, former Assemblyman by the ruling party. In addition to
the first place in the top ten this year, it presents an additional result:
after seven years working with television fiction, for the first time
a national title reaches the top of the list of the ten most watched
productions.
Private channel starts operations amid questions
At the beginning of February 2016, Televicentro joined the offer of open television. A few days later, newspaper El Universo reported that businessman Ángel González owned and controlled ten
of 61 national media.12
According to the Constitution of Ecuador (2008), the State does
not allow monopolies or oligopolies in media ownership. On this
topic, Fundamedios, a government NGO, requested information on
the public tender made for the granting of frequency to Televicentro, based in Quito. Arcotel explained that it was a temporary authorization of operation for technological tests, so a public tender
was not carried out, and that it was rather a change of commercial
name, since RTS’s signal – a channel based in Guayaquil, which
belongs to the same businessman for many years – began to be used
by Televicentro in Quito. In its first ten months of operations, this
channel, which transmits the information produced by newspaper El
Comercio, from the same business group, equated rating and share
to Gama TV, despite the variations it made in its programming.
State raids into fiction production for promotional purposes
Until 2015, the State financed educational co-productions (one
series, El Quinde, and one docufiction, Euclides Vaca, Detective In-
12
El Universo (2016, Feb. 22). La nota detalla los medios de comunicación que son propiedad de Ángel González en América Latina. El Universo. Retrieved on April 1, 2017 from
http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2015/02/22/nota/4574356/magnate-eeuu-controla10-medios-nacionales.
218 | Obitel 2017
vestigador), but in 2016 the Ministry of the Interior financed Tierra
de Serpientes, an eight-chapter police miniseries, transmitted by
TC, with the aim of promoting the work of the National Police.13
In the days of promotion, the Interior minister informed by Twitter
that he would use “all the ways allowed” to carry the message of a
“transformed” institution. His statements did not indicate the cost
of the production, but people speculated that it was US$ 100,000
per episode and even talked about up to US$ 4 million, which was
denied. The quality of actors and production has not been ignored,
but critical media, such as 4Pelagatos14, claim that the series had political ends because it shows only the positive aspects of the police
work, in the style of old Anglo-Saxon series, like CSI or Miami Vice.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Ecuador.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Seven years belonging to Obitel, monitoring television fiction
and different topics related to the preparation of annual reports mean
having a documented record of the course of television fiction in the
country, genre not always well reputed, but the one that has more
hours of transmission in relation to other genres in Ecuador, including sports programs (43,484 versus 6,252 in 2016, Graph 2). This
data expresses a trend that is repeated every year since 2010: the
realization of fiction by any of the seven open television channels,
whose audience levels are measured by company Kantar Ibope Media15, involves a bet for entertainment. Not all of them have done so,
13
El Comercio (2016, July 12). Ricardo Williams, Juan José Jaramillo, Giovanna Andrade y Juan Carlos Terán, los policías de ‘Tierra de Serpientes’. El Comercio. Retrieved
on April 1, 2017 from http://www.elcomercio.com/tendencias/actores-serie-tierradeserpientes-policianacional-joseserrano.html.
14
4Pelagatos (2016, 5 de julio). Más de 4 millones cuesta el Miami Vice de José Serrano.
4Pelagatos. Retrieved on April 16, 2017 from http://4pelagatos.com/2016/07/05/mas-de4-millones-cuesta-el-miami-vice-de-jose-serrano/.
15
This company, which, since 2011, gives support to Obitel Ecuador, changed its name,
Ibope Time, to Kantar Ibope Media. It provides data on rating, share, time slot and hours
broadcast, as well as the division by age groups and socioeconomic sectors, without
whom the annual reports would not be made. Regarding the number of open TV channels, we mentioned only the ones monitored by this company, although there are others in
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 219
but most of them did at different times, as indicated by the Obitel
Yearbooks, and, in particular, two television stations, Ecuavisa and
TC Televisión, both of Guayaquil, which today dispute the rating
and shorten distances between them, as shown in previous pages.
In this bet of the last seven years, there is another trend not only
of the television channels that persist in the fiction production – and
in the battle, almost inherent, to reach high levels of audience – but
also in the format and themes of the fictions produced, especially by
the mentioned channels, which with different structures of property
(private and state administration) become elements of competition
beyond the same television programming, given the politicization
that has characterized the country since 2007, when the government
of the “Citizen Revolution” came to power; when the Constituent
Assembly drafted a new Constitution (2008), which recognized
communication as a right (article 384), and then reformed it into a
public service (2015); when it inaugurated the first public channel of
the country, ECTV (2007), and seized two television stations, which
until 2009 belonged to the shareholders of a broken bank (Obitel
Yearbook 2011), and gave them the status of “channels administered
by the State”. It would, then, be a competition that, unintentionally,
tries to prove which on is the best manager: the private company
or the State. The dispute for the highest level of audiences between
Ecuavisa and TC begins in 2014 (Obitel 2015: 236), when the rating
figures differentiate them in only two decimal points (Ecuavisa with
6.7 and RC with 6.5). Between 2010 and 2014, the competitor of the
first was Teleamazonas, also private, but based in Quito.16
These particularities undoubtedly influence the theme of the
ictions they produce, perform and transmit: by wanting to attract
similar audiences, they have similar elements, either by scenarios,
or characters, or plots, which are seasoned with the same ingredients
the country. In 2015, the creation of Televicentro summed up eight channels monitored;
in 2014 and 2015, as presented in the respective Obitel Yearbooks, the open channel rating was also monitored, but it did not happen in 2016, as can be seen in Chart 1 of this
chapter.
16
See charts 1 in the Obitel Yearbooks for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
220 | Obitel 2017
of love, jealousy, rivalries, revenge or struggle for survival, which
is evident, for example, in the productions of the last two years: Los
Hijos de Don Juan (TC) and La Trinity (Ecuavisa). If in the first case
the protagonists have a local in a commercial center, in the second
they own a supermarket, without counting on situations of “dramedia”, which is, in the television slang, the mixture of comedy and
drama, present in these two recent telenovelas.
Six national fictions in the top ten in 2016, and one of these in
the first position, are data to highlight in these seven years. It means
that it has been planted to harvest an audience that wants to see reflected in the television screens some of its problems, its daily life
or that of its neighbors; or learn, as this year, about the life of one
of the most popular singers in the country, who was also elected as
Assemblyman (2009-2013). For the first time, the majority of television viewers chose national performances; and also for the first
time a title – El Más Querido – reached more than 15 rating points,
as we see in the following chart, which makes this biopic the most
viewed fiction of these seven years.
It is not the first. In 2008, with El Secreto de Toño Palomino,
Ecuavisa reached 34 rating points.17 Although it is unknown if this
data obeys the same measurement parameters of Ibope, it is worth
noting it because this telenovela initiated a modality intended, in
principle, to capture the same audience, but through another format:
the situation comedy, or sitcom. And the sitcom has also become
one of the formats, if not the main, of the Ecuadorian fiction production. This fact has allowed to continue producing fiction at lower
costs than the original format and, like Ecuavisa, take advantage of
the rating achieved by a telenovela, as a way to extend it over time.
El Universo (2009, Jan. 22). El inal de Toño no cautivó a todos. El Universo. Retrieved
on April 27, 2017 from http://www.eluniverso.com/2009/01/22/1/1421/0309F6D22C264
CA2A7BF62DEA6641041.html.
17
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 221
Year
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
NATIONAL FICTION IN THE TOP TEN (2010-2016)
Place in
Title
Producers
Format
the top Rating
ten
Mi Recinto
TC Televisión
Sitcom
7
15.4
Rosita, la Taxista
Telenovela
Ecuavisa
9
14.1
La Pareja Feliz I
Teleamazonas
Sitcom
3
13.4
Mi Recinto
TC Televisión
Sitcom
6
12.3
El Combo Amarillo 3D
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
2
13.0
(3rd season)
El Combo Amarillo
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
3
12.9
(2nd season)
Mi Recinto (13th season) TC Televisión
Sitcom
10
10.6
Así Pasa
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
4
13.1
El Combo Amarillo III
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
8
10.7
Enchufe.tv
Ecuavisa
Humor sketch
9
11.2
Secretos
Ecuavisa
Series (thriller)
10
11.0
3 Familias
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
2
13.8
El Combo Amarillo
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
8
9.9
(5th season)
Estas Secretarias
Telenovela
TC Televisión
9
9.8
Los Hijos de Don Juan
Telenovela
TC Televisión
4
10.3
Así Pasa
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
6
9.7
3 Familias
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
8
9.2
El Más Querido
Ecuavisa
Miniseries
1
16.7
Telenovela
3 Familias (telenovela)
Ecuavisa
2
14.7
La Trinity
Telenovela
Ecuavisa
4
13.5
3 Familias (sitcom)
Ecuavisa
Sitcom
6
13.1
Los Hijos de Don Juan
Telenovela
TC Televisión
7
13.0
(2nd season)
Los Hijos de Don Juan
Telenovela
TC Televisión
8
11.6
(1st season)
The same type of change of format, from a telenovela to a
sitcom, was repeated with Rosita, la Taxista, which appears in the
top ten of 2010, also of Ecuavisa, and whose audience levels led
to the conversion, once completed, into sitcom El Combo Amarillo
(2011-2015), which had six seasons and ran from the first to the
fifth in the top ten of three consecutive years (2012-2014), as shown
in the chart above. This type of change from one format to another
within the fiction genre, which was presented for the second time in
Ecuavisa’s productions, we call transformatization, a fact that has
become, apparently, a successful formula to keep audience, mak-
222 | Obitel 2017
ing them laugh about everything (Obitel 2012:291-292).18 In the
referred Obitel Yearbook, the tendency was already pointed out, as
in the one published in 2016, whose theme, “(re)invention of TV
fiction genres and formats”19, allowed to consider that this sitcom
produced “changes in the narrative and discursive strategy, related
mainly to the concept of humor, the creation of less stereotyped
characters, less manichean and more trustworthy characters” (Obitel
2016:294). But the transformation is also in the opposite direction:
this is the case of sitcom 3 Familias, which began in 2014 and was
converted into a telenovela in 2016, in order to expand and contextualize the plot. In both formats it had a place in the top ten, although
undoubtedly the telenovela caught more audience, since it occupied
the second position.
The examples also serve to re-repair humor, which has become
another trend and feature of television fiction in Ecuador. Although
it has become the narrative axis of almost all the fictional production
of these seven years, it is also true that it expresses in an underlying
way the vision and the way of being of the people from Guayaquil,
where the two mentioned channels (which more fiction produce) are
based. It is not strange, then, that a humor series about the people
from the Coast, produced by TC, has maintained 14 seasons in more
than a decade (2000-2014) and seemed unbeatable in levels of audience by being in the top ten of Obitel Ecuador for three consecutive
years (2010-2012). Its broadcasting was stopped in 2014, mainly
due to the requirements established by the Organic Law of Communication (06/25/2013), which, since then, has acted as a stimulus
for production in this field, establishing a quota of 60% of national
productions (Obitel 2014: 237), but it also becomes restrictive, due
18
The page numbers correspond to the online edition of the Obitel Yearbooks. Retrieved
on May 7, 2017 from http://obitel.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/obitel2012-espanol.
pdf.
19
Ayala-Marín, A. and Páez, P. J. C. (2016). Ecuador: la icción nacional no llega al 60%
establecido por ley, pero se cuidan más los contenidos (p. 257–294). In Guillermo O.
Gómez y M. I. V. de Lopes. Obitel 2016. (Re)invención de géneros y formatos de la ficción televisiva. Porto Alegre: Sulina. Retrieved on April 21, 2017 from http://obitel.net/
wp-content/uploads/2015/07/obitel2012-espanol.pdf.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 223
to the sanctions imposed by its regulation (01/21/2014). These restrictions not only caused the closure of some media but also eliminated from the broadcasts two sitcoms that had the preference of the
television viewers on Teleamazonas: La Pareja Feliz, in the top ten
of 2011, and Vivos, by the same producers (Obitel Yearbook 2015).
Since then, that channel has not produced or broadcast fiction of its
own.
The chart above, which lists the 23 Ecuadorian fictions in the
top ten between 2010 and 2016, shows that only seven are telenovelas; the rest are 13 sitcoms, a miniseries, a thriller series and a humor sketch. That is to say: 13 fiction titles that have humor as the
narrative strategy were produced along these years. Some titles are
repeated, but it is due to the various seasons transmitted. In addition, other channels have also produced humor series over the years
(Canal Uno and Gama TV, for example), although they have not
concentrated high rating levels. It should be noted that humor in
Ecuadorian television fiction even has a regional brand, as noted
in Obitel Yearbook 2012: from the title and to contrast with the
theme of the year (the transnationalization of television fiction), it
is explicit that television fiction in the country is riding between
“national humor series and imported telenovelas”.20
The telenovela is the main dish of television fiction that comes
from other countries, especially Latin American and Hispanic chains
in the United States, but also from Spain and Portugal, and particularly non-Ibero-American countries, like Korea, Japan and Turkey,
which undoubtedly have opened windows to the knowledge of idiosyncrasies and customs alien to our own. The foreign and national
fictions, especially those in the top ten of each year, are transmitted
at prime time, which suggests the importance that TV stations give
to fiction, or the value that television viewing assigns to this genre,
also intended to entertain.
20
Ayala-Marín, A. and Herrera, C. (2012). Ecuador: entre series de humor nacionales
y telenovelas importadas. In Guillermo O. Gómez and M. I. V. de Lopes. Obitel 2012.
Transnacionalización de la ficción televisiva (p. 263-308). Porto Alegre: Sulina.
224 | Obitel 2017
However, growth in quantity and in the preference of the audience does not always go hand in hand with the thematic quality or
with the effort to seek the presentation of other realities and situations that transcend the goal of making people laugh. The technical
level reached by the recordings is not discussed. For example, Secretos, a mystery series of 21 autoconclusive chapters that reached
the top ten of 2013, despite being broadcast on Sunday night, was
recorded with high definition digital cameras. This series suggests,
on the other hand, the attempt of Ecuadorian television, or of Ecuavisa, in particular, to explore other subjects and other dramaturgy.21
This is precisely the challenge that Ecuadorian television has.
In Obitel Yearbook 2011 (p. 300-308), which addresses the issue
of the quality of television fiction, the challenge of going further
was affirmed: to diversify issues and treatment, and to “target not
only technical quality television but in content. And this requires
the development of research, which involves being critical and selfcritical, as a key tool to improve quality [...]” (Obitel 2011:306).
The challenge in content quality would also imply presenting
images of less stereotyped women and men in more egalitarian relations, as discussed in Obitel Yearbook 2015 (p. 261-268). For example, TC, administered by the State, transmits since 2013 series
Estas Secretarias, in which women and men represent traditional
and stereotyped gender roles, also discriminatory. And due to the
same discrimination of gender and ethnic groups, Supercom admonished this channel because of its series Mi Recinto and sanctioned
others with the elimination of the sitcom of its programming.
On the other hand, it is possible to underline the search of other
means for fiction. Thus, TC co-sponsored the realization of Resaka.
tv, webnovela directed to young people that did not obtain the expected follow-up (Obitel 2013:266-269). On the contrary, the experience of sketches in videos made by private producer Touché
Filmes generated Enchufe.tv, experience that, due to its overwhelm21
The screenwriter and director of this series, Peky Andino, is a musician and playwright
from Quito whose expertise is shown in the scripts of the 21 chapters.
Ecuador: the national fiction is imposed and expressed
in the battle for rating | 225
ing success, with millions of views in its YouTube channel, was
included in Ecuavisa’s programming and reached a place in the top
ten of 2013.
This seven-year assessment allows us to look back. It is also
part of the record of a memory of Ecuadorian television, a medium
that is paradoxically despised by analysts and critics, but considered
by the majorities as the epigone of the media. And among these
opposing criteria, television fiction in Ecuador evolves and, as evidenced in Obitel Yearbook 2013 (p. 270-277), also builds a record
of memory, not only of a channel, so that it becomes part of the national film and television patrimony. Ecuavisa, for example, which
celebrated its 50th anniversary in March 2017, has been betting on
fiction since its first issues, in 1967, with live action dramatizations
(Obitel Yearbook 2011 and 2013). Some of these become records
of the social memory itself. According to Carmen Guarini (2002),
quoted in Obitel Yearbook 2013 (p. 270), audiovisual media “generate new ways of shaping memory [...], they are an inescapable part
of the daily life of the global world”.
References
Gómez, Guillermo O. and Lopes, M. I. V. de. Obitel Yearbooks 2011, 2012,
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Retrieved from http://obitel.net.
6
mexIco: between chAnge
And contInuIty
Authors:
Guillermo Orozco, Gabriela Gómez, Darwin Franco,
Francisco Hernández1
1. Mexico’s audiovisual context in 2016
The breaking down of the national open television duopoly is,
undoubtedly, the event that marked the audiovisual panorama in
Mexico during 2016. Twenty-three years had to elapse for a third
national TV offer to come onto the air, Imagen TV, which put an
end to the excluding presence of Televisa and TV Azteca on Mexican screens. This also brought along a new TV fiction proposal by
the hand of production company Argos Comunicación, with which
the new TV station intends to attain the success that in its time challenged the historic telenovelas by Televisa. This new offer on Mexican television, however, has emerged amidst a context of economic
crisis in the television market, which has been reflecting heavy
losses in the television industry, according to the sector’s business
people. This has also promoted the audiences’ distancing and the
subsequent drop in rating. This situation has brought about a system
in the large TV networks, Televisa and TV Azteca, which instigated
not only the general change of its contents, but also of its image
and proposal; for example, Televisa and its emblematic “Canal de
las Estrellas” (Canal 2) stopped calling itself “a television channel”
to introduce itself before the audiences as a media platform whose
name is now “Las Estrellas”.
1
We thank Nielsen Ibope México for providing the information on audience and programming for this chapter. The opinions about them are the sole responsibility of Obitel.
228 | Obitel 2017
In this chapter, we shall delve in this change in the telecommunications industry and its impact on the production of national fiction,
which, despite the maelstrom experienced in 2016, grew not only in
terms of numbers, but also in the production of meaning, by proposing new forms of storytelling and interacting with the audiences.
1.1 Open television in Mexico
Chart 1 – National open television networks in Mexico
Private networks (6)
Public networks (3)
Televisa (channels 2, 5 and 9)
Once TV (channel 11)
TV Azteca (channels 1 and 7)
Conaculta (channel 22)
Imagen TV (channel 3)
Una Voz Con Todos (channel 14)
TOTAL TV NETWORKS = 9
In 2016, open television in Mexico went from having seven national networks to nine, a commercial one, Imagen TV, and a public
one, Una Voz Con Todos, which belongs to the recently created
Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State. This is the first
time in the country’s history that there are nine open TV networks
at a national level.
Graph 32. Genres offered on TV programming3
Genres of- Exhibition
fered
hours
Entertainment
40236
Information
17245
Fiction
15999
Education
3678
Sports
20186
2
%
37.1
15.9
14.8
3.4
18.7
0.3%
0.6%
9.0%
19.0%
37.0%
3.0%
15.0%
16.0%
Entertainment
Information
Fiction
Education
Sports
Politics
Religious
Others
Graphs 1 and 2 were not made this year due to lack of information.
Copyright © Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Boulevard Manuel Ávila Camacho
191, 5th loor, Polanco I Sección, Miguel Hidalgo, 11510, Mexico City, 2015. The present page contains materials that are industrial and intellectual property of Ibope AGB
México, S.A. de C.V., which have been placed at the disposal of Obitel for research and
analysis purposes connected with this project, therefore it is forbidden to reproduce them
by third parties, whether temporarily, totally or partially, without written permission by
this company. Infringement shall be punished as established by the relevant laws.
3
Mexico: between change and continuity | 229
Politics
700
0.6
Religious
380
0.3
Others
9522
9.2
Total
107946
100
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
On national open television in Mexico, entertainment, information, sports and fiction continue to be the dominant genres because
they concentrate 85% of the general programming. This tendency
is so strong and constant that the new channel, Imagen Televisión,
did not present a different production and broadcasting scheme, so
the bulk of its programming was also concentrated on these genres
and formats.
1.2. Audience tendencies in 2016
“The media do not die, they just transform”: this is the phrase
that could synthesize the tendencies of the media and audiences on
Mexican television during 2016. Two examples of this are the proposals that Televisa presented to connect with its audiences in different ways. First, it abandoned the classic image of its “Canal de
Las Estrellas” to introduce itself not as a classic television channel,
but as a media platform, which included a change in its contents and
in the way it sought to generate audience interaction strategies up to
August 2016. Amidst this change, Televisa also launched streaming
platform Blim, whose objective is not just to be Mexico’s direct
competition of Netflix, but also it is now Televisa’s proposal in the
video on demand sector.
1.3. Advertising investment of the year: in TV and in fiction
In the previous Obitel Yearbooks (2014, 2015 and 2016) we
insisted on showing and explaining the restructuring that the television industry is undergoing in Mexico. Since the mid-1960s open
TV has captured the bulk of investment. However, we also noticed
that in 2005 open television took up 59% of investment and in 2015
it dropped to 49%. That is, 10% less in the span of ten years. The
230 | Obitel 2017
first thing that must be said is that this phenomenon is a worldwide
tendency, which is in no way exclusive to Mexico. Another element
to be considered is that advertising investment increases year after
year, despite global financial uncertainty. In 2015, US$ 5,320,000
were invested in advertising, while in 2016 the amount was US$
5,690,000 (El Economista, 2015). What happens, then, is that advertisers prefer to invest a little less in open TV in return for strengthening their interest in paid television and, even more so, in the internet.
Televisa is thus living the restructuring of the television industry in Mexico. In 2016 gross sales (US$ 5,067,000) rose 9.4%
with respect to 2015. The company’s Channel Sale segment, which
refers to production and broadcasting of channels in the paid TV
systems, experienced a 22.4% increase in yearly incomes. This good
performance is attributed to the fact that 11 of the 30 paid TV channels with the largest audience in Mexico were produced by Televisa
(Televisa, 2017:3).
TV Azteca is a smaller company, with fewer resources, if compared with Televisa. In addition, administrative decisions caused
a loss of audiences and the fall in advertising incomes, which, as
a whole, compromised the company’s financial health (see Obitel
Yearbooks 2014, 2015 and 2016).
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
The inclusion of social messages within the national fiction
was mainly undertaken by Mexican public television: Canal Once
produced a children’s series entitled Yo Soy Yo, jointly made with
the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred), whose
narrative axis turned around bullying, but not only in the school
context, but also on the social networks, such as Facebook. Due to
its quality and its contribution to the struggle against school bullying, in 2016 this series received the Plata award from Promax BDA
Latinoamérica. In terms of the inclusion of commercial merchandising, the incorporation of brands continues to prevail with the use of
certain takes or shots within TV fiction and shows.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 231
1.5. Communication policies
One of the main changes on the subject of communication policies experienced by the country was the arrival of digital terrestrial
television and, with it, the end of analog television. This change
entailed not only a multimillion investment by the Mexican State
(approximately US$ 386 million for the purchase of 53 thousand
digital TV sets), but also a change in the national TV palimpsest,
since, for the first time, TV networks were able to actually materialize the digitalization of their signals. Now each of them has up to
five mirror channels, which practically quintuples the number of
open channels at national level.
1.6. Public TV
The Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State was born
from the Reform in Telecommunications and Broadcasting promulgated in the country in 2014. This entity is in charge of providing
the public digital broadcasting service at national level, in order to
ensure access to more people, as well as a greater offer in plural,
diverse digital radio and television contents. Today there are 26
broadcasting stations in operation, located in 22 states of the Republic, which allows an approximate 49.72% coverage at national level.
In 2016, Una Voz Con Todos obtained national coverage and now it
adds to Canal Once, Canal 22 and TV Unam signals as public media
with a national scope.
1.7. Paid TV
Paid television in Mexico, as its tendency has reflected since
2012, continues to grow thanks to the provision of other digital
services such as landline telephony, internet and video on demand,
which are provided by means of packages called Triple Play. In
2016, Mexico ranked third internationally in terms of paid television penetration, since 56% of Mexican households paid for some
restricted television service, according to data reported by Federal
Institute of Telecommunications (IFT, 2016).
232 | Obitel 2017
1.8. ICT tendencies
Mexico ended the year 2016 with a total sum of 68 million
internet users (Amipci, 2016), which means that a little over half
the Mexicans manage to log online, whether via a modem signal
or a broadband connection, by using and carrying a mobile device,
among which the most widely used is the cell phone.
In relation with the latter, the Federal Institute of Telecommunications announced that there are an estimated 103.9 million cell
phone lines in Mexico, of which 52.6 million belong to smartphone
users (50.7% of the total); only one in every four cell phone users
has real possibilities of logging on the internet. The previous data,
despite the growth, points at the fact that the gap of internet accessibility continues to be large in the country.
The analog blackout and the imminent predominance of digital television in the country had an impact in terms of the number
of video on demand subscribers in Mexico, Netflix being the main
platform to access these services. The national market is very relevant to this company because 45.5% of its Latin American subscribers are Mexican (Forbes, 2016).
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction broadcast in 2016
(national and foreign; premieres and reruns; and co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES: 27
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES: 27
Televisa: 15 national titles
1. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (telenovela)
2. Corazón que Miente (telenovela)
3. Sueño de Amor (telenovela)
4. El Hotel de los Secretos (telenovela)
5. Las Amazonas (telenovela)
6. Por Siempre Joan Sebastian (series)
7. Despertar Contigo (telenovela)
8. Vino el Amor (telenovela)
9. Tres Veces Ana (telenovela)
10. Mujeres de Negro (telenovela)
Televisa: 11 foreign titles
28. Bajo el Mismo Cielo (telenovela –
USA)
29. El Señor de los Cielos 3 (series –
USA)
30. Eva la Trailera (telenovela – USA)
31. Señora Acero 2 (telenovela – USA)
32. Flor Salvaje (telenovela – USA,
Colombia)
33. La Querida del Centauro (telenovela
– USA, Colombia)
34. Silvana sin Lana (telenovela – USA)
Mexico: between change and continuity | 233
11. Sin Rastro de Ti (series)
12. La Candidata (telenovela)
13. Nosotros Los Guapos (series)
14. 40 y 20 (series)
15. La Rosa de Guadalupe (dramatized)
35. Pablo Escobar, el Patrón del Mal
(series – Colombia)
36. Relatos de un Sueño Americano (dramatized – USA)
37. La Reina del Sur (telenovela – USA)
38. La Viuda Negra (series – Colombia)
Co-production
16. Yago (series – Mexico, USA)
TV Azteca: 6 foreign titles
39. Celia Cruz (series – Colombia, USA)
TV Azteca: 5 national titles
40. Cuestión de Honor (telenovela –
17. Un Día Cualquiera (series)
Turkey)
18. Están Entre Nosotros (dramatized)
41. Sila (telenovela – Turkey)
19. Entre Correr y Vivir (series)
42. Secretos (miniseries – Turkey)
43. Verdades Secretas (telenovela –
Co-production
Brazil)
20. Hasta que te Conocí (series – Mexico, 44. Flor del Caribe (telenovela – Brazil)
USA)
21. Rosario Tijeras (telenovela – Mexico, Canal Once: 2 national titles
USA)
45. La Reina Blanca (series – England)
46. Downton Abbey (series – England)
Canal Once: 3 national titles
22. Juana Inés (series)
Imagen TV: 3 national titles
23. Yo Soy Yo (series)
47. Amor Eterno (telenovela – Turkey)
24. Paramédicos 2 (series)
48. Amar es Primavera (series – Turkey)
49. Lady, la Vendedora de Rosas (teleImagen TV: 3 national titles
novela – Colombia)
25. Vuelve Temprano (telenovela)
50. Elif (series – Turkey)
26. Perseguidos (telenovela)
27. Infames (telenovela)
Canal 22: 4 titles
51. Isabel (series – Spain)
52. Carlos, Rey Emperador (series –
Spain)
53. Volver a Nacer (miniseries – Argentina)
54. La Resistencia (series – France)
RERUN TITLES: 6
Televisa: 2 titles
55. Familia P-luche (series)
56. Mañana es Para Siempre (telenovela)
TV Azteca: 1 title
57. La Vida en el Espejo (telenovela)
Canal Once: 2 titles
58. No Eres Tú, Es Alguien Más (series)
59. Bienes y Raíces (series)
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 55
TOTAL RERUN TITLES: 6
234 | Obitel 2017
In 2016, Mexico premiered 54 titles (15 more than in 2015),
which meant a significant increase with respect to the number of fictions produced per year, since they had not surpassed 50 titles since
2011. This increase was partly due to the presence of a new fiction
producer, Imagen TV, which premiered six titles this year (three
national and three foreign ones), but it was also due to the fact that
the public channel, Canal Once, went back to producing series and
it premiered three in 2016.
As to national productions, 27 were produced (eight more than
in 2015), the same number of imported titles that were aired during
2016. As to international fictions, it should be pointed out that the
tendency to air Turkish and Brazilian telenovelas is still in operation,
since it was a formula that was also implemented by Imagen TV,
a company that joins in with TV Azteca with its strategy of broadcasting telenovelas from these countries. Televisa, in turn, continues
placing on its screens telenovelas that mostly come from the USA.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
Titles
27
27
1
2
0
5
0
2
8
26
0
0
0
0
54
%
Chapters/
episodes
1519
1791
13
170
0
436
0
56
678
1519
0
0
0
0
3310
%
Hours
%
NATIONAL (total)
50.0
45.9 705:50:00 44.1
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
50.0
54.1 894:00:00 55.9
Argentina
1.9
0.4
10:00:00
0.6
Brazil
0.0
5.1
85:00:00
5.3
Chile
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Colombia
9.3
13.2 218:00:00 13.6
Ecuador
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Spain
3.7
1.7
28:00:00
1.8
USA (Hispanic production)
14.8
20.5 339:00:00 21.2
Mexico
48.1
45.9 705:50:00 44.1
Peru
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Portugal
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Uruguay
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Venezuela
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
TOTAL
100.0
100.0 1599:50:00 100.0
NATIONAL CO-PRODUC0:00:00
TIONS
OBITEL CO-PRODUCTIONS 2
73
7:20:00
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 235
Unlike other years and despite the increase of one national network, the number of chapters of the national fiction productions decreased significantly, when it dropped 338 chapters and around 95
hours. This can be explained in two different ways: 1) the networks
have decided on producing shorter telenovelas, ranging from 60 to
80 chapters; 2) the growth in the production and broadcasting of series and miniseries is contributing to the reduction in the number of
episodes and, therefore, the number of hours of fiction on the air. A
tendency that was also held, regarding the last two years, is that the
foreign titles come from three Obitel countries: the USA, Brazil and
Colombia; whereas Turkish telenovelas continue to grow in number on national open television, both Imagen TV and TV Azteca
decided on them.
The two co-productions that were made in 2016 were headed
by TV Azteca, which co-produced telenovela Rosario Tijeras with
Sony Pictures Latinoamérica and series Hasta que te Conocí with
Disney Latinoamérica. The latter fiction, narrating the life of singer
Juan Gabriel, allowed TV Azteca, after three years of absence, to
rank in the top ten of national television fiction.
The prime time and night hours remain the fiction producers’
favorite slots, since they concentrated 90% of the fiction titles premiered in 2016. The broadcast of telenovelas in the morning and
even in the afternoon were destined to reruns, not to premiere fictions.
National
Ibero-American
Total
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
Morning (6:00-12:00)
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Afternoon (12:00-19:00)
260
17.1
130:00:00 18.4
150
8.4
75:00:00
8.4
410
12.4
205:00:00
12.8
Prime time (19:00-22:00) 1184
77.9
538:00:00 76.2
1090
60.9
543:50:00
60.8
2274 68.7 1087:50:00
68.0
Night (22:00-24:00)
75
4.9
6:50:00
1.0
551
30.8
275:50:00
30.9
626
18.9
307:00:00
19.2
Total
1519
100.0 705:50:00 95.6
1791
894:00:00
100.0
3310 100.0 1599:50:00 100.0
100.0
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base “Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV
programming hours in 2016.
Time slot
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
National
Ibero-American
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
14
0.0 1204
79.8
579:00:00
82.1
14
51.9
1103
61.6
550:00:00
61.5
Series
11
40.7 288
19.1
126:00:00
17.8
11
40.7
657
36.7
344:00:00
38.4
Miniseries
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
2
7.4
31
1.7
0:31:50
0.1
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Docudrama
2
7.4
17
1.1
0:50:00
0.1
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Total
27
48.1 1509 100.0 705:50:00 100.0
27
100.0 1791 100.0 894:00:00 100.0
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base “Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV
programming hours in 2016.
Format
236 | Obitel 2017
Table 3. Chapter/episodes and hours aired by time slot
Mexico: between change and continuity | 237
In 2016, production of series was consolidated, since 22 titles
were premiered. If we add the fact that, for the first time, two miniseries were broadcast in the country, we could say that 44% of the
entire premiere fiction – national and Ibero-American – was concentrated in this format. In the same sense, the telenovela shows a
restructure given that long telenovelas are not being produced but
rather shorter stories in terms of the number of chapters (60-80).
The same format is kept, but it gives way to a shorter narrative development, one that is more similar to a series, without abandoning
the esthetic, narrative and discursive schemes of the telenovela.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
Format
Morning
0
0
0
0
0
0
%
AfterPrime
To%
% Night %
%
noon
time
tal
1
20.0
18
45.0
4
50.0 23 43.4
4
80.0
18
45.0
4
50.0 26 49.1
0
0.0
2
5.0
0
0.0
2
3.8
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
20.0
2
5.0
0
0.0
3
5.7
Telenovela
0.0
Series
0.0
Miniseries
0.0
Teleilm
0.0
Unitario
0.0
Docudrama
0.0
Others
(soap opera,
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
etc.)
Total
0
0.0
5
120.0
40 100.0
8
100.0 53 100.0
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
Series and miniseries, as we explained above, gained such relevance in 2016 that most of them were placed at prime time. The
production of these stories, however, does not correspond to a decision of the national industry, but to a marketing strategy, since most
of them come from other countries, mainly Turkey, Spain and the
USA. Canal Once stands out because for some years it has decided
to establish the series as the fiction format it produces the most.
238 | Obitel 2017
Table 6. Period in which national iction is set
Tome period
Titles
%
Present
24
88.9
Period
2
7.4
Historical
1
3.7
Other
0
0.0
Total
27
100.0
During 2016, three titles were produced that were not set in the
present time, but in the past. They were: Juan Inés, which portrays
the life of Mexican poetess and writer Sister Juan Inés de la Cruz;
El Hotel de los Secretos, which, even though it was not a historical
telenovela, did paint a picture of an early 19th-century Mexico; and,
finally, Hasta que te Conocí, narrating the life of Mexican singersongwriter Juan Gabriel, whose story is set in the 1960s and 1970s.
Table 7. The ten most viewed titles: origin, rating, share4
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
4
Country
Scriptwriter
of original
RatProducer Channel or author of
idea
ing
original idea
or script
Por Siempre
Joan SebasMexico
tian
La Rosa de
Mexico
Guadalupe
Un Camino
Hacia el
Mexico
destino
Amo DesperColombia
tar Contigo
Vino el Amor
Chile
Tres Veces Ana Mexico
Televisa
Canal 2
Televisa
Canal 2
Televisa
Canal 2
Televisa
Canal 2
Televisa
Televisa
Canal 2
Canal 2
Humberto
Olivieri
Share
15.58 24.92
Carlos Mer15.13 30.03
cado
Mariela
Romero
María Malmori
Julio Rosas
Juan Alcalá
14.86 28.19
13.74 25.80
13.37 23.67
13.36 22.75
Copyright © Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Boulevard Manuel Ávila Camacho
191, 5th loor, Polanco I Sección, Miguel Hidalgo, 11510, Mexico City, 2015. The present page contains materials that are industrial and intellectual property of Ibope AGB
México, S.A. de C.V., which have been placed at the disposal of Obitel for research and
analysis purposes connected with this project, therefore it is forbidden to reproduce them
by third parties, whether temporarily, totally or partially, without written permission by
this company. Infringement shall be punished as established by the relevant laws.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 239
El Hotel de
los Secretos
Corazón que
Miente
María René
12.86 26.78
Prudencio
Antonio
8
Mexico
Televisa Canal 2
12.86 22.45
Abascal
Ricardo Fial9 Las Amazonas Venezuela Televisa Canal 2
12.71 22.83
lega
Hasta que te
TV AzRaúl Oli10
Mexico
Canal 1
12.24 20.31
Conocí
teca
vares
Total productions: 10
Foreign scripts: 4
100%
40%
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
7
Spain
Televisa
Canal 2
The tendency around the biographical fictions produced in
2016 is noteworthy in this top ten because here we can see there
was preference for the titles Por Siempre Joan Sebastian (Televisa)
and Hasta que te Conocí (TV Azteca), both based on the lives of
Mexican singer-songwriters Joan Sebastian and Juan Gabriel, respectively.
Despite these successes, the most relevant element on this top
ten is the fact that ratings fell in national fiction, since in 2016 none
of the titles managed to surpass 16 rating points, which comes to
show that there was an average 3 to 4 point drop in audience levels
with respect to the year 2015, when the most viewed title obtained
19 points. The crisis in the audiences is evident.
Table 8. the ten most viewed titles: format, length, time slot
Title
Por Siempre Joan
Sebastian
La Rosa de Gua2
dalupe
Un Camino Hacia
3
el Destino
Amo Despertar
4
Contigo
1
5 Vino el Amor
Format
Genre
Number
of chap./
ep. (in
2016)
Series
Drama
18
Dramatized
Unitario
Drama
25
Telenovela
Drama
126
Telenovela
Comedy
121
Telenovela
Drama
145
First and
last
broadcast
(in
2016)
08/01/1608/21/16
05/01/1609/12/16
01/25/1607/17/16
08/08/1601/22/17
08/08/1602/19/17
Time slot
Prime
time
Afternoon
Afternoon
Afternoon
Prime
time
240 | Obitel 2017
05/23/16Prime
10/25/16
time
El Hotel de los
04/10/16Prime
Telenovela Drama
80
7
Secretos
07/31/16
time
Corazón que
02/08/16Prime
Telenovela Drama
70
8
Miente
05/14/16
time
05/16/16Prime
Telenovela Drama
9 Las Amazonas
61
08/07/16
time
Hasta que te
07/10/16Prime
10
Series
Drama
13
Conocí
08/28/16
time
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
6 Tres Veces Ana
Telenovela
Drama
102
Among the novelties and continuities of fiction consumption
in Mexico, it should be pointed out that, for three years in a row,
drama series presenting self-contained stories La Rosa de Guadalupe ranked as one of the audience’s favorite fictions. It is also noteworthy that this is the first time in five years that the first place is
not occupied by a telenovela, but by a drama series, Por Siempre
Joan Sebastian, which, even though it has only 18 chapters, could
not be surpassed by any of the telenovelas that Televisa placed in
its prime time, because Sin Rastro de Ti, Mujeres de Negro or La
Candidata did not even manage to rank among the ten most viewed
telenovelas.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most viewed titles
Title
Dominant themes
Social themes
Por Siempre Joan
Sebastian
La Rosa de Gua2
dalupe
Un Camino Hacia
3
el Destino
Amo Despertar
4
Contigo
Personal growth, family
love, solidarity.
Religious belief, family
values, devotion.
Love, family revenge,
equity.
Abandonment, love,
revenge.
Migration, love, overcoming.
Hate between sisters, love,
revenge.
Love, upward mobility,
revenge, hate.
Fight against cancer, corruption
in the star world.
Gender equity, privacy in social
networks, violence, bullying.
1
5 Vino el Amor
6 Tres Veces Ana
7
El Hotel de los
Secretos
Territorial problems.
Poverty, street harassment,
violence.
Human traficking, corruption.
Upward mobility, orphanhood.
Gender violence, machismo,
discrimination.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 241
8
Corazón que
Miente
9 Las Amazonas
10
Hasta que te
Conocí
Love, upward mobility,
friendship, family love.
Racial discrimination, machismo.
Love, upward mobility,
family revenge.
Gender equity and violence.
Personal growth, family
love, solidarity.
Social discrimination, machismo, abuse of power.
Source: Obitel Mexico
Unlike other years, in 2016, social issues within the top ten
were dealt with less intensely and there was no intention to influence the audience’s everyday life within. However, this does not
mean that there were no fictions that carried a social message or a
different narrative. There were good examples on all the national
networks; nevertheless, titles such as La Candidata (Televisa), Un
Día Cualquiera (TV Azteca) or Vuelve Temprano (Imagen TV)
were not liked by the audiences.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most viewed titles:
gender, age, socioeconomic level5
Gender % Socioeconomic level %
Channel WomMen ABC+ C
D+ DE
en
1 Por Siempre Joan Sebastian
Canal 2
8.2
5.0
5.3
5.2 7.6 8.5
2 La Rosa de Guadalupe
Canal 2
8.2
3.7
3.7
5.0 6.9 8.3
3 Un Camino Hacia el Destino Canal 2
7.7
3.7
10.3 12.8 6.9 7.9
4 Amo Despertar Contigo
Canal 2
7.1
3.4
9.7 10.1 5.6 7.2
5 Vino el Amor
Canal 2
7.7
3.4
9.4 12.2 6.3 6.9
6 Tres Veces Ana
Canal 2
7.2
3.3
10.3 11.3 6.3 6.8
7 El Hotel de los Secretos
Canal 2
5.8
3.0
8.6 10.3 4.9 6.4
8 Corazón que Miente
Canal 2
6.8
3.2
9.3 10.9 5.9 6.5
9 Las Amazonas
Canal 2
6.8
3.2
9.1 10.2 5.9 6.7
Hasta que te Conocí
10
Canal 1
4.7
6.2
4.6
4.8 5.6 6.0
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
Title
5
Copyright © Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Boulevard Manuel Ávila Camacho
191, 5th loor, Polanco I Sección, Miguel Hidalgo, 11510, Mexico City, 2015. The present page contains materials that are industrial and intellectual property of Ibope AGB
México, S.A. de C.V., which have been placed at the disposal of Obitel for research and
analysis purposes connected with this project, therefore it is forbidden to reproduce them
by third parties, whether temporarily, totally or partially, without written permission by
this company. Infringement shall be punished as established by the relevant laws.
242 | Obitel 2017
As in previous years, the profile of fiction audiences in Mexico
continues to be mostly made up of adult women over 40 years old
belonging to middle or low classes; nevertheless, this profile is also
being affected by the generalized drop in the ratings, which poses
a veritable challenge for fiction producers because the young sector
(between 18 and 24 years old) reflects the lowest levels of fiction
viewership, just as it is reflected in the following table.
Age groups %
4-12 13-17 18-24 25-39 40+
1 Por Siempre Joan Sebastian
Canal 2 6.6
4.4
5.7
7.0 8.0
2 La Rosa de Guadalupe
Canal 2 6.0
5.8
4.8
5.5 6.7
3 Un Camino Hacia el Destino
Canal 2 5.9
4.8
4.7
5.5 7.1
4 Amo Despertar Contigo
Canal 2 5.3
3.5
4.0
4.3 6.0
5 Vino el Amor
Canal 2 5.2
4.6
3.9
4.6 6.7
6 Tres Veces Ana
Canal 2 5.3
3.7
3.4
4.7 6.9
7 El Hotel de los Secretos
Canal 2 4.4
3.5
3.9
4.0 6.2
8 Corazón que Miente
Canal 2 5.1
3.9
4.0
4.6 6.4
9 Las Amazonas
Canal 2 5.0
3.8
4.0
4.1 6.3
10 Hasta que te Conocí
Canal 1 5.5
3.8
3.0
4.8 7.9
Source: Obitel with data from Ibope AGB México, S.A. de C.V. Software MSSTV. Base
“Rating regular 5 Dominios + Videotrack regular”. Total TV programming hours in 2016.
Title
Channel
3. Transmedia reception
Since the year 2012 we have analyzed transmedia reception
in telenovelas. For 2017 we decided to focus on another platform
whose production company is becoming a fiction content creator:
Netflix. With Club de Cuervos, this company launched its first production in Spanish and it was also its first product not made in the
USA. Club de Cuervos served the purpose of measuring a change
in the creators’ vision in México when producing series (Forbes,
2015).
In the Obitel Yearbooks for the years 2013 to 2016 we have
reported that the transmedia strategies by TV networks in Mexico
have been limited and they are still on the experimentation stage; we
have also found that the audience’s participation has been poor. Is
it the same with series, with another production company, platform
and other contents? We believe that the change that occurs when de-
Mexico: between change and continuity | 243
ciding on a theme that can be liked by a large sector of the audience
and the audience selects can yield other results. The inconvenience
is that the content is restricted: the cost of the monthly subscription to access all of Netflix products ranges from 99 to 159 pesos a
month (US$ 5-8).
Club de Cuervos has two seasons. The first was launched in August 2015 and the second one in December 2016. Its theme revolves
around the team “Cuervos de Nuevo Toledo” and the plot concerns
the relationship of two siblings: Salvador “Chava” Iglesias (Luis
Gerardo Méndez) and Isabel Iglesias (Mariana Treviño). When their
father dies, Chava is appointed president of the Club, which is not
approved by Isabel, therefore a conflict arises. “Cuervos de Nuevo
Laredo” is important for the town’s economic development. The
objective of series producers is to take care of their essence so as “to
avoid telenovelizing the contents” (Forbes, 2015).
Transmedia narratives
Social networks: The strategy included setting up sites on social networks Facebook and Twitter. It has over 183 thousand followers on Twitter. On Facebook, the official site of the first season
(2015) amassed 5,105 followers; the 2016 season, 1,039,751 followers.6 In addition, the fans opened another site, “Club de Cuervos
Fans”, with 353,367 followers.7
Product design and communication strategies with the media:
several products were advertised, much like what happens with actual soccer teams; these strategies have played a key role to hook the
audience with the series’ storyline.
Participation and contents created by the fans
The site has 48 promotional videos about the series and its
events. The ones with the most views are the clip showing Cha6
Retrieved on February 20, 2017 from https://www.facebook.com/clubdecuervos/.
Retrieved on February 20, 2017 from https://www.facebook.com/clubdecuervosn/?hc_
ref=SEARCH&fref=nf.
7
244 | Obitel 2017
va receiving the Real Madrid jersey, a gift from James Rodríguez
(July 14th, 2016, with 466,237 views), and the one known as No
seas mammon, Gooey! (September 15th, 2016, with 548,185). The
site has posted almost on a daily basis since the inception of the
webpage, on August 7th, 2015, to the present (March, 2017). The
diegetic and the non-diegetic world are combined.
Figure 1. Transmedia narrative on Club de Cuervos
Source: Obitel Mexico
Memes, social photos of the main characters, Twitter posts
referring to the episodes, different advertising campaigns where
brand Corona is the center predominate in the photos created by
fans, whether they are T-shirts, drinks, etc. Fanfiction reproductions
of Club de Cuervos script were not present this time. Participation
concentrated on the creation of memes and gifs, following the social
lives of the actors both on the fictional story and in their real lives,
and on creating new products above all in terms of the design of
sports clothes, but not in terms of narrative expansion: music composition, new dialogs or webisodes.
Club de Cuervos had a narrative expansion strategy that captured the audience’s attention; however, the fans’ behavior pattern
with Netflix series is similar to that which we have reported in other
Obitel Yearbooks with the telenovelas, although Club de Cuervos
reflects greater involvement on the part of the fans.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 245
4. Highlights of the year
The decision to reach new audiences, especially the young
ones, compelled the national TV networks to make changes that
were not only unexpected, but also radical; because they did not just
appear before the audience as something more than just a television
channel, but also they decided to change their entire programming
so as to prove that their change was profound. Tthat is what Televisa
intended to do when it dropped its moniker “Canal de Las Estrellas”
to become the multimedia platform “Las Estrellas”.
This change resulted not only in the modification of their image
and the opening of several means for interaction with their audiences, but also in new contents, the fiction and news areas being
the ones with the most impact. As to the former, Televisa premiered
three titles that would mark a new narrative turn in its telenovelas by
incorporating more contemporary themes, such is the case of Tres
Veces Ana, Mujeres de Negro and Yago. However, none of them met
with the expected approval, which compelled them to reduce the
number of chapters that had been planned since their premieres.
Other failures occurred at the night time slot on Canal Las Estrellas, which sought to implement a format similar to those of the
Late Night Shows that are broadcast in the USA (such as David Letterman’s or Conan O’Brien’s); however, show entitled Esta Noche
con Arath –hosted by comedian Arath de la Torre – did not work and
it had to be taken off the air two months after its premiere. Its place
was occupied by two comedy series that Televisa had produced to
be aired exclusively by Blim: 40 y 20 and Nosotros, los Narcos.
TV Azteca says goodbye to the production of telenovelas
Tanto Amor (2015) was the last telenovela produced by TV Azteca, since, in a formal announcement in July 2016, Benjamín Salinas – its general director – explained: “the telenovelas are something
the audience does not want to continue watching. We have produced
them for years and now it is time for us to step back and see what the
people want and produce that” (Vanguardia, 2016). This announce-
246 | Obitel 2017
ment comes hand in hand with the growing broadcast of Brazilian
and Turkish telenovelas by this network, which in 2016 premiered
six telenovelas from these countries (three Brazilian and three Turkish ones), twice as many as the titles that TV Azteca produced in
the same year. This decision, in the words of executive Benjamín
Salinas, was made because some social and anthropologic studies
were conducted with their audiences to determine “what Mexican
audiences really consume to give them what they want to watch”.
That is why TV Azteca will produce contents similar to what Disney
or Sony make. “We have bet on a group of different, more modern,
bolder main characters that will soon appear on TV Azteca screens”,
said Salinas (Vanguardia, 2016).
In 2016, TV Azteca produced series Un Día Cualquiera and
Entre Correr y Vivir independently, as well as dramatized unitario
Están Entre Nosotros; and in co-production, telenovela Rosario Tijeras (made jointly with Teleset and Sony Pictures) and successful series Hasta que te Conocí, which portrays the life of Mexican
singer Juan Gabriel, produced by TV Azteca, Disney Latinoamérica
and Somos Productions.
The boom of autobiographical telenovelas
The lives of great show business stars was one of the most outstanding events in the year, since both Televisa and TV Azteca aired
two series whose narrative axis revolved around the lives of the two
of most representative singer-songwriters of Mexican music in recent years: Juan Gabriel and Joan Sebastian.
With just 13 episodes that were aired each Sunday, TV Azteca
managed to enjoy once again the audiences’ preference, since, with
the airing of the biographical series about Juan Gabriel, Hasta que
te Conocí, they attained audience levels that no other fiction by this
channel had achieved since the 1990s, with hits such as Nada Personal or Mirada de Mujer. A circumstantial factor that helped them
achieve this is the fact that the last episode of the series coincided
with the singer’s death, on August 28th, 2016.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 247
Hasta que te Conocí narrated the life of renowned Mexican
singer-songwriter Alberto Aguilera Valadez, better known as Juan
Gabriel, and his road to stardom until he became a music icon. This
series has been aired in the USA and in over ten Ibero-American
countries.
To match this success, Televisa produced an 18-episode series
to portray the life of singer-songwriter Joan Sebastian. The series,
entitled Por Siempre Joan Sebastian, el Poeta del Pueblo, stared the
son of the late singer, José Manuel Figueroa, and it ranked as one of
the most viewed shows during 2016. Just as it happened with Hasta
que te Conocí, Por Siempre Joan Sebastian, el Poeta del Pueblo
premiered first in the USA and then in Mexico. The series was produced by Carla Estrada and, as the series about Juan Gabriel, it narrated the singer’s ascent to stardom.
The electoral telenovela
Following the tendency of fiction à la carte, in 2016 Televisa
premiered telenovela La Candidata, whose story revolves around
the life of Regina Bárcenas, who is a member of the Senate and
the wife of the main candidate to Mexico’s presidency. After a series of political and personal problems, Regina Bárcenas becomes
a candidate to the presidency and competes with her husband in the
presidential elections, which she wins at the end of the telenovela.
This production provides continuity to Televisa creations,
whose narrative axis is the realm of politics, which is exactly what
was done in 2015 with Amor y Poder; however, La Candidata
brought about controversy due to the similarity between the fictional life portrayed and the political career of Margarita Zavala, aspiring candidate in the presidential elections that will be held in Mexico in 2018. Despite the fact that La Candidata’s producer, Giselle
González Salgado, claimed that their story has nothing to do with
Mexican politics, this telenovela did not manage to distance itself
from comparisons. Then, it ended much earlier than it was expected
and it was only on the air for less than two months.
248 | Obitel 2017
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Mexico.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Fiction in Mexico has been a very important genre, both on the
radio and on television. The first telenovela, Senda Prohibida, starring Silvia Derbez, dates back to 1957. Since then, commercial television, and Televisa in particular, has produced over one thousand
telenovelas, many of which have been repeated two or three times
as remakes and many others have been enjoyed all over the world
in their original version, like Los Ricos También Lloran, starring
Verónica Castro, which appeared on the screens of 82 countries,
including Russia and China.
Other than successes like these, over the course of half a century of coexistence with the telenovela, there have been few transformations in terms of themes, styles and production, in contrast with
their audiences, which finally, in the last two years, have been experiencing changes in the TV preferences and they are beginning to
segment and lean towards fiction with fewer episodes on one hand
and, on the other, towards varied fiction formats, such as dramatized
unitarios, series and miniseries.
This can be observed especially in the last decade, when Obitel
has been reporting about this TV product, which had been monopolized until recently by commercial TV and Televisa in particular.
However, paradoxically, there was a renewal conflict in the 1990s,
the so-called “war of the networks”, in which new network TV Azteca fought Televisa for audience and momentarily broke the telenovelesque scheme of the national screen when it produced two
telenovelas that made history, but which did not continue it: Nada
Personal and Mirada de Mujer, both by independent company Argos TV. The former introduced current issues such as politics and
drug traffic, and the latter modified nothing less than the couple’s
relationship expected in classical stories broadcast on screen and
challenged the beliefs existing in this regard, when its main character was a divorced woman who falls in love with a man who is 15
years younger than her.
Mexico: between change and continuity | 249
All in all, the telenovela on Mexican television has been and
still is the genre with the highest rating over the last ten years, only
occasionally surpassed by soccer matches or some film or some
world event such as the Olympic Games, which gives credit to the
importance of this genre among Mexican audiences. Nevertheless,
their rating has not surpassed 25.8 points and the 42 points of share
in the course of the decade.
The telenovelas with the greatest rating are: Abismo de Pasión,
with 25.8 in 2012; Soy tu Dueña, with 25.7 in 2010; and Hasta que
el Dinero nos Separe, with 25.4 in 2009. In 2016 the telenovela with
the greatest rating was Por Siempre Juan Sebastian, with 15.5 rating points. All of these fictions belong to Televisa, which has been
the largest telenovelas producer in Mexico and Latin America for
a long time. TV Azteca, the other strong television company that,
along with Televisa, makes up the famous “television duopoly”,
has hardly been able to place two telenovelas in the top ten: Pasión
Morena, based on an Argentine script, in 2009, and Siempre Tuya,
Acapulco, in 2014.
In 2016, La Rosa de Guadalupe, a dramatized unitario, ranked
second in rating, with 15.5, but it had the largest share in the entire
Mexican fiction that year: 30%, which should be understood as an
unheard-of phenomenon in Mexico, where the telenovela format
has always been the one that reaches the highest viewership. The
case of Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real was aired for 20 years and was
always presented by the world-famous actress Silvia Pinal, but it
never ranked in the top ten, all the more reason why it is remarkable
to see that La Rosa de Guadalupe has stood out so much in the audiences’ preference.
La Rosa de Guadalupe differs from the classical telenovelas
in two elements mainly. First in that it deals with everyday issues
such as school bullying, drug addiction among teenagers, teenage
pregnancy, gangs, problems of homosexuality in children and teens,
drug dealing. Secondly, it does not use “stars” in their cast, but new
actors, and they miraculously solve, with the help of Virgin of Gua-
250 | Obitel 2017
dalupe, of course, the conflict dealt with in each episode. Charged
with “magical realism”, this fiction has been enjoyed since 2016 at
prime time, where it arrived after stepping up from afternoon time
slots five years ago.
The growing phenomenon in Ibero-America of the purchase of
successful scripts by one country from another to be produced in the
purchasing country, with adaptations of their own to turn them into
national fictions, has been a significant tendency in Mexico, which
in 2009 and 2012 had six telenovelas (60%) with foreign scripts
in the top ten, in 2015 they were 50%, in 2008 and in 2011 they
were 40%. This result is noteworthy since Televisa had precisely
distinguished itself for training a “school” of scriptwriters that,
among other things, created their own inarguable style and made it
internationally famous as a fiction producer, even beyond Spanishspeaking countries.
In contrast with this “fictional decline” of Televisa and Mexican commercial TV, public television networks have been producing and broadcasting their own fiction, with better quality and more
popularity all the time. It reflects more local color, it is less commercial and it has started to gain rating, although still not more than 5
points, but their main merit is having broken the historical inertia in
Mexico, where fiction was only the programming privilege of commercial, not public, television, since the telenovela was considered
a product with little intellectual category, unworthy of cultural or
university television.
In addition to being a great television event for Mexican viewers, the above marks a new stage in the Ibero-American arena because it places the current fiction by Mexican Canal 11 side by side
with the fiction produced by Televisión Española (public) at the
avant-garde of series production in their respective countries, especially those with a historical nature. That is how British author
Paul Smith, the renowned audiovisual fiction specialist, sees it in
his latest book: Dramatized Societies, Quality Television in Spain
and Mexico (Smith, 2016). He analyzes two sets of recent TV series,
Mexico: between change and continuity | 251
both Mexican XY and Spanish, showing their quality, esthetics and
dramatic strength, about which he argues that these telenovelas have
“given back greatness” to the fiction genre in both countries.
Pasión was the last Televisa period telenovela, made by producer Karla Estrada, which gained the third place in the top ten in
2007, with a rating of 17.27. After this costly production, which
introduced several innovations in its manufacture, such as framings and shots with special cameras, actual exterior settings, period
costumes and atmosphere, there has not been any other period production on Mexican commercial television. There have been some
recent historical telenovelas made to celebrate anniversaries, a 2010
telenovela to commemorate the Independence of Mexico – Gritos de
Muerte y Libertad, with 12.9 rating point – and a historical miniseries in 2011 – El Encanto del Águila – to commemorate the Mexican
revolution. The latter had a rating of 14.75 points and ranked sixth
in the top ten, competing with La Reina del Sur, a telenovela about
drug traffic that ranked fifth, with 15.21 rating points. Nevertheless,
both historical productions transformed the type of historical fiction
from the past, where the chieftains were always the chieftains and
they were portrayed impeccably, without contradictions, defects, affections or passions, they were always the forefathers. Surpassing
this idea of historical fiction has been a great achievement by Mexican television, both public and private networks.
The telenovelas share over the ten years has tended to drop,
which is a confirmation rather than a novelty, considering that telenovela audiences have scattered and there remain only viewers who
are mostly adult women, from low and middle class. For example,
while telenovela Fuego en la Sangre had a 42.7 share in 2008, the
one that reached the highest share in 2016, Un Camino Hacia el
Destino, had just 28.19 points.
The predominant themes in Mexican telenovelas continue to be
the same as always: love and heartbreak, the family and children.
The woman predominates as the main character, but current, controversial topics have been introduced, such as drug traffic or the act
252 | Obitel 2017
that legalizes same-sex marriage. It is possible to observe a growing tendency towards introducing more violence in the telenovelas,
above all physical violence. While murder used to be insinuated,
now it is shown in minute detail.
A growing phenomenon in Mexican fiction during the last decade has been more than a merchandising, the arbitrary inclusion of
political propaganda as naturalized information in the characters’
dialogues. For example, in Televisa’s telenovela La Fea Más Bella,
aired in 2006, the main character dedicated some time on the screen
to voice her opinion, days before the elections for the president of
Mexico, about why people should vote for the PAN candidate Felipe Calderón (who eventually won). In Destilando Amor, Televisa’s
telenovela aired in 2007, whose original script was that of Colombian Café con Aroma de Mujer and whose main character was “Gaviota”, eventually the wife of the current president, Peña Nieto, the
use of the electric chair was promoted, and a Mexican murderer was
executed on it, in a national context that was demanding to reinstate
the death penalty for kidnappers. Something similar occurred in
Televisa’s telenovela Alma de Hierro, aired in 2008, to discuss and
inhibit the Act for the Legal Interruption of Pregnancy, or Abortion
Act, and the Social Coexistence Act, which were legislations that,
at that time, were only valid in Ciudad de México. TV Azteca also
did that when the plot of telenovela Pasión Morena, aired in 2009,
promoted the actions of Juan Sabines Chiapas government, or when
in Secretos del Alma, in the same year, the main characters debated
the official reasons involving the death of former Interior secretary
Juan Camilo Mouriño, who died in a dramatic aircraft accident in
Ciudad de México. In the telenovela, it is claimed that it was an accident, and details were provided about the pilots’ lack of skills as
the main cause for the plane crash, whereas all of Mexico suspected
that it had been an assassination. Despite the previous revealing examples of the political manipulation of telenovelas narratives, the
most outstanding case so far has been miniseries El Equipo, broadcast by Televisa in 2011, for which the National Secretariat of Pub-
Mexico: between change and continuity | 253
lic Security paid Televisa 118 million pesos “to produce for them
a fiction” narrating the operations of an elite group of the federal
police and praising the police officers’ courage and dedication, who
were always professional, always looking after the people’s welfare,
highly qualified not to fail so as not to cause civilian casualties when
they conducted operations against the narcos. El Equipo ran for 13
one-hour episodes at prime time on “Canal de las Estrellas” and it
managed to “clean” the police corps’ reputation because it had a
very good rating and ranked in the top ten of fiction programming.
The other important change, which is now hanging in the balance, was the creation of the Federal Telecommunications Institute
(IFT) as the result of a reform carried out in 2012. The IFT was in
charge of regulating the fair behavior of the different media companies, of punishing noncompliance, of conducting audience researches and paving the way for a reform with respect to ethical codes for
the media in the country and the public ombudsman in each media
company, as well as defining a minimal set of rights for the audiences.
References
Castañares, I. (2016, June 30). Alianzas de producción, la estrategia de TV
Azteca para generar contenidos. El Financiero. Retrieved on February 12, 2017
from http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/alianzas-de-produccion-laestrategia-de-tv-azteca-para-generar-contenidos.html.
Forbes (2015, July 6). México, el segundo mercado más grande de Netflix.
Forbes. Retrieved on February 12, 2017 from https://www.forbes.com.mx/
mexico-el-segundo-mercado-mas-grande-de-netflix/.
Onofre, J. S. (2015, April 29). Móviles, 25% de inversión publicitaria en
México en 2019. El Economista. Retrieved on February 12, 2017 from http://
eleconomista.com.mx/tecnociencia/2015/04/29/moviles-25-inversion-publicitaria-mexico-2019.
Smith, P. (2016). Dramatized Societies, Quality Television in Spain and Mexico. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Televisa (2017). Resultados del cuarto trimestre y año completo 2016. Mexico:
Televisa.
254 | Obitel 2017
TV Azteca (2016). TV Azteca anuncia la llegada de Joshua David Mintz. Press
realease on January 14.
TV Azteca (2017). TV Azteca anuncia importantes éxitos en su programación,
y sólido crecimiento en niveles de audiencia en 2016. Press realease on January 5.
Vanguardia (2016, July 5). TV Azteca dice adiós a las telenovelas. Vanguardia.
Retrieved on February 12, 2017 from http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/articulo/
tv-azteca-dice-adios-las-telenovelas.
7
Peru: fewer PremIeres, more reruns1
Authors:
James A. Dettleff, Giuliana Cassano, Guillermo Vásquez2
Team:
Thalía Dancuart, Nataly Vergara, Brunella Bertocchi,
Wendy Ramírez, Mary Bustinza, María Isabel Ato,
Lissi Torres, Sarah Rueda
1. Peru’s audiovisual context in 2016
The trend observed towards the end of 2015 and the beginning
of 2016 was kept throughout the year with the return of telenovelas and the almost disappearance of Peruvian series and miniseries.
Television fiction increased as consequence of the broadcasting of
Turkish telenovelas, and because of the alliance between some television stations, since many reruns of the allied stations were broadcasted on the screens of its associates. In 2016 there were presidential elections, and the new president was a winner after a very
tight result, which was defined by a minimum margin of votes. The
political and economic uncertainties of the pre- and post-election
months kept the stations alert and fearful of investing. Only America Televisión continued developing its expansion plans and constant
bets on new fiction projects. At present, it is the only channel in
which the production of Peruvian fiction is represented, although
the public TV station continued with three more seasons of the fiction project that began in 2015.
1
To write this chapter, we had the support of Kantar Ibope Media, which provided us
with the reception information used in this study. This research was possible thanks to the
support of General Directorate for Research and of the Vice-Rectorate for Research of the
Pontiicia Universidad Católica del Perú.
2
Professors from Pontiicia Universidad Católica del Perú.
256 | Obitel 2017
1.1. Open television in Peru
Chart 1. National open TV networks/channels in Peru
Private networks/channels (5)
Public networks/channels (1)
Latina (Channel 2)
América Televisión (Channel 4)
Panamericana Televisión (Channel 5)
TV Perú (Channel 7)
ATV (Channel 9)
Red TV (Channel 13)
TOTAL NETWORKS = 6
TOTAL CHANNELS = 6
Source: Obitel Peru
Open national television channels in Peru have not changed in
recent years (beyond some name changes already indicated in previous Obitel Yearbooks3), but the alliances that were announced in
late 2015 and early 2016 showed strategies that modified the national screen. Latina (owned by the business holding Enfoca), in
alliance with Panamericana Televisión (owned by the Schütz family), let many of the fictions produced by Latina in the last 12 years
to be broadcasted through Panamericana Televisión. By the middle
of the year both channels made some tests to have programs broadcasted by both signals, and they also shared part of their castings.
On the other hand, the alliance between América Televisión (owned
by journalistic groups El Comercio and La Repúbica) with ATV and
Red TV (both owned by Mexican Angel Gonzales) received less attention since the reruns broadcasted by ATV were mainly Mexican
productions previously emitted by América Televisión, although
it premiered Turkish telenovela El Sultán, which was acquired in
2015 by América Televisión. In neither case did co-productions or
joint projects showed fruits in 2016; they only allowed the stars of a
channel to appear in allied channel programs.
3
On March 25, 2017 a name change was announced: from Red TV to NexTV, although
owners were the same, as well as management structure. The announcement brought
promises of greater audience interrelations through social media networks and new iction productions in the future, but with “new people”. These promises were the same as
in April 2015, when the name was changed from Global TV into Red TV.
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 257
However, changes in stations ownership could occur in subsequent months. Weekly publication Hildebrandt en sus trece pointed
out that Enfoca had put up Latina on sale to recover the US$ 200
million paid by the station in 2013, noting that multinational Fox
had shown interest in acquiring Latina and Panamericana Televisión. Similarly, in March 2017, newspaper Gestión indicated that
RBC Televisión was on sale and that the interested parties would
include Telefónica, Grupo Wong and the Capuñay family (all of
them with cable or UHF channels in Peru), as well as TV Azteca
from Mexico and Grupo Cisneros from Venezuela. So far, no sale
has been confirmed.
1.2. Audience trends along the year
Graph 1. TV rating and share per network4
Network
Rating
%
Share
(%)
América
8.28 38.95 22.97
Televisión
Latina
5.93 27.89 16.45
ATV
3.52 16.56 9.76
Panamericana 1.79 8.42
4.97
Red TV
0.88 4.14
2.44
TV Perú
0.86 4.05
2.39
TOTAL
21.26 100 58.984
Source: Kantar Ibope Media
30
20
10
0
América
Televisión
Latina
ATV
Household
audience (%)
Panamericana
Red TV
TV Perú
Share (%)
Analyzing the audience figures given by Kantar Ibope Media,
strategic alliances made by the stations seem to have been beneficial
only for América Televisión and Panamericana Televisión. América
has continued its slow annual growth, which can be explained by its
own programming rather than by its alliance with Ángel Gonzáles’s
group. The Latina-Panamericana alliance seems to have turned little
advantageous for Latina, at least in terms of audience numbers, as
its share falls in more than one percentage point with respect to last
4
Share does not add up to 100% because the rest of open TV networks are missing, as
well as Cable and VHS/DVD (note from Kantar Ibope Media).
258 | Obitel 2017
year, when it showed audience growth. The TV household share in
Panamericana Televisión rose more than one percentage point with
respect to the previous year, placing the share of this channel as the
highest it has achieved in the last five years, and taking distance
from Red TV numbers, who beat Panamericana until 2014. It is not
difficult to think that this rise of Panamericana Televisión is due
to the successful programming coming from Latina, despite they
played reruns. On the other hand, the fall of ATV continues for the
fourth consecutive year, showing a loss of two percentage points in
comparison to its 2015 share.
For the first time, we offer data from TV Perú, the Peruvian
state station that, for more than a decade, requested not to be measured by audience measurement enterprises. Although it appears at
the end, its share is very close to that of Red TV, which means it
begins showing signs of competitiveness.
Beyond individual channels results in terms of numbers, it
should be also noted that there has been an obvious decline of the
audience in general, with a drop of more than three points in household rating, and more than six percentage points in household share.
This shows that the television audience is gradually moving away
from national open signal channels and choosing other kind of programming, such as the ones offered on the web.
Graph 2. Genres and hours broadcast in TV programming
Exhibition
%
hours
Information 17400:30:00 33.02
Fiction
19664:30:00 37.31
Entertainment 11885:00:00 22.55
Religious
356:30:00
0.68
Sports
1415:30:00
2.69
Education
62:00:00
0.12
Political
311:30:00
0.59
Others
1608:30:00
3.05
TOTAL
52704:00 100.00
Source: Obitel Peru
Genre
3.00%0.00% 1.00%
3.00%
1.00%
Information
Fiction
Entertainment
33.00%
22.00%
Religious
Sports
Education
37.00%
Political
Others
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 259
Broadly speaking, numbers in terms of genres presence on the
open signal television screen have not undergone great variations,
as compared to year 2015. Fiction in Peru continues to maintain its
place as the most broadcasted genre in open signal programming,
keeping a fluctuating presence of about 37% of screen time since
some years ago. Information and political programs during 2016
had a little more presence in comparison with the previous year, but
it is a logical phenomenon if we consider it was an electoral year in
Peru. Likewise, entertaining programs show a greater presence of
almost one percentage point as compared to 2015. This trend has
been observed for several years, as it was highlighted in previous
Obitel Yearbooks.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
As per data provided by CPI company, advertisement investment in Peru reached US$ 725 million, which means an increase
of 2% as compared to 2015, which is still lower than what was
achieved in 2014, the highest in the last five-year period. Television
is still the medium with the highest income, with 50.8% of advertising revenue. However, CPI report highlights that this increase in
revenues is due to the rise in television rates, since advertisement
spaces hired in television fell by 5% in general. In 2016, the giant
leap was made by the internet, which ranked second in terms of
advertising participation, with 11.9%, displacing radio into a third
place. Newspapers continued to show its declining trend that we
highlighted in the last Obitel Yearbook, falling from the second to
the fourth position in advertising participation.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
As noted in previous Obitel Yearbooks, merchandising in fiction is limited to some mentions of the sponsors during the story, albeit to a much lesser extent than it was reported in Obitel yearbooks
2014 and 2015. In the case of social merchandising, it was only
present in two ways during 2016. On one hand, series Amores que
260 | Obitel 2017
Matan dealt with domestic violence cases, containing clear social
messages in every chapter. On the other hand, at the time successful
telenovela Mis Tres Marías was broadcasted, there were marches
against violence towards women, feminicide, and acquiescent attitude of Peruvian justice towards aggressors in Peru. Some weeks
before the protest entitled #Niunamenos took place on August 13,
the leading actors of the telenovela sent messages before TV commercials expressing their rejection against acts of violence towards
women and inviting people to participate in the protest.
1.5. Communication policies
There were not significant changes in communication policies
in Peru, although some policies aiming at achieving greater diffusion in digital television as well as the announced (and postponed)
analogue blackout were gradually implemented. The state channel
expanded its DTT broadcasting to 16 cities in the country. In July
2016, it was reported that there were already 30 signals broadcasting
DTT in Lima, and two more were added in January 2017.
1.6. ICT trends
In 2016, Virgin Mobile became the fifth mobile operator in
Peru, and in early 2017 Dolphin Telecom was announced as the
sixth operator. In the second semester of 2016, different companies
offered free use of social network (without consuming data plans)
when the so-called “Pokémon Go fever” arrived in Peru. At the end
of 2016, the Supervisory Agency for Private Investment in Telecommunications (Osiptel, in its Spanish acronym) approved the regulation of net neutrality, which regulates content traffic and blocking
as well as service quality.
Increased ease of access to programs through cell phones and
tablets could mean a greater distance from youth television consumption in the future, but it will be necessary to increase internet
penetration in the country, since a report by the Ministry of Transport and Communications showed that there is only 20% of internet
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 261
penetration, and urban areas penetration is three times higher than
the rural one. Internet growth has been more significant in Lima,
followed by Arequipa and Tacna, but it has almost become stagnant
in the rest of the country. Nevertheless, in December, the arrival of
Amazon Prime Peru was announced as part of its expansion in the
region, aiming to compete with Netflix streaming service offer.
1.7. Public TV
TV Perú maintained inertia in fiction production, which started
four years ago, when it restarted its fictional production with Conversando con la Luna. In 2016 it continued with Nuestra Historia, a
telenovela setting from the late 70s to the year 2000, then repeating
the first season and issuing other new three seasons. This production
shows the flexibility of format names existing in Peru in recent years
(see Obitel Yearbooks 2015 and 2016), because Nuestra Historia is
called a telenovela with seasons, although each one has 20 episodes,
and the last three seasons have been issued consecutively, without
any waiting time between one and the other. Because of production
and changes in the broadcasting policy, it is said that Nuestra Historia has four seasons, but, in practice, it is an 80-episode telenovela.
In July, TV Perú broadcasted some programs regarding the bicentenary of Peruvian independence, and in one of them the broadcasting of Melgar, Camino Hacia la Libertad was announced, which
seemed to be a fiction narrating the participation in the pro-independence saga of Mariano Melgar. However, what was shown were
recreations with actors who briefly portrayed what historians narrated in voice over about this time of Peruvian independence, without
being a docudrama or a fiction. It was a sample of how the channel
wasted resources and the opportunity to produce something more
remarkable with a theme that will be present in the coming years,
since the bicentenary of the Peruvian independence will be in 2021.
The government – which came to power at the end of July 2016
– has not announced the production of new fictions, although there
have been some changes in TV Perú’s programming – several pro-
262 | Obitel 2017
moted by the previous management. Taking advantage of the fact
that digital television allows to have four signals, TV Perú chose
to dedicate one of these signals to youth viewers and launched IPe
channel, with cultural and entertaining programs, where fiction television is absent. Another initiative that has been very well received
is the broadcast of Ñuqanchik, a news program conducted by journalist Clodomiro Landeo and Marisol Mena, narrated exclusively
in Quechua. On April 24, 2017 the station launched Jiwasanaka, a
news program in Aymara, another of the Peruvian native languages.
It was also announced that Judicial Branch’s channel would start
broadcasting a Quechua news program through its UHF signal.
1.8. Pay TV
Pay TV showed little news in 2016 concerning national programming. Telefónica continues to be the main supplier company,
followed by Claro TV. The offer is quite similar.
1.9. Independent producers
As noted in the Obitel Yearbook 2016, the policy of broadcasting Turkish telenovelas by Latina virtually eliminated the presence
of independent fictions in that station, which meant that Imizu – the
second largest independent producer – had no productions broadcasted. Del Barrio Producciones continued to be the most prolific,
and in January 2017 it was announced that its telenovelas Amor
de Madre and Mis Tres Marías had been sold to India. In América
Televisión’s pre-sale event, Del Barrio’s productions stood out:
Solo una Madre (telenovela already on air in 2017), La Costurera y
el Libertador (period fiction) and Mujercitas (free adaptation of the
novel by Louise May Alcott), which will be the main fiction production for 2017.
In 2016, América broadcasted El Regreso de Lucas, a telenovela co-produced with Telefe from Argentina in 2015. This broadcasting in Peru had some drawbacks, since the final chapters were
reedited and important scenes and plotlines were eliminated. This
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 263
originated protests from the audience and also from the actors who
were part of the project. América Televisión did not give a formal
explanation for these actions, and, despite that and some problems
in the relationship between the stations, by the end of 2016, it was
announced that there would be new co-production projects.
For 2017 a second season about Peruvian saints was also announced, a co-production between Azul Corporación and religious
channel EWTN, from Alabama, USA. Another news item reported
in September was the interest showed by Korean company JMP
Group to co-produce a telenovela with América Televisión. If the
two co-production announcements are confirmed, América will be
almost the only screen airing Peruvian television fiction.
A project worth mentioning is Súper Cóndor, a comic strip
that features a Peruvian superhero, transformed into a miniseries by
Nima Producciones. Nevertheless, due to different successes in the
Peruvian cinema, the project became a feature-length fiction that
was to be released in 2015 and finally premiered in a short circuit in
2016. Willax channel broadcasted the film in December as part of
its interest to include fictions in its new programming. Up to now,
there is not production of its own in Willax, as the new investors offered (see Obitel Yearbook 2016), although there has been a greater
presence of fictions on their screen, including Colombian fictions
La Selección and Un Sueño Llamado Salsa.5
In this report, Willax iction hours are not considered, since it is a station without national reach, although its investors are planning to broaden its coverage to other cities
besides Lima.
5
264 | Obitel 2017
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fictions broadcast in 2016 (national and foreign;
premieres and reruns; and co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES – 9
América Televisión – 6 national titles
1. Al Fondo Hay Sitio – 8th season (soap
opera)
2. Amores que Matan (series)
3. Mis Tres Marías (telenovela)
4. Valiente Amor (telenovela)
5. VBQ Todo por la Fama (telenovela)
6. Ven Baila Quinceañera (telenovela)
TV Perú – 3 national titles
7. Nuestra Historia – 2nd season (telenovela)
8. Nuestra Historia – 3rd season (telenovela)
9. Nuestra Historia – 4th season (telenovela)
CO-PRODUCTIONS – 2
América Televisión – 1 title
10. El Regreso de Lucas (telenovela – Peru
and Argentina)
Latina – 1 title
11. Nunca te Diré Adiós (telenovela – Peru
and Venezuela)
ATV – 20 foreign titles
17. A Cada Quien su Santo (series – Mexico)
18. Al Límite (series – Argentina)
19. Criminal (miniseries – Colombia)
20. Lo que Callamos las Mujeres (series –
Mexico)
21. Sangre Fría (miniseries – Argentina)
22. Historias de Sexo de Gente Común (series – Argentina)
23. Mujeres Asesinas (series – Argentina)
24. Séptima Puerta (series – Colombia)
25. Sin Retorno (series – Colombia)
26. Central de Abasto (telenovela – Mexico)
27. Chespirito (series – Mexico)
28. Como Dice el Dicho (series – Mexico)
29. El Chapulín Colorado (series – Mexico)
30. La que no Podía Amar (telenovela –
Mexico)
31. La Vida es una Canción (series– Mexico)
32. Mar de Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
33. Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real (series –
Mexico)
34. Mundo de Fieras (telenovela – Mexico)
35. Niña Amada Mía (telenovela – Mexico)
36. Triunfo del Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES – 20
América Televisión – 9 foreign titles
12. A que no Me Dejas (telenovela – Mexico)
13. Amo Despertar a tu Lado (telenovela
– Mexico)
14. Amores con Trampa (telenovela –
Mexico)
15. Las Amazonas (telenovela – Mexico)
16. Pasión y Poder (telenovela – Mexico)
17. Simplemente María (telenovela – Mexico)
18. Tres Veces Ana (telenovela – Mexico)
19. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (telenovela – Mexico)
Latina – 3 national titles, 3 foreign titles
37. Corazón en Condominio (telenovela –
Mexico)
38. Divino Niño (miniseries – Colombia)
39. Milagro de Jesús (series – Brazil)
40. Dina Paucar: la Lucha por un Sueño
(miniseries – Peru)
41. La Pre (telenovela – Peru)
42. Yuru, la Princesa de la Selva (miniseries – Peru)
Panamericana Televisión – 11 national
titles, 6 foreign titles
43. 11:11 En mi Cuadra Nada Cuadra (series – Argentina)
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 265
20. El Hotel de Los Secretos (telenovela – 44. Las Muñecas de la Mafia (series – Colombia)
Mexico)
45. Primera Dama (telenovela – Colombia)6
ATV – 4 foreign titles
21. Imperio (telenovela – Brazil)
46. Tres Familias (telenovela – Ecuador)
22. Santa Diabla (telenovela – USA)
47. Los Exitosos Pérez (telenovela – Mex23. Así en el Barrio como en el Cielo (tele- ico)
novela – Mexico)
48. Voces Anónimas (docudrama – Uru24. Bajo el Mismo Cielo (telenovela – guay)
Mexico)
49. La Gran Sangre – 1st season (series
– Peru)
Latina – 1 foreign title
50. La Gran Sangre – 2nd season (series
25. Hasta que te Conocí (miniseries – – Peru)
Mexico)
51. La Gran Sangre – 3rd season (series
– Peru)
Panamericana Televisión – 4 foreign 52. La Gran Sangre – 4th season (series
titles
– Peru)
26. Primera Dama (telenovela – Colom- 53. Vírgenes de la Cumbia (series – Peru)
bia)
54. Comando Alfa (series – Peru)
27. Alguien te Mira (telenovela – USA)
55. Confesiones (series – Peru)
28. Perro Amor (telenovela – USA)
56. Historias Detrás de la Muerte (docu29. Vivir a Destiempo (telenovela – Mex- drama – Peru)
ico)
57. La Bodeguita (series – Peru)
58. Pataclaun (series – Peru)
Red TV – 2 foreign titles
59. La Paisana Jacinta (series – Peru)
30. El Capo 3 (telenovela – Colombia)
31. La Casa de al Lado (telenovela – USA) Red TV– 11 foreign titles
60. Casados con Hijos (series – ArgenPREMIERE CO-PRODUCTIONS – 8 tina)
61. El Capo II (telenovela – Colombia)
América Televisión – 1 co-production
62. El Cartel de los Sapos II (telenovela
32. Las Bandidas (telenovela – Mexico, – Colombia)
Venezuela)
63. A Cada Quien su Santo (series – Mexico)
ATV – 4 co-productions
64. La Niñera (series – Argentina)
33. El Señor de los Cielos 3 (telenovela – 65. Lo que Callamos las Mujeres (series
USA, Mexico, Colombia)
– Mexico)
34. El Señor de los Cielos 4 (telenovela – 66. Lo que la Gente Cuenta (series – MexUSA, Mexico, Colombia)
ico)
35. Celia (telenovela – Colombia, USA)
67. Escobar: el Patrón del Mal (telenovela
36. Sin Senos Sí Hay Paraíso (telenovela – – Colombia)
Colombia, USA)
68. Pasiones Prohibidas (telenovela –
Mexico)
Panamericana Televisión – 1 co-produc- 69. Corazón Valiente (telenovela – USA)
tion
70. Café con Aroma de Mujer (telenovela
37. La Diosa Coronada (series – Colom- – Colombia)
bia, USA)
Source: Obitel Peru6
6
Primera Dama issued premiere chapters, but also reruns. That is why it appears in bot
lists.
266 | Obitel 2017
TV Perú – 1 national title
Red TV – 2 co-productions
38. El Talismán (telenovela – Venezuela, 71. Nuestra Historia 1 (telenovela – Peru)
USA)
39. Sacrificio de Mujer (series – Venezu- RERUN CO-PRODUCTIONS – 6
ela, USA)
ATV – 5 co-productions
72. Decisiones Adultos (series – USA, CoRERUN TITLES – 71
lombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico)
América Televisión – 7 national titles, 9 73. Decisiones Extremas (series – USA,
Colombia)
foreign titles
74. Decisiones Mujeres (series – USA,
1. Chespirito (series – Mexico)
2. Como Dice el Dicho (series – Mexico) Colombia)
3. El Chapulín Colorado (series – Mexico) 75. El Señor de los Cielos 2 (series – USA,
Mexico, Colombia)
4. El Chavo del Ocho (series – Mexico)
5. La Rosa de Guadalupe (series – Mex- 76. La Vida Es Así (miniseries – USA,
Mexico)
ico)
6. Mañana es para Siempre (telenovela –
Panamericana Televisión – 1 co-producMexico)
7. María Mercedes (telenovela – Mexico) tion
8. Mariana de la Noche (telenovela – 77. Escándalos (telenovela – Venezuela,
USA, Mexico, Panama)
Mexico)
9. Fuego en la Sangre (telenovela – Mexico)
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 39
10. Así es la Vida (soap opera – Peru)
TOTAL RERUN TITLES: 77
11. Gamarra (miniseries – Peru)
TOTAL BROADCAST TITLES: 116
12. Solamente Milagros (series – Peru)
13. Yo no me Llamo Natacha (miniseries
– Peru)
14. Yo no me Llamo Natacha 2 (miniseries
– Peru)
15. Al Fondo Hay Sitio – 1st season (soap
opera – Peru)
16. Al Fondo Hay Sitio – 2nd season (soap
opera – Peru)
Source: Obitel Peru
The number of reruns is notorious: while in 2015 the reruns
were 57 (only half of the titles displayed), in 2016 they reach 77
titles, two-thirds of the fiction displayed. Nevertheless, several new
fictions were of greater length, since the telenovela became again
the favorite format, displacing miniseries.
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 267
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
NON OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
Peruvian co-productions
Obitel countries co-productions
GENERAL TOTAL
Source: Obitel Peru
Titles
9
20
Chapters/
%
Hours
episodes
23.1
490
19.2 491:30:00
51.3
1336
52.4 1327:30:00
%
%
19.4
52.3
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
1
0
2
0
0
4
13
9
0
0
0
10
2
0.0
2.6
0.0
5.1
0.0
0.0
10.3
33.3
23.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
25.6
5.1
0
29
0
57
0
0
236
1014
490
0
0
0
722
179
0.0
1.1
0.0
2.2
0.0
0.0
9.3
39.8
19.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
25.6
7.3
0:00:00
54:00:00
0:00:00
57:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
248:30:00
968:00:00
491:30:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
717:00:00
174:00:00
0.0
2.1
0.0
2.2
0.0
0.0
9.8
38.2
19.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
28.3
6.9
543:00:00
21.4
8
20.5
543
21.3
39
100.0
2548
100.0 2536:00:00 100.0
The increase of reruns reduced the number of premieres from
Obitel countries. Brazil and Mexico were the most affected ones.
Peruvian co-productions show a rise in numbers, with two co-productions premiered in 2016.
Time slot
Morning (6:00-12:00)
National
Ibero-American
Total
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Afternoon (12:00-18:00)
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
831
62.2
857:00:00
64.6
831
45.5
857:00:00
47.1
Prime time (18:00-23:00)
488
99.6
489:30:00
99.6
228
17.1
252:30:00
19.0
716
39.2
742:00:00
40.8
Night (23:00-6:00)
Total
2
0.4
2:00:00
0.4
277
20.7
218:00:00
16.4
279
15.3
220:00:00
12.1
490
100.0
491:30:00
100.0
1336
100.0
1327:30:00
100.0
1826
100.0
1819:00:00
100.0
Source: Obitel Peru
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
Format
National
Ibero-American
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
Series
Miniseries
Teleilm
Unitario
9
1
0
0
0
81.8
9.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
464
10
0
0
0
69.4
1.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
462:30:00
10:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
69.2
1.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
25
2
1
0
0
89.3
7.1
3.6
0.0
0.0
1808
58
13
0
0
96.2
3.1
0.7
0.0
0.0
1798:00:00
59:30:00
13:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
96.1
3.2
0.7
0.0
0.0
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
1
9.1
195
29.1
195:30:00
29.3
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
Total
11
100.0
669
100.0
668:00:00
100.0
28
100.0
1879
100.0
1870:30:00
100.0
Source: Obitel Peru
268 | Obitel 2017
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast per time slot
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 269
The telenovela format has recovered the position it had in previous years, not only in the imported fiction, but mainly in the national one.
Table 5. Formats of national iction per time slot
MornAfterPrime
%
%
ing
noon
time
Format
%
Night
%
Total
%
Telenovela
0
0.0
0
0.0
8
80.0
1
100.0
9
81.8
Series
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
10.0
0
0.0
1
9.1
Miniseries
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Others (soap
opera, etc.)
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
10.0
0
0.0
1
9.1
Total
0
0.0
0
0.0
10
100.0
1
100.0 11 100.0
Source: Obitel Peru
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Time period
Titles
%
Present
8
72.7
Period
0
0.0
Historical
3
27.3
Other
0
0.0
Total
11
100.0
Source: Obitel Peru
As in previous years, prime time has still great presence of fiction, especially premiere and national productions. The afternoon
slot increased the percentage of Ibero-American fiction this year,
in comparison with morning (when fiction was not broadcasted in
2016) and evening slots. Historical productions had a greater presence in Peruvian titles, mainly thanks to the seasons of Nuestra Historia, which narrates the events of the recent Peruvian past.
270 | Obitel 2017
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Title
1
Al Fondo
Hay
Sitio (8th
season)
Country
of original idea
or script
Production
company
(country)
Network
Peru
América
Televisión
(Peru)
Efraín
América
Aguilar, Gigio 25.68
Televisión
Aranda
Scriptwriter
or author of Rating Share
original idea
Del Barrio
Víctor Falcón,
América
Producciones
Eduardo
23.38
Televisión
Adrianzén
(Peru)
Guillermo
Aranda, Luis
Ven Baila
PRO TV
América
del Prado,
Peru
Producciones
3 Quincea23.25
Televisión Cinthia Mckñera
(Peru)
enzie, Jose
Luis Valera
Del Barrio
Víctor Falcón,
Valiente
América
4
Peru
Producciones
Eduardo
22.14
Amor
Televisión
Adrianzén
(Peru)
Guillermo
Aranda, Luis
VBQ
PRO TV
del Prado,
América
Peru
Producciones
27.98
5 Todo por
Televisión Cinthia Mckla Fama
(Peru)
enzie, Jose
Luis Valera
América
El ReManuel MéTelevisión
América
6 greso de Argentina
ndez, Bruno 16.37
(Peru), Telefe Televisión
Lucas
Luciani
(Argentina)
Pasión y
Televisa
América Marissa Gar7
Mexico
16.24
Poder
(Mexico)
Televisión
rido
Disney LatiHasta
noamérica,
8 que te
Mexico
Somos
Latina
Raúl Olivares 12.85
Conocí
Productions
(Mexico)
Rosa GutiérAmores
América
América rez, Ana Lucía
9 que
Peru
Televisión
11.07
Televisión Roeder, Luis
Matan
(Peru)
del Prado
Un
Maria
Camino
Televisa
América
Antonieta
10
Mexico
9.55
Hacia el
(Mexico)
Televisión “Calú” GutiérDestino
rez
Total productions:
Foreign scripts:
100%
40%
Source: Obitel Peru and Kantar Ibope Media
2
Mis Tres
Marías
Peru
38.9
35.2
37.4
32.7
31.5
25.8
25.4
18.8
19.7
21.3
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 271
As in previous years, national fiction is the one with a better
response from the audience. The six most viewed titles are Peruvian products (a co-production with Argentina included), and only
three Mexican telenovelas appear in the top ten. If in previous years
América Televisión obtained the best results in terms of Obitel fiction audience, this year’s results are almost absolutely in its favor,
also due to the retreat of other channels – mainly Latina and ATV
– to emit Obitel premiere fictions.
Table 7A. The ten most watched national titles
Rating
Format
Network/production
company
Time slot
25.68
Soap opera
América Televisión
Prime time
2 Mis Tres Marías
23.38
Telenovela
Ven Baila
Quinceañera
23.25
Telenovela
22.14
Telenovela
27.98
Telenovela
16.37
Telenovela
7 Amores que Matan
11.07
Series
8 Nuestra Historia 3
1.1
Telenovela
Nunca te diré
Adiós*
1.1
Telenovela
10 Nuestra Historia 2
1.0
Telenovela
Title
1
3
Al Fondo Hay
Sitio (8th season)
4 Valiente Amor
VBQ Todo por la
Fama
El Regreso de
6
Lucas*
5
9
América Televisión, Del
Barrio Producciones
América Televisión,
PRO TV Producciones
América Televisión, Del
Barrio Producciones
América Televisión,
PRO TV Producciones
América Televisión,
Telefe (Argentina)
América Televisión
TV Perú, Sol y Luna
Producciones
Latina, Venevisión,
Iguana Producciones
TV Perú, Sol y Luna
Producciones
Source: Obitel Peru and Kantar Ibope Media
* Co-production
** It started at prime time, but later it was changed to night time.
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime
time**
Prime time
Night
Prime time
272 | Obitel 2017
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, length, time slot
Title
1
Format
Al Fondo Hay Sitio
(8th season)
Ven Baila Quinceañera
Valiente Amor
VBQ Todo por la
Fama
El Regreso de Lucas
Genre
Number
Dates of
of chap./ irst and last
Time slot
ep. (in
broadcast
2016)
(in 2016)
Soap opera Comedy
195
02/29-12/05 Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
40
01/04-02/26 Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
80
03/28-07/18 Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
26
12/06-cont.
Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
35
11/09-cont.
Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
101
01/04-05/24 Prime time
8 Hasta que te Conocí Miniseries
Drama
13
08/15-09/06 Prime time
Series
Drama
10
02/12-cont.
Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
125
05/11-11/01
Afternoon
3
4
5
6
7 Pasión y Poder
9 Amores que Matan
Un Camino Hacia
10
el Destino
Source: Obitel Peru
This table shows the greatest difference from previous yearbooks, as the miniseries, a constant and growing format in Peruvian fiction, which disappeared in 2016, gave way to telenovelas,
which had lost presence in the previous years (see Obitel Yearbooks
2014 and 2015). Therefore, fewer national titles were produced in
the year, which explains the presence of a fiction broadcasted in the
afternoon among the ten most watched titles in 2010.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
Dominant themes
Al Fondo Hay
Overambitiousness, inidelity,
1
Sitio (8th season) family relations, romance.
Paternity, family relations,
2 Mis Tres Marías corruption, cheating, usurpation.
Ven Baila
Friendship, juvenile romance,
3
Quinceañera
15-year-old party.
4
Valiente Amor
Family relations, cheating,
revealing secrets, inidelity.
Social themes
Racism, migration.
Social differences, drugs,
education
Social class differences.
Social class differences,
racism, discrimination, battered woman, power abuse,
corruption.
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 273
5
6
7
8
9
10
TV program, fame, juvenile
VBQ Todo por la
romance, friendship, inideliFama
ties, betrayal.
El Regreso de
Family relations, usurpation,
Lucas
cheating.
Cheating, hostility, inidelity,
Pasión y Poder
betrayal.
Hasta que te
Biography, music, fame.
Conocí
Amores que
Romance, inidelity, family
Matan
relations.
Un Camino Hacia el Destino
Selish romance, confusion,
secrets, juvenile romance.
Sexual harassment, fragmented families, social class
differences.
Social class differences, environmental pollution.
Gender violence.
Discrimination, machismo,
homosexuality.
Gender violence.
Single mother, abandonment,
social class differences, hidden right to paternity.
Source: Obitel Peru
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles:
gender, age, socioeconomic status
Title
Network
Al Fondo Hay Sitio
1
(8th season)
América
Televisión
América
Televisión
América
Televisión
América
Televisión
América
Televisión
América
Televisión
América
Televisión
2 Mis Tres Marías
3
Ven Baila Quinceañera
4 Valiente Amor
5
VBQ Todo por la
Fama
6 El Regreso de Lucas
7 Pasión y Poder
8 Hasta que te Conocí
Latina
Gender %
Socioeconomic status %
Women
Men
AB
C
DE
59.9
40.1
13.3
38.7
48.0
61.0
39.0
12.7
37.5
49.9
64.4
35.6
13.6
39.6
46.8
61.1
38.9
13.4
35.2
51.4
62.6
37.4
12.0
37.6
50.4
61.4
38.6
14.4
38.5
47.1
63.8
36.2
12.1
36.8
51.1
64.1
35.9
26.4
39.7
33.9
37.0
12.0
42.0
46.0
28.1
12.2
38.0
49.8
América
9 Amores que Matan
63.0
Televisión
Un Camino Hacia
América
71.9
10
el Destino
Televisión
Source: Obitel Peru and Kantar Ibope Media
274 | Obitel 2017
Title
Network
Al Fondo Hay Sitio
América Televisión
(8th season)
2 Mis Tres Marías
América Televisión
Ven Baila Quincea3
América Televisión
ñera
Valiente
Amor
4
América Televisión
VBQ Todo por la
5
América Televisión
Fama
6 El Regreso de Lucas
América Televisión
7 Pasión y Poder
América Televisión
8 Hasta que te Conocí
Latina
9 Amores que Matan
América Televisión
Un Camino Hacia el
10
América Televisión
Destino
Source: Obitel Peru and Kantar Ibope Media
1
3-10
Age groups %
11- 18- 26- 3817
25 37
49
5099
15.6 13.6 13.7 21.7 15.3 20.0
14.9 13.7 14.3 21.5 15.5 20.2
17.4 16.7 15.7 18.8 14.3 17.2
14.3 12.9 16.8 21.4 14.8 19.8
17.4 18.0 14.4 19.7 13.5 17.0
14.6 14.2 14.1 22.0 14.9
13.8 11.7 17.0 22.2 14.9
9.1 8.2 11.4 18.1 18.1
15.0 12.0 14.0 23.0 14.0
20.2
20.5
35.1
22.0
14.5 10.7 13.4 20.8 15.8 24.7
The female audience of lower socioeconomic levels remains
the great audience of fiction in Peru. However, some little changes
are observed in 2016, since in several cases the viewers over 50
years old are not prevailing, while the presence of 26 to 37-year-old
audience has increased. It is also obvious that this group represents
most viewers of juvenile fictions like Ven Baila Quinceañera and
VBQ Todo por la Fama, which comes from what was seen in previous yearbooks: the taste of a young adult audience for the reality
television programs that introduced melodrama and couple relationships among the contestants (some of whom had secondary roles in
these fictions). The plot itself was leaving aside 15-year-old characters and focusing on slightly older characters. Thus, in its sequel
the use of acronyms is preferred to avoid the word “quinceañera” in
the title. On the other hand, Hasta que te Conocí, a fiction based on
the life of the singer Juan Gabriel – who died two weeks after the
premiere in Peru –, shows an audience of diverse socioeconomic
backgrounds but highly concentrated in the group of 50 years old
and older, which reflects that the viewers were basically the singer’s
fans. Finally, it is important to mention the high concentration of
the female audience in sectors C, D and E for fiction Amores que
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 275
Matan, with a high social content and stories based on gender violence in couples, which unfortunately is a very present reality in
Peruvian society.
3. Transmedia reception
In this last period América Televisión remained the focus of
transmedia possibilities, particularly from two fronts. On the one
hand, it has sought to strengthen the value of portal América tvGO
– taking into consideration that it is a payed service – by presenting
bargains and discounts to its subscribers, while incorporating the
option to see some of their fiction content before their television
premiere. However, this time is the other front that we want to highlight. Fiction Ven Baila Quinceañera – whose main plot dealt with a
contest to fulfill the dream of a party to a quinceañera (a 15-year-old
girl’s dream), at the end of the first season had an interesting addition: a contest program was incorporated, Sueña Quinceañera, with
the same premise of a party for the winner. Actor Pablo Heredia
played the role of co-presenter, whose character was the contest’s
presenter in the original series. Thus, the conditions of the dream
represented in the fiction approached the captive audience’s dream
and let them feel they are part of the story themselves.
A similar occurrence happens with the inclusion of actress Patricia Portocarrero as part of the jury, mainly because in the contest
show she still performs the role of María Elena Vilchez, her character
in fiction. Other actors in Ven Baila Quinceañera also had the opportunity to participate in this contest, making the border between
fiction and reality become weak or unrecognizable at certain points.
This environment created in the contest based on the fiction would
facilitate the audience’s identification. This contest was subsequently
continued with Amigos y Rivales VBQ, which was aired without the
telenovela’s stars for co-presenter and jury, but had on stage some
actors from the fiction to escort the contestants during the show.
These two stages of the contest show derived from the fiction
prepared the premiere of the second season in late 2016 under the
276 | Obitel 2017
name of VBQ Todo por la Fama. Beyond developing the unfinished
situations left by the original telenovela, what is interesting here is
the station’s commitment to maintain the interest in this production by reiterating characters (Lucas, María Elena, etc.) or situations (contest) linked to the original telenovela. In this way, the gap
left between the seasons of this fiction were filled by maintaining a
similar content both on TV and through advertising campaigns of
which the series’ characters took part.
On the side of the audience, participation on social networks
has been found, from which memes made by fans stand out, as well
as YouTube music videos edited from the telenovela scenes, with
special interest in melodies dedicated to leading couples.7 In the
same way, and as a compilation, you can see clips about romantic
situations between these couples that reveal the preferences among
the followers of this fiction.
Speaking of América Televisión we cannot help but wonder
about a greater presence of transmedia in its fiction symbol for eight
years, Al Fondo Hay Sitio. Having remained as an undisputed leader
in front of the rest of national and foreign fictions during all these
years, it was an opportunity to try out other prospects that did not
materialize, and that can be claimed as an audience.
In 2016 we must turn our eyes to one of the stations that had
not seemed to have a consistent transmedia policy. TV Perú, with
its fiction Nuestra Historia, involved its followers’ participation by
providing them a space of opinion exchange on Facebook, and contest participation for the ones who knew more about this telenovela.
The actors of this fiction also participated with different comments
on Facebook, reinforcing the idea of having a space that involved
everyone, those on the screen and those who follow the story. Finally, it is worth pointing out the recent launching of TV Perú’s
application in March 2017, where we still maintain the expectation
to verify the benefits among the users.
7
Watch these cases at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClM6yG2u2FXM93nZ7FqN8Pg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9RevalFoko.
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 277
4. Highlights of the year
The trend observed at the end of 2015 brought consequences
in 2016. The presence of Turkish telenovelas, América Televisión’s
response with more classic telenovelas, and, particularly, the strategic alliances between stations made premiere fiction practically
take refuge in a single channel. But, at the same time, Peruvian fiction had a great presence on open television screens, as successful
12-year-old Latina’s productions were broadcasted again through
Panamericana (11 titles) or Latina, and some America’s fictions
were watched again in the same channel, taking most of the screen
time.
Despite the sound number of hours and national titles displayed, there are concerns about the content broadcasted in those
hours. Peruvian fiction broadcasted in 2016 has displayed old stories and narrative models, both in reruns and premieres. As already
anticipated in the Obitel Yearbook 2016, empowered and independent women stories gave way to the return of more tearful and longsuffering characters, where the impossible romance, the search for
the lost one or revenge gained ascendancy in the main plots. The
influence of Turkish telenovelas, which are more classical and more
patriarchal, generated a retreat of plots in Peruvian fiction, with the
exception of Mis Tres Marías. Even though this telenovela deals
with family separation, search for family reconstruction and the recovery of honor with a bit of revenge, it gave the leading role to a
single father (whose wife abandons him and their three girls in the
first chapter) who has to fight during a number of years to prove his
innocence and rejoin with his daughters.
Towards the end of 2016, América Televisión – the almost
exclusive channel of Peruvian fiction in that year – issued chapter 1538 of Al Fondo Hay Sitio, the last one of the fiction that was
eight seasons on air, dominating the reception year after year. The
end of this Peruvian soap opera, artificially extended with the return
of disappeared characters and the inclusion of new plots, poses the
question about the future of national fictions in Peru. The absolute
278 | Obitel 2017
audience dominance of Al Fondo Hay Sitio swayed viewers over
the fictions that were programmed in the next time slot. When the
soap opera was not on air, fictions replacing it or those programed in
the next time slot did not reach the numbers of Al Fondo Hay Sitio.
Without wishing to detract merit to Peruvian fictions, their reception
had a positive impact when the soap opera was on air. Now that it
is over, the new national fictions must prove they can maintain their
own audience, without depending on Al Fondo Hay Sitio.
In the different yearbooks, we have pointed out that the Peruvian audience prefers and likes national fictions, but we have also
stressed (see Obitel Yearbooks 2014 and 2015) that stations are very
sensitive to products that do not reach high levels of audience. Likewise, 2016 was a clear example of what we have already said in previous years about the limited ability of some producers to generate
enough content for the screen hours available for national fictions. If
we consider that América Televisión has been the almost exclusive
channel of national fiction – except for Del Barrio Producciones –,
that the other independent producers have reduced their fiction production, and that there is a preference shift to produce telenovelas
– leaving aside the miniseries –, we must say that this is a high risk
for Peruvian fiction. Just a few failures in fictions broadcasted by
América Televisión could be enough for the station to decide stopping production, and, in that case, the permanent rhythm of titles
and hours of Peruvian fiction observed in the last years could take us
to previous low levels like the ones in 2005. The mediate future of
Peruvian fiction seems to be in the hands of the managers of a single
station in Peru, despite the last promises made by Latina to continue
with fiction production.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Peru.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
The year 2000 was significant in the democratic history of Peru,
because it meant the fall of Fujimorism and the entrance of new winds
in the history of mass media communication. In the 1990s, Fujimon-
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 279
tesinism had exerted pressure and control over them, especially in
television. Although fiction had remained and presented signs of development, América Producciones, the company founded especially
to be the producer of fiction content – linked to América Televisión
–, held up part of its financial prosperity in the closeness maintained
with the Fujimori dictatorship. In the fall of the regime, the owners of
television stations faced trials for crimes of illicit association and sale
of editorial lines, reason why several owners were condemned or fled
the country. The ownership of channels was altered. Administration
Boards entered and several of them changed ownerships.8
Fiction nevertheless accommodated to new times, budgets and
constant policies. Since 2004, the Peruvian fiction television had
found in miniseries – particularly in biographical ones – a space
for production. These audiovisual products meant the emergence
of independent producers, non-related to channels, who found new
characters, new themes and ingenious ways to produce stories closer
to their audiences.
The miniseries thus became the engine of the television grid of
national channels, mainly by the closed number of chapters and a
dramatic axis focused on a single story. Titles followed one by one,
and the most successful ones – achieving ratings between 25% and
30% – were closely related to the music industry. Characters from
the musical stages made the leap to television screen and became
heroes and heroines of an audience eager to know their personal
stories.
Advertisers are looking for the introduction
of their products and TV channels are looking
for their programming on their grids continuously. Independent production houses multiply
to meet demand, old talent combines with new
talent, new artists are “discovered” in our tele-
8
For more information, see Obitel Yearbook 2013.
280 | Obitel 2017
vision and a somewhat continuous production
begins to be outlined where we can identify
styles and characteristics (Cassano, 2010).
Once the miniseries were consolidated and the biographical
themes ended, it was time to program titles with a larger number
of chapters, more seasons, and combining narrative genres. Al Fondo Hay Sitio and Mi Amor, el Wachimán are the best examples of
these mixtures and hybridizations. The first one was a telenovela
that turned into a soap opera, including characters that come and
go, mixing genres, and that bet in the blurring of the line that separated the characters from the actors. Mi Amor, el Wachimán was a
miniseries that, because of its success, ended up developing three
seasons. It combined romance with police elements, drug dealing
and personal revenges. Both fictions maintained 25 and 35 points of
rating along their seasons and had the top positions in the ranking.
As we pointed out in the Obitel Yearbook 2016,
genres and formats offered by Peruvian television are changing. In recent years, we have seen
a superposition of narratives and formats, hybridization processes of genres and television
formats that begin to show important changes
from the roots. However, these changes coexist
with traditional ways of television reading and
consumption, with television screens and grids
interrupted by commercials (Dettleff, Cassano
and Vásquez, 2016:437).
As pointed out in the previous section of this report, there are
two main factors in the present Peruvian audiovisual reality: the return of the telenovela itself and the entry of Turkish telenovelas.
Both have produced changes in the local market. On one hand, a
retreat of more innovative themes and the disappearance of more
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 281
empowered female characters with the return of stories focused in
the romantic love, virginity value, submission and female suffering,
as well as the return of provider, protector male parents.
In the case of transmedia reception, we must point out that this
process has been taking place in a very timid manner and has not
been established as a basic requirement from content producers or a
need from consumers. A review of the most outstanding examples
includes La Gran Sangre, a police-type series dedicated to the juvenile audience that was broadcasted for four seasons, since 2006, and
was the first transmedia experience in the case of Peruvian fiction.
Its appearance on Latina brought a series of ten printed comics, distributed along with daily newspapers, which showed aspects of the
main characters’ history not seen in the television fiction. In addition to this first expansion, a film named the same way was released
with the same main actors in their corresponding roles and facing an
unprecedented antagonist.
We cannot avoid mentioning the participation from internet,
especially from this fiction’s official blog, whose policy was not to
stay as the only meeting space for the fans of this production, but
also opened the doors to blogs created by the followers of La Gran
Sangre. Also, an additional official blog was created, El Rincón de
Johan, where this character from the series – an information technology and electronics specialist – provided advice and answered
users’ questions about software and hardware. This was an interesting way to bring fiction to reality. The users’ participation through
the internet concentrated on the creation of blogs that agglutinated
opinions, photographs and drawings alluding to the series and their
characters. It is worth mentioning among the non-official initiatives
La Pequeña Sangre, a short film about the series’ characters in their
teens, which was made by fans. A peculiar thing about La Gran Sangre is that this series was not conceived to be a transmedia product,
but its expansion came to be almost unexpected bets, which were
developed because of the success on the screens.
Since then, the main transmedia bets have come from América
282 | Obitel 2017
Televisión. Its use of social networks to strengthen its production
gradually allowed the user to find a space for opinions – although
sometimes without providing mechanisms for direct access. A case
to point out is fiction Mi Amor, el Wachimán, which had an interesting expansion towards a musical show with the same actors, but
with a redemptive story for the main antagonist. Also, officially, this
series derived into printed publications such as a magazine and an
album where the end of the original series was filtered, since these
publications arrived to the audience before the agreement of a new
season between the station and Del Barrio Producciones. We cannot ignore the participation of the fans of the series in the networks,
especially the creation of memes before a controversial situation of
amnesia that occurred with the female character at the end of the
first season.
The other representative case in América Televisión is Al Fondo Hay Sitio. Although the aspect of networks was well represented
on Facebook through its official profile having more than 5 million
followers – many more followers than the own station’s profile –,
application Seamos Amigos is the one that stands out for being unprecedented in Peru. This space provided the user with the illusion
of being in contact with some of the leading characters in the series
via text messaging. The idea was again to get out of the fiction and
stress the use that mobile phones often provide, especially towards
the youngest sectors of the population. Like the case of Mi Amor, el
Wachimán, memes created by the viewers were present to criticize
or underline some of the actions of the series’ characters.
Regardless of these possibilities, the implementation of platform América tvGO has taken greater impulse on bringing its television broadcast contents to the internet. Conceived to watch live
emissions, América tvGO also acquired the repository conception
of exhibited productions in this channel, regardless of whether they
were local or foreign. Although access to initial benefits of the platform was free, at the beginning of 2016 América Televisión decided
to charge a fee to use this service. Claims were immediate from
Peru: fewer premieres, more reruns | 283
who used this official platform, especially for the live signal. Many
of them understood that the signal available through the internet,
which was the same broadcasted to the air by the station, should not
be charged, since they conceived television broadcasts as an essentially free service; that is, they did not make a difference between
the media and access by other platforms. America tvGO gradually
began to provide some ways to justify the charge, such as exclusive
content. Although América had previously tried to show an alternative ending of Mexican telenovela La Gata, it then tried to call
the attention of users by offering the full chapters of Al Fondo Hay
Sitio since the second season, or letting them watch in advance the
first episodes of telenovelas such as Greek Brusko, Mexican Tres
Veces Ana and El Hotel de los Secretos, as well as Peruvian El Regreso de Lucas. A special case in this area can be found in Peruvian
series Amores que Matan, whose brief weekly broadcast on television did not get to broadcast all the chapters already produced.
However, América tvGO did contain within its repository all the
episodes, in addition to those broadcasted every Saturday. Recently,
América tvGO has released again the access to live signal for television broadcasting, but the rest of its features are still paid, including
offers for its subscribers. In the future, it expects to integrate other
interaction features for its users.
Another station that has also been proving the possibilities of
transmedia is Latina. It is important to remember that this broadcaster changed its name and its way of assuming itself not as a television company when it was acquired by Enfoca group some years
ago. They no longer saw the company as a television station, but as
a multimedia content producer. This made them bet on the use of
internet, especially emphasizing the emission of its signal named
Dual9, privileging entertainment content. Local fiction, instead,
had a single sample of this item in comedy Somos Family. For this
fiction, a game was implemented from the official website of the
For more information, see section “Transmedia reception” in the Peruvian
chapter of Obitel Yearbook 2016.
9
284 | Obitel 2017
channel, whose result could be shared by social networks for further
promotion of this program; it also used a contest where participants
recorded themselves performing an eccentric dance of this series’
leading character to later share the result on Latina’s website to see
who would be proclaimed the winner.
In general terms, although transmedia reception capacities have
only been linked to fiction, it has not been possible to launch them
from the official side, or at least to convince the audience of their
benefits.
References
Cassano, G. (2010). La vida de uno como relato de todos: las miniseries biográficas. La Mirada de Telemo, 5. Retrieved on January 30, 2017 from http://
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CPI (2017). Market report. Retrieved on January 30, 2017 from http://www.
cpi.pe/images/upload/paginaweb/archivo/26/mr_inversion_201701.pdf.
Dettleff, J. A., Cassano, G. and Vásquez, G. (2016). El retorno de la telenovela.
In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). (Re)Invención de
géneros y formatos de la ficción televisiva (p. 399-432). Porto Alegre: Sulina.
Dettleff, J. A., Cassano G. and Vásquez, G. (2013). Una ficción de emprendedores. In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). Memoria social y ficción televisiva en países iberoamericanos (p. 391-427). Porto Alegre:
Sulina.
Pereyra, R. C. (2017, March 28). RBC Televisión está a la venta y ya hay seis
interesados. Gestión. Retrieved on January 30, 2017 from http://gestion.pe/empresas/rbc-television-esta-venta-y-ya-hay-seis-interesados-2185873.
Hildebrandt en sus trece (2016, September 30). Canal 2 estaría a la venta. Hildebrandt en sus trece.
8
PortugAl: mAss ProducIng telenovela.
estAblIshIng long-runnIng fIctIon
As An AlternAtIve to
the current InternAtIonAl trend
Authors:
Catarina Duff Burnay, Pedro Lopes, Marta Neves de Sousa
1. Portugal’s audiovisual context in 2016
During the last decade, telenovelas established themselves as
the main asset for open broadcasting channels. The production capacity in Portugal allowed for an industry to be created, as well as
an increased recognition, both internally and abroad. The acquired
experience has also led broadcasters to venture into other formats
in a bid to come closer to examples of worldwide success. This medium and long-term goal has enabled them to win over and establish
types of audiences that were not accustomed to national fiction. By
virtue of operating in an increasingly competitive market, broadcasters have explored new strategies within long-running productions, whether by experimenting with storylines, the visuals or even
in commercial aspects such as an increase in product placement and
brand integration.1
1
These two in particular have proven to be an effective means to prevent ad breaks both
in iction and entertainment, thus preventing audience switch-over to another channel.
286 | Obitel 2017
1.1. Open TV in Portugal
Chart 1. National TV stations operating in open signal in Portugal
Public
Private
Thematic
SIC
TVI
Canal Parlamento
RTP Memória
RTP 3
RTP1
RTP2
RTP 3
In 2012, the transition to Terrestrial Digital Television (TDT)
promised an increase in open signal channels. However, the sole addition was Canal Parlamento. By the end of 2016, the public broadcaster offered two additional channels – RTP Memória and RTP3
–, which are ad-free and broadcast to around 2.5 million Portuguese
residents. Even though the number of channels offered in open signal is set at eight, it still falls below the initial projections when the
analogue signal was discontinued.
Graph 1. Viewership per channel
Station
Rating (%)
Share (%)
RTP1
2.7
13.7
RTP2
0.4
2.0
SIC
3.5
17.6
TVI
4.3
21.5
Cable
7.3
36.4
Others
1.7
8.7
The TV audience curve in Portugal shows a continued decrease
in consumption of open signal channels and an increased consumption of cable networks. There was an increase of 1.8% from 2014
to 2015, and an increase of 5.3% from 2015 to 2016, which demonstrates how thriving this subsector is, both in terms of the increased
channel offering and the technological innovations/features made
available by the providers. It is worth noting that, from 2016 onwards, the so-called “not set” consumption is referenced as “oth-
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 287
ers”, which represents television consumption by time shifting or
using TV sets for other purposes.2
Graph 2. Genres offered on TV
Aired genres
Art and culture
General interest/knowledge
Sports
Other
Entertainment
Fiction
News
Young audiences
Others
Advertisement
Hours of airtime
89:09:10
2769:13:55
1218:59:01
285:56:39
6442:56:51
7034:19:54
7213:51:54
3290:43:58
04:02:09
1389:50:51
Rating %
0.3
0.8
3.6
1.2
3.5
3.4
3.2
0.5
4.0
0.2
In terms of types of shows on offer, there is a quantitative increase in fiction (+439) and a small fluctuation in other genres. There
is also a reduced number of advertisement hours (−614), which may
be explained by the growth of new ways to advertise, which scale
down commercial breaks.
1.2. Audience tendencies in 2016
The free-to-air television market has kept its programming
traits in recent years, with prime time being occupied by quiz shows
and series on the public network and telenovelas on the private networks. RTP consolidated its strategy during 2016 by investing in a
vertical programming scheme, with a different show for every day
of the week and an assortment of genres ranging from the melodrama (Mulheres Assim) to political satire (Os Boys) and even adventure products for younger audiences (Miúdo Graúdo). Concurrently
to this programming and genre diversification strategy, RTP also
opted to convert feature films into TV miniseries (Capitão Falcão,
2
In the case of television, the “not set” marker indicates the use of TV sets for purposes
other than consuming TV broadcasts or consuming broadcasts that are pre-recorded.
Time shifting is a feature that enables audiences to watch any content that was broadcast
up to seven days prior (pre-recorded, not in real time).
288 | Obitel 2017
O Leão da Estrela, O Pátio das Cantigas and Mau Mau Maria).
There were no changes in strategy for daytime, which remained
with a soap opera in the slot following lunchtime and a rerun of
Bem-Vindos a Beirais, a series that had been recently broadcast during prime time. However, this strategy did not bring the network any
closer to its audience and the decline in prime time viewership was
accentuated.
In contrast, private channels SIC and TVI kept their programming strategy based on long-running telenovelas. This may be seen
as yet a sign of the financial crisis. The main program on SIC, Coração d’Ouro, had its run from September 2015 to September 2016 and
lasted for 326 episodes, while on TVI, telenovela A Única Mulher
was extended to 561 episodes, thus becoming the longest-running
TV fiction in Portuguese history. The private networks’ strategy
goes against international trends to shorten the number of episodes.
This becomes a hurdle when considering future exports, as it hinders Portuguese competitiveness in an increasingly globalized market where new players are making a stand. Turkey, for example, has
taken advantage of the fatigue of Latin-American fiction to establish
itself as a content provider. According to information provided by
the networks themselves, the national strategy may require the creation of international versions, whether by editing telenovelas into
shorter runs, dividing them into seasons or filming alternate endings
that end the show below the 100-episode mark.
1.3. Advertisement investment of the year: in TV and in fiction
TV remains the preferential platform for brands to communicate their services and products (76.8% of total investment during the first two quarters of 2016). This places Portugal well above
the Western European average (Briefing, 2016). According to data
provided by Marktest, the growth in advertisement investment increased in 15.3% during the first six months in 2016, with the biggest growth in cinema (+19.5%) and TV (+19.2%), while internet
investment increased in 14.1%. The only medium that showed a
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 289
decrease when compared with the same period in the previous year
was printed press (−5.5%).
The figures presented in Magna Global’s report suggest that the
advertisement market in Portugal would reach 520 million euros in
2016. Broadcasters have not offered their numbers for soft sponsoring/product placement/brand integration, but their screen time presence has grown in the past year. The insertions within the assorted
fiction shows were in the hundreds, particularly in telenovelas and
long-running formats with higher ratings.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
TV fiction and, in particular, telenovelas are taking more and
more advantage of current events in order to strengthen their believability, which gives them a sense of proximity and truthfulness. These
contents are supposed to be fictional, but ever more near and dear to
the concerns of their audience. Therefore, telenovelas present themselves as popular narratives about the country and everyday lives. Audience interest lies in the fact that telenovelas present themselves as
a mirror to society. They tackle issues closely related to the audience
and build a permanent dialogue between those who produce them and
the viewers in general (Lopes, 2014; Martín-Barbero, 1998).
Themes such as racism, relationships between the ex-colonies and the still open wounds pertaining to these issues are at the
forefront of TVI’s shows A Única Mulher and A Impostora. SIC’s
Coração d’Ouro (2015/2016) focused on corruption and the web
of special interests that became prevalent in politics, the banking
system and the courts. Amor Maior (2016/2017), also broadcast by
SIC, explored the growth of tourism in Lisbon and the transformations that this new movement brought to the city and its inhabitants.
Alongside these big themes, there are other equally relevant social
issues that have become a common occurrence in recent years, such
as mental health, the civil rights of minorities and gender issues.
As for merchandising, even though there has not been a major
interest in exploring this area outside soundtracks (now that record
290 | Obitel 2017
sales have become irrelevant), there was the need to find alternative
ways to generate revenue. Telenovela Coração d’Ouro attempted to
diversify its products, ranging from wine – the protagonists were wine
makers in the Douro region – to jewelry, by launching a collection of
Viana hearts – a traditional golden piece of jewelry that is iconic in
the northern part of the country and was used as an inspiration for the
telenovela logo. In the second show on SIC, Rainha das Flores, the
protagonist owned a flower growing business, which enabled Garnier
to partner with the show and launch a limited-edition shampoo.
1.5. Communication policies
The proposal to change the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which was approved by the European Commission on May
25th, 2016 and submitted to the European Parliament and the European Council, includes a visible effort to support the regulating
authorities in enacting the media policies within EU countries. This
represents a reformed legitimacy of regulators in their growing role
as purveyors and protectors of individual rights to access information and the media industry itself.
Still in 2016, Anacom (National Communications Autority)
and ERC (Regulatory Entity for Social Communication) made a
joint effort to promote and present to the legislature the possibility
to widen the program services on offer in the TDT platform. As a
result, the first change to Law n. 33/2016, on August 24th, clarified
the dispositions asking for financial, technical and judiciary studies
regarding the future development of TDT in Portugal.
1.6. ICT tendencies
The Portuguese Association for the Development of Communications (APDC) in particular, as a public institution, divulged once
more the results for ICTs in Portugal, based on a document issued
by the International Data Corporation (IDC) for 2016.3 This report
3
Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from https://business.leak.pt/idc-predictions-2016-mercadode-ti-em-portugal-cresce-26-em-2016/.
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 291
shows that there has been a continued market growth for ICTs in
Portugal, which follows the trend from the previous year, with a
2.6% increase and an accumulated growth of 4.1 billion euros. On
the other hand, the report shows that the telecommunication services
market shrank by 2% in 2016, reaching 4.4 billion euros. Budgets
for applications grew by 20%.
In terms of the use of social networks, Marktest Group presented its study “Os Portugueses e as redes sociais 2016”4, which
states that 94% of users have a Facebook account and 43% have
a YouTube account (numbers exactly alike those in 2015). Also,
21% abandoned a social network in the past year; 37% use a smartphone to access social networks between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.; 25%,
which represents a quarter of its 819-interviewee sample, state that
they have increased their time spent with social networks in the past
year. The study also indicates that 67% of the interviewees follow
public figures and 62% follow brands within the social networks.
However, 87% are accustomed to watching videos, which is a high
percentage that speaks to the importance of video in social networks
and its consumption on a mobile platform.
Lastly, From November 8th to November 10th, 2016, Portugal
was host to another edition of the Web Summit. This is one of the
most relevant European events involving technology, entrepreneurship and innovation.
1.7. Public TV
After the structural change that the Portuguese public TV underwent in 2014, and after investing in 2015 on technological innovation with RTP Play – opening access to TV, digital and radio
content to all public channels –, 2016 was marked by the development of new content proposals.
Betting strongly on sports, talent shows, national cinema and
fiction, RTP managed to maintain its ratings and remain as the third
4
Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.marktest.com/wap/private/images/logos/
Folheto_redes_sociais_2016.pdf.
292 | Obitel 2017
most watched open signal broadcaster, which cemented its relevance within the Portuguese media landscape. As an example, RTP
broadcast the main international sports events, such as the European
Cup and the 31st summer Olympics, from August 5th to August
21st in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Champions League returned to
RTP as a multiplatform broadcast. On TV, RTP1 broadcast live
games and the goals of the week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at
9:30 p.m. On the internet, RTP opened a website with all the pieces
produced by the sports section, which reported news, showed highlights, previews and debates. Also on the internet through RTP Play,
live games were made available, as well as scores, game transcripts
and highlights. In addition, the network’s public radio would do a
full live commentary on location for some of the biggest teams in
the world.
RTP invested in talent shows as its preferred entertainment
content for weekend prime time, namely by airing show Got Talent
Portugal. Also, by airing The Voice Portugal on Sunday nights, RTP
had the most watched show at prime time in 2016.
Another strategy by RTP was to air Portuguese cinema as a
miniseries divided into three episodes. Such was the case for remakes of Portuguese classics Leão da Estrela, Canção de Lisboa
as well as Capitão Falcão and Mau Mau Maria. RTP also commissioned series to several screenwriters and production companies.
1.8. Pay TV
As has been the case in previous years, viewership for paid
channels has increased, which is a significant factor for the ever
more prevalent rise of subscription TV. According to data provided
by Anacom, the numbers for subscription TV reached 3.67 million
subscriptions by the end of 2016, or 145 thousand more than the
previous year. The subscription growth rate in 2016 (4.1%) was
identical to the average for the last five years5, with about 79.7% of
5
Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1406396.
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 293
subscribers having access to over 80 channels. According to Marktest’s Barómetro de Telecomunicações6, by the end of 2016, 4.1% of
individuals aged ten or more subscribed to video on demand streaming services (i.e., Netflix, Fox Play or NPlay).
NOS Group remained as the biggest provider, with a subscription share of 43.5%, followed by MEO (38.9%), Vodafone (12.8%)
and Nowo4 (4.7%), previously called Cabovisão. However, Vodafone was the only provider to increase its subscription share (2.3%
over the previous year), making it the provider that gained the largest net number of subscribers in 2016.
The data for December 20167 show that, by the end of the
year, there was a noticeable viewership switch-over from open TV
channels to pay TV channels. This tendency had been consolidated
during the same period in 2015, when automatic recording functionalities were included, thus having an impact on the value of
conventional audience monetization. According to this study, and
merely considering live ratings, when comparing 2015 to 2016, the
share growth for pay TV channels was less significant (+4.2%), or
a share growth from 34.9% in 2015 to 39.1% in 2016. However, the
open TV channels registered the opposite trend.
TV consumption continued to grow, with an average total time
spent watching TV of seven minutes above the previous year. Nevertheless, there was a larger rating dispersal into the pay TV channels.
1.9. Independent production companies
The market for TV fiction remains adamantly short when it
comes to open TV channels. Only one of RTP’s two public channels
aired nationally produced fiction in an ongoing fashion. Therefore,
national production companies only have three channels interested
in offering nationally produced Portuguese spoken fiction. This is
6
Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.marktest.com/wap/a/grp/p~2.aspx.
Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.meiosepublicidade.pt/2017/01/a-tv-queos-portugueses-viram-em-2016/.
7
294 | Obitel 2017
insufficient for a media industry to thrive, and the production structures are unable to offer continued support for this level of demand.
This leads to a dispersal into hundreds of small production companies, most of which specialized in other kinds of programs, such as
documentaries and magazines. There were four companies that, in
total, represented over 80% of the total gross revenue: Shine/Endemol, Freemantle, Coral Europa and SP Televisão. Of these, only SP
Televisão is entirely owned by Portuguese investment.
The subscription-based channels on offer by the assorted cable
providers are not under any obligation to produce and air national
content, a fact that has been a cause of dispute by producers. TDT
was a monumental failure, caused by the growing number of cable
services subscriptions. This resulted in Portugal having one of the
highest adoption rates for pay TV in Europe. The circumstances that
led to this phenomenon are yet to be fully explained and understood, but almost an entire population was compelled to subscribe
to cable providers to have access to channels that were free-to-air in
the first place, along with hundreds of channels that now compete
for the same viewership on a daily basis. Notwithstanding, these
extraordinary circumstances do not carry any obligation by providers nor cable networks, an issue that has been a point of contention
by the Independent TV Producers Association (Apit). “The future
for European economies, as well as for Portuguese economy, decisively relies on their respective need to place culture, creativity and
knowledge at the forefront of economic activity” (Mateus, 2013:13),
since, similarly to what was done in Brazil, strengthening the media
industry implies the enactment of legislative measures that would
lead providers to produce and air national content, and not simply
redistribute their programming.
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 295
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction aired in 2016
(national and imported; premieres and reruns; co-productions)
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES: 25
PREMIERE IMPORTED TITLES: 10
RTP1 – 13 titles
SIC – 10 titles
• Bem-Vindos a Beirais (long-running se- • Violetta (youth telenovela)
ries)
• A Regra do Jogo (telenovela)
• Os Nossos Dias (soap opera)
• Babilónia (telenovela)
• Terapia (series)
• Dupla Identidade (series)
• Mau Mau Maria (miniseries)
• I Love Paraisópolis (telenovela)
• Aqui Tão Longe (series)
• Amores Roubados (miniseries)
• Capitão Falcão (miniseries)
• Verdades Secretas (telenovela)
• Leão da Estrela (miniseries)
• Liberdade, Liberdade (telenovela)
• Pátio das Cantigas (miniseries)
• Sassaricando: Haja Coração (telenove• Dentro (series)
la)
• Miúdo Graúdo (series)
• A Lei do Amor (telenovela)
• Mulheres Assim (series)
• Os Boys (series)
RERUN TITLES – 21
• Offline (TV film)
RTP1 – 1 title
RTP2 – 1 title
• Água de Mar (telenovela)
• Alto (series)
RTP2 – 1 title
SIC – 4 titles
• Liberdade 21 (series)
• Coração d’Ouro (telenovela)
• Poderosas (telenovela)
SIC – 5 titles
• Rainha das Flores (telenovela)
• Podia Acabar o Mundo (telenovela)
• Amor Maior (telenovela)
• Uma Aventura (youth series)
• Jura (series)
TVI – 7 titles
• Rosa Fogo (telenovela)
• A Única Mulher (telenovela)
• Lua Vermelha (telenovela)
• Santa Bárbara (telenovela)
• A Casa é Minha (series)
TVI – 14 titles
• Massa Fresca (youth telenovela)
• Campeões & Detectives (youth series)
• A Única Mulher (telenovela)
• Detective Maravilhas (youth series)
• A Impostora (telenovela)
• Fascínios (telenovela)
• Inspector Max II (series)
• Inspector Max (series)
• Mundo Meu (telenovela)
• Sonhos Traídos (telenovela)
• Queridas Feras (telenovela)
• Casos da Vida (unitario)
• Deixa que te Leve (telenovela)
• O Bando dos 4 (youth series)
• Baía das Mulheres (telenovela)
• I Love It (youth telenovela)
296 | Obitel 2017
• Mistura Fina (telenovela)
• Dei-te Quase Tudo (telenovela)
TOTAL OF ORIGINAL TITLES: 35
TOTAL OF RERUN TITLES: 21
TOTAL OF AIRED TITLES: 57
When compared to 2015, there was a 40% increase in the number of national fiction title premiering in 2016. Every channel offered more shows: RTP1 experimented with series and miniseries
in different genres, SIC scheduled two telenovelas back-to-back at
prime time and, for most of the year, TVI chose to schedule on an
alternating scheme, while continually occupying the prime time and
access to primetime slots with fiction. The use of reruns as a strategy
to fill out the scheduling remained the same, with a sharp decrease
on RTP and, on the other hand, an increase on TVI.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016
Country
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS
(total)
Portuguese co-productions
Co-productions among
Obitel countries
TOTAL
25
71.4
Chapters/
episodes
1936
74.8 1232:45:00
72.8
10
28.6
651
25.2
460:45:00
27.2
1
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
25
0
0
2.9
25.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
71.4
0.0
0.0
45
606
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1936
0
0
1.7
46:58:00
23.4 413:45:00
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
07:00:00
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
00:00:00
74.8 1232:45:00
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
00:00:00
2.8
24.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
72.8
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
35
100.0
2587
0.0
Titles
%
%
Hours
%
1693:30:00 100.0
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 297
The increase in national fiction titles represents part of the strategy implemented by open TV channels. In an increasingly competitive market, where pay TV plays a strong role, the approach
to preserving audiences runs through offering Portuguese-spoken
quality products that address everyday issues, as well as producing
localized versions of larger entertainment formats, with live galas.
SIC remains as the only network to air Latin American fiction due
to its exclusivity contract with Globo. These titles air during prime
time and night slots.
Prime time remains as the preferential slot for transmitting Portuguese spoken national fiction, followed by the afternoon slot, in
particular the so-called access to prime time, at 7 p.m. The morning
slot is usually reserved to children programming, and the night slot
is mainly defined by shows that air, at most, between prime time and
night slots (after 11 p.m.) This has become more evident on SIC,
when it began to air two consecutive domestic fiction shows, which
led the Brazilian content to spill over to the night time slot.
Time slot
National
Ibero-American
%
Morning (6:00-13:00)
14
0.7
08:15:00
0.7
45
6.9
45:55:00
10.0
59
2.3
45:55:00
2.7
Afternoon (13:00-20:00)
169
8.7
126:05:00
10.2
250
38.4
172:55:00
37.5
419
16.2
299:00:00
17.7
Prime time (20:00-24:00)
1752
90.5
1096:25:00
88.9
233
35.8
161:00:00
34.9
1985
76.7
1257:25:00
74.2
1
0.1
02:00:00
0.2
123
18.9
80:55:00
17.6
124
4.8
82:55:00
4.9
1936
100.0
1232:45:00
100.0
651
100.0
460:45:00
100.0
2587
100.0
1693:30:00
99.5
Night (24:00-6:00)
Total
H
%
C/E
%
H
Total
C/E
%
C/E
%
H
%
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
Format
National
Titles
%
C/E
%
Ibero-American
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
8
32.0
1554
80.3
964:55:00
78.3
7
70.0
591
90.8
401:55:00
99.9
Series
11
44.0
303
15.7
203:45:00
16.5
1
10.0
45
6.9
47:00:00
0.1
Miniseries
4
16.0
12
0.6
09:55:00
0.8
2
20.0
15
2.3
11:50:00
0.0
TV ilm
1
4.0
1
0.1
02:00:00
0.2
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
1
4.0
66
3.4
52:10:00
4.2
0
0.0
0
0.0
00:00:00
0.0
Total
25
100.0
1936
100.0
1232:45:00
100.0
10
100.0
651
100.0
460:45:00
100.0
298 | Obitel 2017
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast by time slot
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 299
Contrary to previous years, the predominant format was series,
especially due to RTP’s investment in diversifying their offer. The
number of aired telenovelas remained the same as in 2015 (8), with
an increase of two Brazilian fiction shows. There is also a noteworthy increase in miniseries (from one to four), which is a result of
RTP’s feature film adaptations for broadcast. This initiative enabled
to maximize the audience for Portuguese cinema.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
Morning
0
Series
Miniseries
0.0
Afternoon
0
0.0
1
100.0
1
50.0
9
42.9
0
0.0
0
0.0
4
19.0
TV ilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
Docudrama
Others (soap
opera, etc.)
Total
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
1
100.0
2
Format
Telenovela
%
Prime
% Night
time
8
38.1
0
0.0
To%
tal
8 32.0
0
0.0
11
44.0
0
0.0
4
16.0
0.0
1
100.0
1
4.0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
50.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
4.0
100.0
21
100.0
1
%
%
100.0 25 100.0
Primetime holds nearly the whole amount of titles and formats
(21). Since this is the time of day when the most and widest variety
of people is available to consume TV, here is more effective to air
fiction series that implies a continued investment by the audience.
This shows how critical this slot is when programming schedules
with audience acquisition in mind, as well as the secondary nature
of the remaining slots, occupied by daytime talk shows and entertainment programs.
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Time period
Present
Period
Historical
Others
Total
Titles
23
2
0
0
25
%
92.0
8.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
300 | Obitel 2017
Domestic fiction products, regardless of being telenovelas or
series, are predominantly set in the present. This enables the construction of stories that are close to the lives of consumers and the
portrayal of current issues and events. The only two period shows
were aired by the public network – Capitão Falcão (RTP1) and
Alto (RTP2) –, which represents the already mentioned programming trend that markedly sets itself apart to that of the commercial
channels. The former is a three-episode miniseries that lampoons
the Portuguese dictatorship, inspired by a comic book. The latter
tells the story of an aristocratic family returning from exile after the
April revolution and, through it, portrays the post-revolution period
in Portugal.
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Title
1
Única Mulher II
Country
of original
idea or
script
Producer
Portugal
Plural Entertainment
Portugal
SP Televisão
SIC
Pedro Lopes
13.9
28.3
Portugal
SP Televisão
Plural
Entertainment
SIC
Inês Gomes
António
Barreira
Maria João
Mira, André
Ramalho
Artur Ribeiro
Alexandre
Castro
Patrícia
Muller, Pedro Lopes
12.6
26.9
12.6
27
12.2
28.3
10.9
29.8
9.5
23.2
7.9
20.2
TVI
Sara Rodi
5.9
18.2
RTP
Tiago
Santos
5.5
10.9
3
Coração
d’Ouro
Amor Maior
4
A Impostora
Mexico
5
Única
Mulher III
Portugal
2
6
7
8
Santa
Bárbara
Rainha das
Flores
Poderosas
10
TVI
Plural
Entertainment
TVI
Mexico
Plural
Entertainment
TVI
Portugal
SP Televisão
SIC
Portugal
SP Televisão
SIC
Plural
Entertainment
Sky Dreams
O Leão da
Entertainment,
Portugal
Estrela
Stopline Films,
RTP
Total productions: 10
100%
9 Massa Fresca
ScreenwritChan- er or author Rating Share
nel
of original
%
%
idea
Maria João
TVI Mira, André
16
31.5
Ramalho
Portugal
Foreign scripts: 2
20%
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 301
Table 7A. The ten most watched national titles
Rating
%
Única Mulher II
16
Coração d’Ouro
13.9
Amor Maior
12.6
A Impostora
12.6
Única Mulher III
12.2
Santa Bárbara
10.9
Rainha das Flores
9.5
Poderosas
7.9
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 Massa Fresca
5.8
10 O Leão da Estrela
5.5
Format
Channel/production
company
TVI, Plural Entertainment
SIC, SP Televisão
SIC, SP Televisão
TVI, Plural Entertainment
TVI, Plural Entertainment
TVI, Plural Entertainment
SIC, SP Televisão
SIC, SP Televisão
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Youth teleTVI, Plural Entertainment
novela
RTP, Sky Dreams EnterMiniseries
tainment,
Stopline Films
Time slot
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Afternoon
Prime time
The top ten for 2016 in terms of origin follows the trend for
previous years, with the overwhelming majority being Portuguese
(90%). Santa Bárbara – an adaptation of a Mexican format, La Patrona – was the only exception.
The ranking was consistent to that of 2015, with SIC and TVI
alternating for the top spots with telenovelas, and TVI overthrowing
SIC in the lead. It is worth noting that, with its investment in series
and miniseries formats, RTP set itself as an alternative to its peers.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, duration, time slot
Title
Format
Genre
1
Única Mulher II
Telenovela
Melodrama
2
Coração d’Ouro
Telenovela
Melodrama
3
Amor Maior
Telenovela
Melodrama
4
A Impostora
Telenovela
Melodrama
5
Única Mulher III
Telenovela
Melodrama
6
Santa Bárbara
Telenovela
Melodrama
Number Date of irst
of chap./
and last
ep.
broadcast
(in 2016)
(2016)
10/19/2015174
04/30/2016
09/07/2015326
09/24/2016
09/12/2016
170
(cont.)
09/04/2016
91
(cont.)
05/02/2016198
01/06/2017
09/28/2015271
10/01/2016
Time
slot
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
302 | Obitel 2017
7 Rainha das Flores Telenovela
8
Poderosas
9
Massa Fresca
Melodrama
180
Melodrama
296
Youth
Young auditelenovela
ence
97
Telenovela
10 O Leão da Estrela Miniseries
Comedy
3
05/09/2016
(cont.)
05/18/201505/20/2016
04/25/201609/10/2016
05/08/201605/22/2016
Prime
time
Prime
time
Afternoon
Prime
time
The preferred format is the telenovela, with eight shows in the
top ten, and the “melodrama” genre remains as the most common
when creating fictional stories. Notwithstanding, considering that
the format is geared towards a family audience, which is diverse
by nature, there is a tendency to use different genres at the same
time (Amor Maior, SIC; Única Mulher II and III, TVI). These are
not prescriptive and are commonly used on formats with shorter
runs, such as action/adventure and thriller. Comedy was still a genre
that the Portuguese audience enjoyed, as well as content targeted
at young audience, such as Massa Fresca, a show that recaptured
the key of the success of Morangos com Açúcar, which aired in the
early 2000s. In terms of continuity, most titles here continued from
2015 onto 2016, and those airing in 2016 also continued onto 2017,
which demonstrates the investment in long-running formats. It is
worth noting that only one series aired outside prime time (Massa
Fresca), suggesting that TVI’s strategy relied on capturing a younger audience during the access to prime time slot.
In 2016, similarly to previous years, the productions both on
SIC and TVI continued with the strategy of bumping forward in the
programming the telenovela that has a longer run, regardless of the
ratings reached, thus giving more emphasis to the telenovela premiering at the 9:30 p.m. slot and stretching it after midnight.
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 303
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 Massa Fresca
10
Predominant themes
Mixed-race love and family intolerÚnica Mulher ance. Conlict between old money and
II
families with a recent rise in social
status.
Illegitimate progeny and inheritance
disputes. Generational conlict beCoração
tween parents and their offspring.
d’Ouro
Corruption within the halls of power
and justice.
Amor Maior
Power struggle, conlict among sisters.
Rape within the family. Hidden idenA Impostora
tity and its uncovering
Mixed-race love and family intolerÚnica Mulher ance. Conlict between old money and
III
families with a recent rise in social
status.
Labor issues and class struggle. Search
Santa Bárbara
for lost love.
Rainha das
Amnesia. The power of faith. Conlict
Flores
among sisters.
Poderosas
Revenge and power struggle
O Leão da
Estrela
In search of a parent, adolescent love.
Football fanaticism.
Social themes
Racism, class struggle,
Angola’s independence,
returning ex pat syndrome.
Regionalism.
Physical impairment.
Elderly abuse.
Rape, battle against cancer.
Racism, class struggle,
Angola’s independence,
returning ex pat syndrome.
Miners’ issues, labor issues.
Memory loss. Amateur
sports.
Battle against cancer,
class struggle, parent loss.
Passion for football,
neighborhood fervor and
regionalism.
In keeping with the narrative standards of previous years, Tabel 9 shows a predominance of melodramatic themes that essentially focus on revenge stories, power struggles, lost and found love,
love triangles, family relationships, ailments and hidden/uncovered
identities. These themes are explored in tandem with social themes,
allowing for a greater level of believability to plots and providing
content that is less malleable, but closer to viewers’ social realities.
304 | Obitel 2017
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles:
gender, age, socioeconomic status
Title
Gender %
Channel Women Men
Socioeconomic status %
A
B
C
D
E
1
Única Mulher II
TVI
60.5
39.5
1.5
11.1
15.7 40.2
31.5
2
Coração d’Ouro
SIC
62.5
37.5
3.0
11.2
15.4 42.4
28.1
3
Amor Maior
SIC
63.2
36.8
2.3
13.1
13.6 42.9
28.1
4
A Impostora
TVI
63.7
36.3
1.9
11.4
12.6 40.4
33.7
5
Única Mulher III
TVI
62.3
37.9
1.5
10.8
12.7 41.7
33.3
6
Santa Bárbara
TVI
61.7
38.3
2.1
10.0
13.3 43.1
31.4
7
Rainha das
Flores
SIC
64.3
35.7
2.7
12.2
14.8 44.1
26.2
8
Poderosas
SIC
62.9
37.1
1.7
11.2
16.8 43.3
27.0
9
Massa Fresca
TVI
67.0
33.0
1.1
8.7
11.9 41.7
36.6
RTP1
53.8
46.2
3.7
14.9
19.1 41.7
20.6
O Leão da
10
Estrela
Title
Age group %
Channel 4-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 +75
1
Única Mulher II
TVI
8.5
8.3
10.1
12.5
15.9
17.5
14.7 12.6
2
Coração d’Ouro
SIC
6.2
4.9
9.8
14.4
15.3
17.7
17.4 14.3
3
Amor Maior
SIC
5.6
5.8
10.7
14.6
14.4
18.0
17.2 13.8
4
A Impostora
TVI
7.4
9.4
10.3
10.8
16.4
16.8
15.9 13.2
5
Única Mulher III
TVI
7.1
9.4
9.6
10.9
15.8
17.2
16.5 13.6
6
Santa Bárbara
Rainha das
Flores
Poderosas
TVI
6.3
9.1
10.3
11.2
17.5
19.4
15.9 10.3
SIC
4.5
5.3
11.9
14.8
13.7
17.7
18.1 13.9
SIC
4.4
4.7
11.1
15.8
16.8
16.3
18.2 12.7
TVI
12.6 11.1
8.6
10.6
15.7
12.4
13.5 15.7
4.5
8.9
11.1
18.5
18.9
15.2 18.4
7
8
Massa Fresca
O Leão da
10
Estrela
9
RTP1
4.5
Women remain as the predominant gender. However, the discrepancy in percentages between genders has become increasingly
smaller, with male audiences adhering most to series/miniseries formats. Table 10 still shows that the age groups that watch telenovelas
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 305
the most are in the 45-75 segment. There was, nevertheless, an exception: Massa Fresca (TVI), which, as it was targeted at younger
audience, managed to capture viewers in the 4-14 segment (overturned by the 45-54 segment, which most likely represented their
parents). Regarding socioeconomic status, similarly to the previous
year, the differences vary not only from one fiction to the next, but
also from one station to the other. Most viewers within segments
A and B lean towards fictions aired by SIC, while watchers in segments C, D and E prefer TVI. However, and similarly to previous
years, viewers from segments D and E on either network are the
ones who watch telenovelas the most.
3. Transmedia reception
When compared to other countries, the media landscape in Portugal is small, as evidenced by its still limited online presence. As
has been noted in previous years, fiction is the television content
that is most sought over in the digital platforms for each respective
open TV network. It is, therefore, necessary to reflect on the type
of interactivity that is established with viewers and what is its goal.
The idea of a transmedia reception, as defined by Jenkins (2009)
and shared by Fechine (2014), where television programs such as
telenovelas are “adapted” for the internet and other platforms, has
yet to be fully explored in the Portuguese media landscape.
However, in terms of fan interaction it is clear that users are
mostly incentivized into commenting and searching for information
on their favorite series and telenovelas on the official websites and
Facebook pages, the latter being the preferred social network that
broadcasters use to interact with their audience. For the most part,
viewer participation is made by commenting on posts, which almost
always relate to characters, actors and actresses, storylines and the
broadcaster itself. These comments usually express an emotional investment, and topics range from the way the story is unfolding, the
production quality and the online content that is being posted on the
social network.
306 | Obitel 2017
Still, during 2016 there was a non-digital transmedia event by
TVI with the publication of three tie-in books for their respective
productions: Massa Fresca, A Vida de Luena and Única Mulher.
These books were launched after their respective telenovelas ended,
in the attempt to “winning on the bedside table after winning on
TV”.
It is worth mentioning that BeActive, a national producer that
specializes in developing and implementing television content solutions for new media such as mobile and online platforms, unveiled
a series for RTP1, on December 2016, titled Os Jogadores. This series featured the everyday lives, fears and concerns of youths today,
focusing on the role of technology growing up and the preferences
and occupation of the new generation. Os Jogadores was recorded
in Lisbon during June and July 2016 and made available on different
formats, including an online version with eight 12-minute episodes,
as well as 48 and 90-minute TV versions. However, this format
failed to appeal to Portuguese audiences.
4. Highlights of the year
While TVI unquestionably holds its place as the most watched
national channel for over a decade, the battle for first place during
prime time is fought on a daily basis. Opposing telenovelas always
remain very close to each other’s ratings and alternate wins almost
on a daily basis. This makes marketing campaigns, both on air and
outside, factors that tip the ratings balance. Ratings wars for private networks has led programmers to choose strategies with proven
practical results, irrespective of how products and even viewers are
treated. This strategy is based on counter-programming, as networks
look at what is airing on its competition and respond accordingly.
This has led fiction to be treated as a continuum, with episodes having a flexible minute count, regardless of how they were originally
produced. Opposing networks know that the prime time telenovela
that finishes first will suffer in ratings, as there will be a so-called
viewer switch-over to the other station, which the second show will
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 307
be unable to bring back. The success of telenovelas as the anchor
for open TV networks has led them to replace large entertainment
formats on weekend programming schedules.
In this production and airing context, RTP’s programming
strategy stood out in 2016. The public network sought a new approach to position itself in the market as an alternative to the fiction
airing on private networks. As a result, RTP invested in different
genres and short-running series. The experience gained with this
new programming grid began in January with the premiere of Terapia, an adaptation produced by SP Televisão of Israeli original Be
Tipul. This series had already been adapted in several other countries, particularly in the United States by HBO, where it gained its
notoriety. The strategy to diversify the programming grid allowed
RTP to try new production companies more so than to give a voice
to new dramatic visions, as several titles were adapted from foreign television markets. Curiously, even though RTP had officially
stated that it wished to step away from the idea that the public service should follow the tastes of its viewers, the shows that earned a
renewal for a second season were the most successful ones for the
audience – Russian original series Sim, Chefe and Spanish original Ministério do Tempo. A slot for period drama was also created,
which began shooting with Vidago Palace. This was a co-production
with Galician TV, having a simultaneous premiere on Portugal and
Spain scheduled for the first quarter of 2017, and that will continue
along with the shows already ordered.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Portugal.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Over the last ten years, open TV channels have been losing
viewers. Even though domestic fiction content, namely telenovelas,
is still the most watched type of show and positively contributes to
how channels perform, there is a slight drop in ratings. Notwithstanding the increased offer of other formats, as well as the buzz that
some of these generated on social networks, their numbers never
308 | Obitel 2017
became significant. This had no effect on the number of shows produced, which, as seen above, has risen to a level where Portugal is
now able to position itself as a market that produces high quality
content due to internationally renowned technical and artistic skills.
Portugal’s specialization in telenovelas has allowed it to perfect
this type of product and, consequently, to change the typical viewer
profile. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the standard consumer was
considered to be low-income older women. In recent years, telenovelas have entered the media menu of a younger audience in segments A and B. When connected to the increased international recognition – as evidenced by the greater number of awards and prize
nominations –, this change in viewer profile has led to a different
perception of these types of content. In the past, telenovelas were
seen as a standard product for the masses, with no identity of its
own. Currently, they have gained a new dimension, both internally
and externally, which establishes a star system of its own, the search
of technical resources by foreign entities and an acknowledgement
on the global circuits where these products are sold.
The media landscape has been evolving for the past decade,
allowing for an increased offer and variety of content, better reception conditions, new technological devices available and functionalities that open the consumption of fiction to a more elastic and
on-demand viewing experience. This has led to the emergence of
a vocabulary of its own that is used worldwide. Concepts such as
“over the top (OTT)”, “streaming”, “binge watching”, among others, began being used on a regular basis, which shows the vitality
and progress in this sector. Due to these transformations, players felt
the need to gain a better understanding of the market and its dynamics. This has spurred the adaptation of a new rating measurement
system (audio matching) by a new company (GfK), the possibility
to analyze numbers for consumption in timeshift as well as several
studies by several public and private institutions, such as the Regulatory Entity for Social Communication (ERC) and the Independent
TV Producers Association (Apit).
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 309
While viewers are more knowledgeable and active on their
consumption, those who write and produce must also adapt to the
new realities. For the decade, a generational shift occurred in project
authorship, which marked a new way of thinking about telenovelas.
The ruling blueprint that existed since 1982 – the year when the first
Portuguese telenovela premiered – had always been the Latin American product, particularly that of Globo. However, new authors are
bringing a different set of references. While they do not reject what
was done in the past, their characters are now less simplistic and
the conflicts they create are more current, not merely based on love
at first sight or the poor being crushed by the authoritarianism of
the rich. Telenovelas have also become a space for minorities, as
people of color were offered lead roles, issues such as same-sex
marriage or co-adoption by gay couples were portrayed on screen
as normal occurrences within families like any other. As sign of the
times, the pace of the narrative has increased, as well as violence,
which has become more graphic. Lines of dialogue made room for
visual imagery, which set telenovelas on a trajectory farther away
from its radio origins and ever closer to series and even films. Social
networks opened up other possibilities and crossovers, such as characters interacting with viewers in real time. The world has changed,
and the narrative changed with it, even though it may remain unadulterated at its core. Technology has not led viewers to participate
more in how characters are developed, but there is a mere illusion
that they are able to do so. The term “television” no longer defines
an appliance, but the content itself, and the content is now watched
on mobile devices, tablets and laptops. Still, contemporary viewers
are after the same thing than the very first ones to have access to a
television set at its dawn, only on an updated version. What they
are after is a well told story that aids them in reading the world and
serves them as a learning experience.
The past ten years also enabled a professional structure to
emerge, which, even if in its infancy, now features highly skilled
technicians, as well as other professionals in creative fields that saw
310 | Obitel 2017
TV as a space where to build their careers on. The lack of financial resources and networks to invest in national fiction has limited
the growth and diversification of genres and formats. The public
network has invested in series for the past decade, even though
opinions varied with different executive boards on whether public
service should be more popular or elitist. On the other hand, private
networks became severely dependent on telenovelas in order to survive, as these were the products that garnered more ratings and, consequently, a greater interest by advertisers. This is in an age when
the internet has been diverting a significant piece of the investment
in advertisement. International sales, along with soft sponsoring, are
becoming an alternative revenue source. Networks have many reservations on divulging their numbers, but, according to Expresso, a
newspaper owned by Impresa media group (which also owns SIC),
and its content distribution and sales director, “the goal is to increase exporting revenues in 50% for the next three years. [...] up
until now, eight scripts were sold to Latin America”. The newspaper also makes reference to TVI, even though not citing its source,
saying that “they have already sold 22 telenovelas for more than 37
countries, with particular emphasis to Única Mulher, Saber Amar
and Morangos com Açúcar”.8
As we have seen in the section analyzing transmedia reception, the concept of producing original narratives to be used in multiple platforms, where in each one changes occur to elaborate on the
narratives and give a new outlook to stories, is still unexplored in
Portugal. Only last year a transmedia appropriation – even if “analogic” – was observed, with the publication of books to give a new
dimension to the narrative of the telenovelas that had already aired.
This context enabled the creation of conditions to produce and air
8
Expresso, April 22, 2017, p. 22-23.
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 311
46 shows by RTP9, 22 shows by SIC10 and 49 shows by TVI11 during
the past decade. In the attempt to demarcate itself from the commercial channels, the public service network offered low serialization
content, namely series, miniseries, sitcoms and TV films, as well as
a strong bet on period dramas, which show their uniqueness. TVI
came out ahead with the highest percentage of fictional content offered (42%), by producing domestic fiction on a regular basis since
2000 with leading ratings, with particular emphasis to the telenovela
format occupying its prime time (57% of the 42%), scheduled on
two to three slots and three to four shows per year. Due to a later
strategy upon entering the market with national fiction at prime
time, SIC is in third place, with a 19% offer. Of these 19%, 59% are
telenovelas, and, from 2015 onwards, with the scheduling of two
types of fiction, directly competing against TVI.
9
Nome de Código: Sintra, Conta-me Como Foi (2007), O Dia do Regicídio, Liberdade
21 (2008), Pai à Força, A Minha Família, T2 para 3 Remodelado, Um Lugar para Viver
(2009), Cidade Despida, Regresso a Sizalinda, República, Noite Sangrenta, Voo Directo
(2010), Maternidade, Conexão, Mistérios de Lisboa, A Sagrada Família, Viver é Fácil,
Tempo Final, Os Compadres, Velhos Amigos (2011), Perdidamente Florbela (2012), Sinais de Vida, Hotel Cinco Estrelas, Depois do Adeus, Odisseia, As Linhas de Torres, A
Mãe do Senhor Ministro, Bem-Vindos a Beirais, Uma Família Açoriana, Os Filhos do
Rock (2013), Mulheres de Abril, Água de Mar (2014), Agora a Sério, O Pátio das Cantigas, Virados do Avesso, Os Maias (2015), Terapia, Mau, Mau Maria, Aqui Tão Longe,
O Leão da Estrela, Capitão Falcão, Mulheres Assim, Os Boys, Dentro, Miúdo Graúdo
(2016).
10
Vingança, Chiquititas, Resistirei (2007), Rebelde Way, Podia Acabar o Mundo, VIP
Manicure, A Vida Privada de Salazar (2008), Perfeito Coração, Camilo, o Presidente,
Cenas do Casamento (2009), Lua Vermelha, Laços de Sangue (2010), Rosa Fogo, Família
Mata (2011), Dancin’ Days (2012), Sol de Inverno (2013), Mar Salgado, Sal (2014), Poderosas, Coração d’Ouro (2015), Rainha das Flores, Amor Maior (2016).
11
Ilha dos Amores, Deixa-me Amar, Fascínios, Detective Maravilhas, Fados, Call Girl,
Julgamento (2007), A Outra, Feitiço de Amor, Olhos nos Olhos, Flor do Mar, Campeões
e Detectives, Equador, Casos da Vida, Contrato (2008), Deixa que te Leve, Sentimentos,
Meu Amor, Ele é Ela (2009), Mar de Paixão, Espírito Indomável, Sedução, Destino Imortal, 37, Dias Felizes (2010), Anjo Meu, Remédio Santo, O Dom, O Amor é um Sonho,
Redenção (2011), Doce Tentação, Louco Amor, Doida por Ti, Morangos com Açúcar: o
Filme (2012), Destinos Cruzados, Mundo ao Contrário, Belmonte, O Bairro, I Love It,
O Bairro: o Filme (2013), O Beijo do Escorpião, Mulheres, Jardins Proibidos, Giras e
Falidas (2014), A Única Mulher, Santa Bárbara (2015), A Impostora, A Casa é Minha,
Massa Fresca (2016).
312 | Obitel 2017
The top ten for the past decade12 shows the competitive path
that the two commercial channels took. Between 2008 and 2012,
TVI managed to place 32 shows in the top ten list and led the first
four to six spots, while SIC, during the same five years, only managed to place eight shows halfway or to the end of the list. These
numbers began to reverse from 2013 onwards, with the customized
remake of Dancin’ Days, which started leading the top ten for two
years in a row. From this point on, SIC held first place with its telenovelas and oscillated against TVI’s shows for second place and below. Globally and proportionally to the overall production by both
channels, between 2013 and 2016, TVI had 23 shows in the top ten
and SIC had eight. The public service network placed 13 shows in
the top ten during the same period, even if in a less prominent spot.
In terms of ratings, and by observing the first spot in the top
ten list, between 2008 and 2016, the most watched shows were:
Fascínios, with 18 rating points (2008/TVI), Dancin’ Days, with
16.3 rating points (2014/SIC), and Feitiço de Amor with 15.7 rating
points (2009/TVI). It is worth noting that, throughout the years, the
overall rating has been decreasing. Currently, the first spot is at a
rating of around 15 points.
Therefore, it is understandable how telenovelas affirmed themselves as the format of choice to fill prime time and how the number
of episodes has progressively increased. This has allowed for many
titles to stay in the top ten for two years, thus showing their ability to reach viewers who remain invested in the content. By going
against the international trend, which is marked by the production
of medium and low serialization formats, Portugal is still focused
on the domestic market and attempts to preserve interest in the open
TV channels, which are exposed to the encroachment of the rising
market of subscription-based TV.
The shows identiied here refer to the period between 2008 and 2016, since in 2007 an
experimental methodological protocol was applied, which used a week sample instead of
a full year as its unit of analysis.
12
Portugal: mass producing telenovela. Establishing long-running fiction
as an alternative to the current international trend | 313
References
Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento das Comunicações – APDC
(2017, January 10). CES 2017: as 5 grandes tendências que se destacaram.
APDC. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.apdc.pt/noticias/atualidade-nacional/ces-2017-as-5-grandes-tendencias-que-se-destacaram/.
Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações – Anacom (2017). Serviço de televisão
por subscrição. Anacom. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from https://www.anacom.
pt/render.jsp?contentId=1406396.
Briefing (2016, July 15). Mercado publicitário português atingirá os 520M€
em 2016. Briefing. Retrieved on April 29, 2017 from http://www.briefing.
pt/publicidade/37262-mercado-publicitario-portugues-atingira-os-520mem-2016.html.
Extra (2016). Novidades RTP para 2016. Extra. Retrieved on April 5, 2017
from http://media.rtp.pt/extra/tv/novidades-rtp-para-2016/.
Fechine, Y. (2014). Trasmediação e cultura participativa: pensando as práticas
textuais de agenciamento dos fãs de telenovelas brasileiras. Revista Contracampo, 31 (1), 5-22.
Fonseca, P. (2016, January 29). IDC Predictions 2016: mercado de TI em Portugal cresce 2,6% em 2016. Business Leak. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from
https://business.leak.pt/idc-predictions-2016-mercado-de-ti-em-portugalcresce-26-em-2016/.
Jenkins, H. (2003). Transmedia storytelling: moving characters from books to
films to video games and make them stronger and more compelling. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.technologyreview.
com/news/401760/transmedia-storytelling/ acedido.
Jenkins, H. (2009). Cultura da convergência. São Paulo: Aleph.
Lopes, M. I. V. de (ed.) (2009). Ficção televisiva no Brasil: temas e perspectivas. São Paulo: Globo Universidade.
Marktest (2016). Os portugueses e as redes sociais 2016. Retrieved on April
5, 2017 from http://www.marktest.com/wap/private/images/logos/Folheto_redes_sociais_2016.pdf.
Marktest (2016, August 3). Investimento publicitário em Portugal 2016. Economia. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from https://economiapt.com/investimentopublicitario-portugal/.
Marktest (2017). Barómetro Telecomunicações – Voz Móvel. Marktest. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.marktest.com/wap/a/grp/p~2.aspx.
Mateus, A. (2013). A cultura e a criatividade na internacionalização da econo-
314 | Obitel 2017
mia portuguesa: relatório final. Gabinete de Estratégia, Planeamento e Avaliação Culturais, Secretaria de Estado da Cultura.
Meios & Publicidade (2017, January 4). A TV que os portugueses viram em
2016. Meios & Publicidade. Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from http://www.
meiosepublicidade.pt/2017/01/a-tv-que-os-portugueses-viram-em-2016/.
9
sPAIn: PAy tv tAkes off
Authors:
Charo Lacalle, Beatriz Gómez, Mariluz Sánchez
Team:
Rosa Ferrer, Cristina Pujol, Carlos Sanandrés (researchers);
Berta Trullàs, Marta Albújar, Deborah Castro,
Alexander Lazarev, Karina Tiznado, Raquel Crisóstomo,
Tatiana Hidalgo (collaborators)
1. Spain’s audiovisual context in 2016
The year 2016 has been a transitional period leading towards
the transformation of the Spanish television system due to several
factors, such as the increase in the number of viewers of thematic
channels, the growth of pay TV subscribers, and the arrival of HBO,
as we reach the first anniversary of Netflix in Spain.
Spanish networks reiterate their commitment to period drama.
The series still is the dominant format in continuity, as premieres
and innovation coexist with the great assets of the past (Aquí no Hay
Quien Viva, Antena3; Cuéntame Cómo Pasó, La1).
1.1. Open television in Spain
The Spanish television system is characterized by the high
number of open networks and combines the distribution of state
channels with the regional offer in the autonomous communities.
316 | Obitel 2017
Chart 1. Open TV networks in Spain1
Reach
Public
Private
Second
channel
First channel
State1
(national
coverage) La1
First
channel
La2
TV3, TVG, C.
Sur, ETB2, CMM,
AutoTVCAN, Telemanomic
drid, ETB1,
(regional
Aragón TV, La7
coverage)
TV, Canal Ext.
TV, TPA, IB3
Second channel
FDF-T5, Neox, Atreseries, Divinity, Clan,
Nova, Mega,13TV,
Antena3,
DMax, Energy,
Tele5,
Paramount Channel,
Cuatro,
Boing, Disney Channel,
LaSexta
Teledeporte, DKiss, Be
Mad, Ten, Gol, Real
Madrid HD
Super3/33, 3/24,
TV3CAT, Esport3, CSur-And,
8Madrid, 8TV, CYL7, La8,
And-TV, Galicia
RAC105, 8Madrid, TV MediterTV, TVG2, IB3
ráneo
Global, ETB3,
ETB4, La Otra,
TPA2
Source: Obitel Spain
Time spent watching television slightly decreased for a fourth
year in a row, and it stands now at 233 minutes per viewer/day,
four minutes less than in 2015. TV consumption by female viewers,
however, increased to 247 minutes, and consumption of those 65+
reached 354 minutes. Tele5 (14.4%) still is the most watched network, followed by Antena3 (12.8%) and TVE (10.1%).
Graph 1a. Share by state networks
Network
Tele5
A3
La1
Autonomic
LaSexta
Pay DTT
Cuatro
%
14.4
12.8
10.1
7.4
7.1
7
6.5
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Tele5
1
A3
La1
Autonomic
LaSexta Pay
DTT
Cuatro
La2
Open DTT
Other
Translator note: In the Spanish case, “state coverage” or “national coverage” refers to
networks that reach the whole country, while “autonomic coverage” refers to networks
with regional coverage of their own autonomic communities. Both autonomic and state
networks include public and private ownership.
Spain: pay TV takes off | 317
La 2
2.6
Open DTT
29.4
Other
2.7
TOTAL
100
Source: Barlovento Comunicación/Kantar Media
Autonomic networks (7.4%) registered a 1.0% decrease in audience. TV3 (11.4%) leads the ranking, despite losing 1.1%. Galician TVG (9.8%) is in second place and Aragon TV (9.0%) is in
third place.
Graph 1b. Share by autonomic networks
Networks
%
TV3
11.4
TVG
9.8
Aragón TV
9
C. Sur
8.6
ETB2
7.3
C. Extre. TV
5.5
CMM
5.1
TVCAN
5.1
TPA
5
Telemadrid
4.8
IB3 Global
3.4
LA 7TV
2.4
ETB1
1.9
3/24
1.5
Super3/33
1.2
Esport3
1
ETB4
0.9
TVG2
0.8
La Otra
0.7
TPA2
0.7
Csur_And
0.6
ETB3
0.6
And. TV
0.5
TV3CAT
0.3
Galicia TV
0.1
IB3 Global
0
Otras
11.8
TOTAL
100
Source: Barlovento Comunicación/Kantar Media
318 | Obitel 2017
Viewership of pay TV (20.4%) grew 1.6%. The top five networks are Fox (6.4%), Bein Liga (4.8%), TNT (4.9%), AXN (4.6%)
and Canal Hollywood (4.0%).
Time allocated to fiction (41.4%) increased by 9.7% at the expense of information (8.9%). Time allocated to sports (12.1%) has
also seen a prominent increase of 5.2%.
Graph 2. Offer by genre in TV programming
Genre
Fiction
Culture
Sport
Entertainment
News
Music
Games
Other
Religion
TOTAL
%
41.4
18.2
12.1
10.9
8.9
5.7
1.6
1
0.2
100
5.7%
1.6% 1.0%
0.2%
Fiction
Culture
Sport
8.9%
Entertainment
10.9%
41.4%
News
Music
12.1%
18.2%
Games
Other
Religion
Source: Barlovento Comunicación/Kantar Media
1.2. Audience trends in 2016
Soccer’s appeal becomes, once again, apparent, as 47 out of the
top 50 most watched broadcasts of the year are matches from different competitions. The only fiction programs in the ranking are the
last episode of cop show El Príncipe (Tele5), with 5,213,000 viewers (29.2% of share), and the first one of the ninth season of Tele5’s
comedy La que se Avecina (4,996,000 viewers and 27.2% of share),
on spots 40 and 45, respectively.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
Advertising investment has grown 7.4%, far ahead of Western Europe’s average (3.9%) and even the global average (5.7%).2
2
Results of Magna study (analysis and projections division of IPG Mediabrands), published by Marketing Direct. Available on: https://www.marketingdirecto.com/especiales/recopilatorios-2016-tendencias-2017/la-inversion-digital-superara-la-la-television40-cuota-mercado-2017.
Spain: pay TV takes off | 319
Television continues to be the leader, with an increase of 6.2% and
2.1 million euros (40.5%). Internet, however, keeps shortening the
distance, with 1.6 million euros (26.9%) and a 23% growth.3 Groups
Mediaset and Atresmedia accumulate 85.4% of total spend on television, a percentage that raises to 94.8% if we take into account only
open channels.4
Eurocup and King’s Cup soccer matches have reached the
highest advertising ratings of the year, followed by the Champions
League. This has ratified Tele5 on the lead for the most watched
campaigns. In addition, Publimedia, a subsidiary of Mediaset Spain
that specializes on pay TV channels, has integrated the advertising
management of TNT and 13TV into an external company service
that already included Cosmopolitan, Buzz, AMC Networks, Hollywood Channel, XTRM, Somos, Canal Cocina, Decasa, SolMusica
and Panda.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
Spanish fiction continues to exploit the appeal of its most popular titles with several initiatives aimed to expand the universe of the
stories. TVE has launched a novel about El Ministerio del Tiempo
(El Tiempo Es el que Es), by Anaïs Schaaff and Javier Pascual, as
well as an audio fiction (El Diario Sonoro de Julián Martínez), aired
by RNE after each TV episode.5 At a regional level, TV3 has published the book El Llibre de Merlí, written by the screenwriter Hèctor Lozano in collaboration with Rebecca Beltrán. Musical comedy
by ETB1 Go!azen promoted its second season with a flash mob and
a record with the ten songs performed in the series.
Regarding solidarity actions undertaken by the two big groups
of private television, Atresmedia Foundation received the cermi.es
3
See: http://infoadex.factoriadigitalpremium.es/infoadex3/documentacion/ESTUDIO-COMPLETO-2017.pdf.
4
See: http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2017/02/25/television/1488041795_367167.html.
5
Available at: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/audios/tiempo-de-valientes-el-diario-de-julian-martinez/.
320 | Obitel 2017
2016 award on the category of Corporate Social Responsibility and
Disability, awarded by the Spanish Committee of Representatives
of People with Disabilities (Cermi). This year, the social project by
Mediaset Spain “12 Months” paid special attention to bullying and,
at Christmas, launched the second phase of the campaign to collect
donations to fight child poverty.
1.5. Communication policies
In terms of business, Vodafone decided, in June, to cancel the
merger with ONO, agreed in 2014 for 7,200 million euros. The decision took place after the Supreme Court ratified the rates with which
the City of Madrid taxed the operation, appealed by the operator
after the sentence against it during the first judicial instance.
1.6. ICT trends
The six new operators of DTT, which had obtained their licences after the liberalization of the digital dividend in March 2015,
began to air in April, three in HD (Atreseries, Be Mad and Real Madrid TV) and the other three in standard definition (Ten, DKiss and
13TV). Two months earlier, the Ministry of Industry and Energy
had announced a second digital dividend for 2020, aimed to free the
band over 700 MHz of the spectrum to develop mobile 5G, which
will require a new retuning process.
1.7. Open TV
Public television in Spain continues to feel the effects of the
economic crisis both at regional and national level, although the cost
of the public networks in Spain (39 euros per year per citizen) is still
far from other European networks (66.9 euros).6
In July, Atresmedia signed an agreement with Virgin Media to
include Antena3 and Atreseries in the package of British network
Spanish Viva, domiciled in the USA. This is the first Spanish op6
Available at: http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2016/12/26/actualidad/148277
0810_437702.html.
Spain: pay TV takes off | 321
erator to penetrate the country, two months after Antena3 landed in
Quebec and Ontario via Fibe TV.
1.8. Pay TV
The momentum of pay TV has been remarkable.7 Firstly, because the consumption represents 20.4% in 2016, with a penetration
of almost 16 million people. Second, because it accumulates 7% of
the total viewership, with a daily coverage of 6.3 million and an average of 117 minutes per viewer. Third, due to the predominantly male
profile, aged 25 to 64. Finally, because 8% of the viewing takes place
as a deferred broadcast (vosdal + AD1-7), which is on the rise.8
The dynamism of pay TV, which includes approximately 90
networks, is also shown in the balance of the first year of Movistar+, which in June reached 3.7 million subscribers. HBO’s arrival
and the consolidation of Netflix after one year operating in Spain,
however, place the Telefónica platform in a scenario of increasing
complexity, as it must renegotiate the rights of premium content,
which it used to have in exclusivity for Spain.
The closure of Canal+, the pioneer pay TV network in Spain9,
and the arrival of #0, the new Movistar+ network10, can also be considered indicators of a new era.
1.9. Independent producers
Among other relevant movements in the sector this year, it
should be highlighted the purchase of 33% of Bambú Producciones
by French StudioCanal, and the debut of production company Vancouver Media, by Alex Pina, creator of big hits of Globomedia like
El Barco, Los Serrano or Los Hombres de Paco.
7
In Spain, pay TV is distributed via three types of platforms: cable (MundoR, Telecable, Euskatel and some minor operators), IPTV (MovistarTV, Vodafone, Orange TV
and Jazztel) and Digital Satellite (Movistar+).
8
Available at: http://www.barloventocomunicacion.es/images/Informe_Barlovento_
TVPAGO_enero2017.pdf.
9
Canal+ started in 1990, driven by Prisa, the publishing company of newspaper El País.
10
Telefónica had bought from Prisa 51% of Canal+ shares in 2015.
322 | Obitel 2017
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Public broadcaster La1 has premiered 15 out of 32 titles in
2016, followed by Antena3, with nine fictions, Tele5, with five, and
Cuatro, with one. Thematic channels Divinity (Mediaset) and Neox
(Atresmedia) also have a new release each, although Neox only
aired the first episode of a series (Paquita Salas), which was then
transferred to the internet. Reruns on DTT for open access networks
are becoming a common practice.
Table 1a. State iction broadcasted in 2016
PREMIERE STATE TITLES – 32 Cuatro – 1 state title
30. Gym Tony (serial)
La1 – 15 state titles
Divinity – 1 state title
1. Acacias 38 (serial)
31. Yo Quisiera (serial)
2. Águila Roja (series)
3. Carlos, Rey Emperador (series)
Neox – 1 state title
4. Centro Médico (docudrama)
32. Paquita Salas (series)
5. Cervantes Contra Lope (TV movie)
6. Cuéntame Cómo Pasó (series)
RERUN TITLES: 14
7. El Caso (series)
8. El Hombre de tu Vida (series)
La1 – 1 state title
9. El Ministerio del Tiempo (series)
33. Carta a Eva (miniseries)
10. La Corona Partida (TV movie)
11. La Sonata del Silencio (series)
La2 – 2 state titles
12. Olmos y Robles (series)
34. Cuéntame Cómo Pasó (series)
13. Seis Hermanas (serial)
35. Curro Jiménez (series)
14. Víctor Ros (series)
15. 22 Ángeles (TV movie)
Tele5 – 5 state titles
36. Yo Quisiera (serial)
Antena3 – 9 state titles
37. Sin Tetas no Hay Paraíso (series)
16. Allí Abajo (series)
38. El Chiringuito de Pepe (series)
17. Amar es Para Siempre (serial)
39. La que se Avecina (series)
18. Bajo Sospecha (series)
40. Aquí no Hay Quien Viva (series)
19. Buscando el Norte (series)
20. El Secreto del Puente Viejo (serial)
Neox – 1 state title
21. La Embajada (series)
41. Aquí no Hay Quien Viva (series)
22. Mar de Plástico (series)
23. Velvet (series)
Cuatro – 1 state titles
24. Vis a Vis (series)
42. Gym Tony (serial)
Tele5 – 5 state titles
Atreseriess – 3 state titles
25. El Chiringuito de Pepe (series)
43. Allí Abajo (series)
26. El Padre de Caín (miniseries)
44. Mar de Plástico (series)
27. El Príncipe (series)
45. Velvet (series)
28. La que se Avecina (series)
29. Lo que Escondían sus Ojos (miniseNetflix – 1 state title
ries)
46. Mar de Plástico (series)
Spain: pay TV takes off | 323
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 32
TOTAL RERUN TITLES: 14
TOTAL BROADCASTED TITLES: 46
Source: Obitel Spain
Regional channels released 21 titles, concentrated once again
between TVG (nine titles) and TV3 (five titles).
Table 1b. Autonomic iction broadcasted in 201611
PREMIERE AUTONOMIC TITLES – Canal Sur – 3 rerun titles
21
23. Arrayán (serial)
24. Ponme una Nube, Rocío (series)
ETB1 – 2 autonomic titles
25. Rocío Casi Madre (series)
1. Aitaren Etxea (series)
2. Eskamak Kentzen (series)
ETB2 – 1 rerun title
3. Go!azen (series)
26. La Casa del Padre (series)
IB3 – 1 autonomic title
4. Hotel Bellavista (series)
TV3 – 6 autonomic titles
5. Cites (series)
6. Fassman (TV movie)
7. La Riera (serial)
8. La Xirgu (TV movie)
9. Merlí (series)
10. Nit i Dia (series)
TVG – 9 autonomic titles
11. Augasquentes (series)
12. Casa Manola (series)
13. Dalia a Modista (miniseries)
14. Era Visto (sketch)
15. Fontealba (serial)
16. Pazo de Familia (series)
17. Serramoura (series)
18. Urxencia Cero (series)
Canal Sur – 1 autonomic title
19. Brigada de Fenómenos (series)
Aragón TV – 1 autonomic title
20. Los Artigas (sketch)
IB3 – 5 rerun titles
27. El Faro (serial)
28. Llágrima de Sang (serial)
29. L’Anell (serial)
30. Migjorn (series)
31. Mossèn Capellà (series)
La Otra – 2 rerun titles
32. El Faro (serial)
33. 2 de Mayo (miniseries)
Aragón TV – 2 rerun titles
34. Hotel Almirante (miniseries)
35. El Faro (serial)
Canal Extremadura – 1 rerun title
36. El Faro (serial)
TVG – 3 rerun titles
37. Libro de Familia (series)
38. Mareas Vivas (series)
39. Pratos Combinados (series)
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 21
TOTAL RERUN TITLES: 18
TOTAL BROADCASTED TITLES: 39
Forta – 1 autonomic title
21. El Faro (serial)11
11
El Faro is a serial co-produced by the regional networks and aired in 2016 by TVG,
Canal Extremadura, La Otra, IB3 and Aragón TV.
324 | Obitel 2017
RERUN TITLES – 18
Canal33 – 1 rerun title
22. La Riera (serial)
Source: Obitel Spain
Stability of Spanish fiction is evident in the number of premiere titles (32 in 2016 and 31 in 2015), in the number of episodes/
chapters (1,472 in 2016 and 1,371 in 2015) and in total hours (1,383
hours 55 minutes in 2016 and 1,298 hours 10 minutes in 2015).
New releases from Obitel countries, however, have experienced a
remarkable increase, with eight titles in 2016 compared to none in
2015.
Table 2a. State premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
%
Hours
%
80.0
20.0
Chap./
ep.
1472
445
76.8
23.2
1383:55:00
503:45:00
73.3
26.7
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
2
0
0
0
0
32
1
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
40
5.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
80.0
2.5
12.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
257
0
0
0
0
1472
25
163
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1917
Country
Title
%
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
NON OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
Spanish co-production
Obitel co-production
TOTAL
Source: Obitel Spain
32
8
13.4 119:10:00
6.3
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
76.8 1383:55:00 73.3
1.3
20:50:00
1.1
8.5
363:45:00 19.3
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
100.0 1887:40:00 100.0
Stability of fiction production is also evident on regional networks. Thus, the Spanish total increases to 53 titles (51 in 2015),
Spain: pay TV takes off | 325
1,960 chapters/episodes (2,050 in 2015) and 1,805 hours 45 minutes
(1,851 hours 56 minutes in 2015).
Table 2b. State and autonomic premiere iction in 2016:
countries of origin
Country
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
NON OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
Spanish co-production
Obitel co-production
TOTAL
Source: Obitel Spain
53
9
Chap./
ep.
85.5 1960
14.5
461
0
0.0
0
0.0
2
0
0
1
0
53
1
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
62
3.2
0.0
0.0
1.6
0.0
85.5
1.6
8.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0,0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
257
0
0
16
0
1960
25
163
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2421
10.6
0.0
0.0
0.7
0.0
81.0
1.0
6.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
Titles
%
%
Hours
%
81.0
19.0
1805:45:00
522:25:00
77.6
22.4
0:00:00
0.0
119:10:00
5.1
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0,0
18:40:00
0.8
0:00:00
0.0
1805:45:00 77.6
20:50:00
0.9
363:45:00 15.6
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
2328:10:00 100.0
The afternoon slot is the space with the higher number of chapters/episodes aired due to programming of daily serials in state networks. This includes Spanish fiction (1,180) as well as Ibero-American (317), which also affects the greater number of hours registered
in that time slot (1,051 hours 5 minutes of Spanish fiction and 255
hours of Ibero-American).
Total programming (national and regional) shows a similar
profile, although Ibero-American fiction has a greater presence in
autonomic channels.
Time slot
Morning (6:00-14:00)
Afternoon (14:00-21:00)
Prime time (21:00-23:30)
Night (23:30-6:00)
Total
Source: Obitel Spain
C/E
0
1180
292
0
1472
National
%
H
%
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
80.2 1051:05:00 75.9
19.8
332:50:00
24.1
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
100.0 1383:55:00 100.0
C/E
0
317
128
0
445
Ibero-American
%
H
0.0
0:00:00
71.2
255:00:00
28.8
248:45:00
0.0
0:00:00
100.0 503:45:00
%
0.0
50.6
49.4
0.0
100.0
C/E
0
1497
420
0
1917
Total
%
H
0.0
0:00:00
78.1 1306:05:00
21.9
581:35:00
0.0
0:00:00
100.0 1887:40:00
%
0.0
69.2
30.8
0.0
100.0
Table 3b. Chapters/episodes and hours by state and autonomic time slot
Time slot
C/E
%
0
0.0
Afternoon (14:00-21:00)
1474
Prime time (21:00-23:30)
486
Morning (6:00-14:00)
Night (23:30-6:00)
Total
Source: Obitel Spain
0
1960
National
H
Ibero-American
%
H
%
C/E
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
75.2
1279:05:00
70.8
317
24.8
526:40:00
29.2
144
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
100.0 1805:45:00 100.0
Total
%
%
C/E
H
%
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
68.8
255:00:00
48.8
1791
74.0
1534:05:00
65.9
31.2
267:25:00
51.2
630
26.0
794:05:00
34.1
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
0
0.0
461
100.0
522:25:00
100.0
2421
100.0
2328:10:00 100.0
326 | Obitel 2017
Table 3a. Chapters/episodes and hours by state time slot
Table 4a. Formats of state and Ibero-American iction
Format
Serial
Series
Miniseries
TV movie
Unitary
Docudrama
Others (soap opera, etc.)
Total
Source: Obitel Spain
Titles
4
22
2
3
0
1
0
32
%
12.5
68.8
6.3
9.4
0.0
3.1
0.0
100.0
National
C/E
%
912
62.0
304
20.7
6
0.4
3
0.2
0
0.0
247
16.8
0
0.0
1472
100.0
H
901:40:00
324:40:00
8:40:00
4:50:00
0:00:00
144:05:00
0:00:00
1383:55:00
%
65.2
23.5
0.6
0.3
0,0
10.4
0.0
100.0
Titles
%
8
100.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
8
100.0
Ibero-American
C/E
%
H
445
100.0
503:45:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
445
100.0
503:45:00
%
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
Table 4b. Formats of state, autonomic and Ibero-American iction
Serial
Series
Miniseries
TV movie
Unitary
Docudrama
Others (soap opera, etc)
Total
Source: Obitel Spain
Titles
7
35
3
5
0
1
2
53
%
13,2
66.0
5.7
9,4
0.0
1.9
3.8
100,0
C/E
1199
475
8
5
0
247
26
1960
National
%
61.2
24.2
0.4
0.3
0.0
12.6
1.3
100.0
H
1122:40:00
507:10:00
11:00:00
7:50:00
0:00:00
144:05:00
13:00:00
1805:45:00
%
Titles
62.2
9
28.0
0
0.6
0
0.4
0
0.0
0
8.0
0
0.7
0
100.0
9
%
100,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
100,0
Ibero-American
C/E
%
H
461
100.0
522:25:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
0
0.0
0:00:00
461
100.0 522:25:00
%
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
Spain: pay TV takes off | 327
Format
328 | Obitel 2017
The series, which is the predominant format in Spanish fiction, includes 22 out of 32 titles aired by state networks (68.8%),
although 65.2% of air time actually belongs to the four serials from
this group of channels. Ibero-American fiction, however, only includes telenovelas (eight titles), the equivalent to the Spanish serial.
Distribution of the Spanish total (national and regional networks) by
formats follows a very similar pattern.
National fiction programming hardly presents any variations
from last year: series, miniseries and TV movies air at prime time
(26) and the other formats in the afternoon slot. Regional fiction follows the same pattern.
Table 5a. Formats of state iction per time slot
Morning
Serial
0
Series
0
Miniseries
0
TV movie
0
Unitario
0
Docudrama
0
Others
0
Total
0
Source: Obitel Spain
Format
%
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
AfterPrime
%
% Night % Total %
noon
time
4
66.7
0
3.8
0
0.0
5
15.6
1
0.0
21
76.9
0
0.0
21
65.6
0
0.0
2
7.7
0
0.0
2
6.3
0
0.0
3
11.5
0
0.0
3
9.4
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
16.7
0
0.0
0
0.0
1
3.1
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
6
83.3
26
100.0
0
0.0
32 100.0
Table 5b. Formats of state and autonomic iction per time slot
Morning
Serial
0
Series
0
Miniseries
0
TV movie
0
Unitario
0
Docudrama
0
Others
0
Total
0
Source: Obitel Spain
Format
%
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
AfterPrime
To%
% Night %
%
noon
time
tal
7
70.0
0
0.0
0
0.0 7
13.2
2
0.0
33
76.7
0
0.0 35 66.0
0
0.0
3
7.0
0
0.0 3
5.7
0
0.0
5
11.6
0
0.0 5
9.4
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0 0
0.0
1
10.0
0
0.0
0
0.0 1
1.9
0
00
2
4.7
0
0.0 2
3.8
10
80.0
43
100.0
0
0.0 53 100.0
This year the period pieces decreased (37.5% compared to
40.5% in 2015), but historical ones increased (12.5% in 2016 and
8.1% in 2015).
Spain: pay TV takes off | 329
Table 6a. Time period in which state iction is set
Time period Titles
%
Present
15
46.9
Period
12
37.5
Historical
4
12.5
Other
1
3.1
Total
32
100.0
Source: Obitel Spain
Table 6b. Time period in which state and autonomic iction is set
Time period Titles
%
Present
31
58.5
Period
15
28.3
Historical
6
11.3
Other
1
1.9
Total
53
100.0
Source: Obitel Spain
The last season of El Príncipe (Tele5), a cop show focused on
the fight against jihadist terrorism, is once again the most watched
fiction and the only one that reaches over four million viewers.
Table 7a. The ten most watched state titles: origin, rating, share
Title
Country of
origin
1
El Príncipe
Spain
2
La que se
Avecina
Spain
3 Velvet
Cuéntame
4 Cómo
Pasó
Lo que
Es5
condían
sus Ojos
6 Allí Abajo
Spain
Producer
Screenwriter
Chanor author of Rating Viewers Share
nel
original idea
A. Gabilondo,
Tele5
9.1 4,063,000 21.7
C. Benítez
Plano a
Plano
Ininia,
Alba
Tele5
Adriática
Bambú
AnProductena3
ciones
L. and A.
Caballero
8.1
3,609,000
21.7
R. Campos,
G. R. Neira
8.0
3,572,000
21.6
17.2
Spain
Grupo
Ganga
La1
J. Oristrell
7.2
3,204,000
Spain
MOD
Producciones
Tele5
N. Herrero
7.2
3,200,000 18.9
Spain
Plano a
Plano
An- C. Benítez, A.
tena3
Gabilondo
7.1
3,170,000 18.3
330 | Obitel 2017
El Padre
de Caín
Mar de
8
Plástico
7
9
Buscando
el Norte
Spain
Spain
Spain
BoomerTele5
ang TV
Boomer- Anang TV tena3
Aparte
Producciones
Bambú
Producciones
Total productions:
100%
Source: Obitel Spain
10
Bajo Sospecha
Spain
Antena3
Antena3
R. Vera
J. C. Cueto,
R. Martínez
O. Capel, D.
S. Olivas,
A. Sánchez,
N. G. Velilla
R. Campos,
G. R. Neira
6.5
2,870,000 16.7
6.3
2,814,000
17.3
6.2
2,755,000
15.3
6.1
2,705,000
15.8
Foreign scripts:
0%
Six programs of TV3 and four by TVG make up the autonomic
ranking.
Table 7b. The ten most watched autonomic titles:
origin, rating, share
Title
Country of
origin
1 Merlí
Spain
2 Nit i Dia
Spain
3 La Riera
Spain
Fassman,
l'Increíble
4
Home
Radar
Spain
5 Cites
Spain
6 La Xirgu
Spain
Dalia a
Modista
Spain
7
Screenwriter or
ChanProducer
author of Rating Viewers Share
nel
original
idea
Veranda TV TV3 H. Lozano
7.2
513,000 20.0
L. ArMediapro
TV3 carazo, J.
5.4
385,000 13.0
Galceran
TVC
TV3
D. Plana
5.4
384,000 22.0
TVC,
RTVE,
Mallreich
TV3 J. Oristrell
4.8
344,000 13.0
Film-Paco
Poch, Alicorn Films
Arca AudioTV3
B. Elsey
4.3
309,000 11.0
visual
TVC, TVG,
Canal Sur+,
Distinto
TV3
S. Quer
3.0
215,000 8.0
Films, Zenit
TV, Tito
Clint Mov.
CTV
TVG E. Montero
6.5
171,000
16.0
Spain: pay TV takes off | 331
8
Serramoura
Spain
Voz Audiovisual
TVG
A. Guntín,
V. Sierra,
X. Morais
5.4
142,000
14.0
9
Pazo de
Familia
Spain
Central de
Telecontenidos
TVG
J. M.
Besteiro
5.1
135,000
12.0
Spain
Voz Audiovisual
Urxencia
10
Cero
TVG
Total productions:
100%
Source: Obitel Spain
A. Guntín,
X. Morais,
3.8
101,000
S. Gómez,
B. López
Foreign scripts:
0%
8.9
In Spain, the top ten most watched fictions (national and autonomic) are Spanish productions.
Table 7Aa. The ten most watched state titles:
rating, format, producer, time slot
6
Title
El Príncipe
La que se Avecina
Velvet
Cuéntame Cómo Pasó
Lo que Escondían sus
Ojos
Allí Abajo
7
El Padre de Caín
1
2
3
4
5
8 Mar de Plástico
9 Buscando el Norte
10 Bajo Sospecha
Source: Obitel Spain
Rating Format
9.1
Series
8.1
Series
8.0
Series
7.2
Series
Minise7.2
ries
7.1
Series
Minise6.5
ries
6.3
Serial
6.2
Series
6.1
Series
Network/producer
Plano a Plano
Ininia, Alba Adriática
Bambú Producciones
Grupo Ganga
Time slot
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
MOD Producciones
Prime time
Plano a Plano
Prime time
Boomerang TV
Prime time
Boomerang TV
Aparte Producciones
Bambú Producciones
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Table 7Ab. The ten most watched autonomic titles:
rating, format, producer, time slot
Title
1 Merlí
2 Nit i Dia
3 La Riera
Fassman,
4 l'Increíble Home
Radar
5 Cites
Rating Format
7.2
Series
5.4
Series
5.4
Serial
4.8
TV
movie
4.3
Series
Network/producer
TV3/VerandaTV
TV3/TVC, Mediapro
TV3/TVC
TV3/TVC, RTVE, Mallreich
Film-Paco Poch, Alicorn
Films
TV3/TVC, Arca Audiovisual
Time slot
Prime time
Prime time
Afternoon
Prime time
Prime time
332 | Obitel 2017
6 La Xirgu
3.0
7 Dalia a Modista
6.5
8 Serramoura
5.4
TV
movie
Miniseries
Series
9 Pazo de Familia
5.1
Series
10 Urxencia Cero
Source: Obitel Spain
3.8
Series
TV3/TVC, TVG, Canal Sur
+ Distinto Films, Zenit TV,
Tito Clint Movies
Prime time
TVG/CTV
Prime time
TVG/Voz Audiovisual
TVG/Central de Telecontenidos
TVG/ Voz Audiovisual
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
By genres, the national ranking highlights the stability of cop
shows and the decrease of comedy. All most watched titles are aired
at prime time, with the exception of TV3’s serial La Riera, scheduled in the afternoon slot.
Table 8a. The ten most watched state titles:
format, duration, time slot
Title
Format
Chap./
First and
ep.
last airing Time slot
(in 2016) (in 2016)
Police
9
02/25-04/21 Prime time
Comedy
19
04/05-12/19 Prime time
Drama
11
10/05-12/21 Prime time
Genre
1 El Príncipe
Series
2 La que se Avecina
Series
3 Velvet
Series
Cuéntame
Cómo
4
Series
Dramedy
Pasó
Lo que Escondían
5
Miniseries Drama
sus Ojos
6 Allí Abajo
Series
Comedy
7 El Padre de Caín
Miniseries Police
8 Mar de Plástico
Serial
Police
9 Buscando el Norte
Series
Comedy
10 Bajo Sospecha
Series
Police
Source: Obitel Spain
19
01/07-05/19 Prime time
4
11/02-12/20 Prime time
15
2
13
8
10
02/12-05/25
12/06-12/07
09/12-12/19
02/10-04/06
01/12-03/17
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Table 8b. The ten most watched autonomic titles:
format, duration, time slot
Title
1 Merlí
2 Nit i Dia
3 La Riera
Format
Genre
Series
Series
Serial
Drama
Police
Drama
Chap./
First and
ep.
last airing Time slot
(in 2016) (in 2016)
13
09/19-12/12 Prime time
13
02/01-04/25 Prime time
91
01/11-12/26 Afternoon
Spain: pay TV takes off | 333
Fassman, l'Increíble
TV movie Thriller
Home Radar
5 Cites
Series
Drama
6 La Xirgu
TV movie Drama
7 Dalia a Modista
Miniseries Drama
8 Serramoura
Series
Police
9 Pazo de Familia
Series
Drama
10 Urxencia Cero
Series
Drama
Source: Obitel Spain
4
1
01/18-01/18 Prime time
13
1
2
25
32
15
05/02-07/25
06/30-06/30
12/19-12/26
01/03-12/25
01/04-12/12
01/24-05/01
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
The stories of national fiction revolve around typical themes
(love, family, adultery, sexuality, etc.), with increasing doses of intrigue. Social topics in national fiction introduce ETA terrorism and
the GAL case. The stories in autonomic fiction include Alzheimer’s
disease and health care issues.
Table 9a. Themes in the ten most watched state titles
Title
1 El Príncipe
2
La que se
Avecina
3 Velvet
Prevailing themes
Action, intrigue, espionage, love, family.
Neighborhood relationships, love, friendship,
humor, entanglements.
Love, power, family,
friendship, betrayal.
Family, love, conlicts,
friendship, work.
Love, adultery, family,
fashion, espionage.
Humor, family, love,
6 Allí Abajo
friendship, work.
Adultery, family, love,
7 El Padre de Caín
friendship, intrigue.
Intrigue, action, sex, fam8 Mar de Plástico
ily, friendship.
Cuéntame Cómo
Pasó
Lo que Es5
condían sus Ojos
4
9
Buscando el
Norte
10 Bajo Sospecha
Source: Obitel Spain
Humor, love, friendship,
work, family.
Intrigue, love,
work, inidelity.
family,
Social themes
Multiculturalism, religion, jihadist
terrorism, sexism, political and police corruption.
Economic crisis, dysfunctional
families, political satire, transsexuality, divorce.
Classism, power abuse, illness,
single motherhood, social conventions.
GAL case, investigative journalism, suicide, abuse, drug addiction.
Francoism, post-war, assault, classism, incest.
Prejudices, regional stereotypes,
traditions, illness, senior love.
ETA terrorism, nationalism, politics, social isolation, margination.
Human trafic, drug trafic, sexism,
corruption, disability.
National stereotypes, economic
crisis, unemployment, emigration,
lesbianism.
Illegal business, drug addiction,
sexism, national stereotypes, power abuse.
334 | Obitel 2017
Table 9b. Themes in the ten most watched autonomic titles
Title
Prevailing themes
Sex, love, friendship, rebellion, family conlicts.
Social themes
Alzheimer, teen mom, homosexuality/bisexuality, economic crisis, divorced dad.
Judicial corruption, gender violence,
dysfunctional family, terrorism.
Workspace conlicts, homosexuality, prison, seniors, social activism.
Mental disability, suicide, anaphylactic shock during breastfeeding,
work recognition.
Homosexuality, politics, love relations among seniors, sexual fantasies, intergenerational relationships.
1
Merlí
2
Nit i Dia
3
La Riera
4
Fassman,
l'Increíble
Home Radar
5
Cites
Inidelity, sex, love failures, family.
6
La Xirgu
Theater, work, companDictatorship, freedom of speech,
ionship, love.
ideology, homosexuality.
Intrigue, sex, inidelity,
friendship, power.
Envy, love failures, family
conlicts, sex, betrayal.
Intrigue, paranormal activities, envy, love, inidelity.
Family conlicts, love, intrigue, inidelity, work.
Police investigation, vio8 Serramoura
lence, family conlicts,
power.
Pazo de FaFamily conlicts, intrigue,
9
milia
love, power, kidnapping.
Love, work, humor, pow10 Urxencia Cero
er, family.
Source: Obitel Spain
7
Dalia a Modista
Gender violence, illegitimate children, patriarchy, suicide, classism.
Corruption, minors’ guardianship,
religion, drug trafic, costumbrismo.
Trauma, classism, journalism, single
parent family, divorce.
Health care system, health, corruption, nepotism.
3. Transmedia reception
This section analyzes the reception process of Velvet (Antena3), a romantic drama set in the 60s, which ended in 2016, after
four years and good audience results (3,572,000 and 21.6%). First,
the internet resources are examined, while the second part is focused
on the discourses of the fans on a social network.
The series spans over three official interactive platforms: the
microsite within the network’s website, Facebook and Twitter. The
versatility of the web environment, ideal to group diverse content
and, consequently, the most adequate to offer a transmedia viewing,
turns the microsite of the series on the axis of the transmedia strategy. In addition to full episodes, this space offers a wide variety of
exclusive content (interviews, previews, news, etc.), as well as the
Spain: pay TV takes off | 335
possibility to sync the content with other resources or participate in
contests.
Meanwhile, the intrinsic characteristics of Facebook and Twitter reduce the possibilities to include specific sections to host content
about Velvet. Thus, Twitter’s offering is limited to a photo section,
while Facebook shows information about the show (plot and cast)
and includes photo and video sections. Although activity always increases around the time when the show is being aired, interventions
on Twitter rise to the point that some hashtags become a worldwide
trending topic.12 This corroborates the results from Puebla Martínez
and Gomes Franco e Silva (2014: 293) about the corporate and promotional use of Twitter for simultaneous and multiscreen viewing
following the series.
Internet users’ discourse
During the period studied13 there is a steady increase in the
number of followers: in two weeks it rises from 411,209 to 427,616
(133,055 of which talk about the series).14 Comments on the official
Facebook page for Velvet can be classified in three groups: comments published by the administrator, answers to those comments,
and spontaneous messages from followers.
The 230 comments from the administrator generated a massive response among users: 17,429 comments, 476,566 likes15 and
26,455 shares. The “I like it” is confirmed as the most common reaction when sharing content, instead of writing a comment (Gómez
Rubio and López Vidales, 2015; Tur Viñes and Rodríguez, 2014).
The social network receives an average of 15 daily comments, with
lower numbers during the weekend and holidays (three to four daily
For example, #Velvetinal, speciic to the airing of the last episode. See http://www.
formulatv.com/noticias/62679/opiniones-inal-velvet-inal-aplaudir/.
13
The sample from the oficial Facebook page was collected between December 14 and
28, 2016, one week before and one week after the airing of the last episode of the series.
14
Data collected on December 28, 2016.
15
There are also 86,046 “I love it”; 1,716 “Hahaha”; 3,401 “surprise reactions”; 15,190
“sad reactions”; and 2,049 “angry reactions”.
12
336 | Obitel 2017
posts) and an exponential increase during the days when the series is
aired, as it is shown in the fact that 32.17% of all activity takes place
on December 14 and 21.
All comments from the manager include: an image (192 comments) or a video (38 comments); a descriptive text with less than
three lines; and a link to get more information (95.2%, 219 comments link back to the official website). Regarding the interactive
potential, the posts by the administrator opt for a more informative
manner (summaries, previews, making of, etc.).
Users published 385 spontaneous messages. The viewers’ reaction increases as we approach the final airing and reaches its peak
the following day (Gómez Rubio and López Vidales, 2015). Regarding gender, 89.3% (344) of comments are signed with female
names, 9.3% (36) with male names, and 1.2% (5) of them do not
offer any indication of gender, which evidences the predominance
of female feedback and confirms the success of domestic fiction
among women (Lacalle and Castro, 2016).
The discourse of internet users confirms the trends identified in
previous years. In relation to the poetic function, plots are still the
theme that generates the most interest (166 comments), with 84.9%
(141 comments) being positive interactions. The emotive function,
closely related to the previous one, surfaces on those posts where
viewers show their feelings and/or share personal information with
the rest of the community (96 comments). The conative function
is limited to petitions for the fiction to continue (16 comments),
appealing to the unfinished plots and the possibility to rewrite the
story of the children of the main characters. In general, transmedia reception of Velvet on Facebook has generated a predominantly
positive discourse, although not without some complaints (metalinguistic function): 32 comments show the dissatisfaction of fans with
the amount of commercials, the triviality of the live show and the
predictability of the series finale. Finally, the referential function is
closely related to the administrator comments and the self-promotion strategies linked to the official website.
Spain: pay TV takes off | 337
To sum up, the contribution of the official Facebook page to
building transmedia relations is limited: there is no exclusive or extension content, as it is mostly adapted from the official website
(Askwith, 2007). Along the same lines, although the producers
would like viewers to be more committed with the content, the audience does not seem to show much interest in creative practice to expand the plots (Simons, 2014; Shade, Kornfield and Oliver, 2015).
4. Highlights of the year
Tele5 reduces its offer and, once again, successfully exploits
cop show El Príncipe (4,063,000 and 21.7% of share) and incombustible comedy La que se Avecina (3,609,000 and 21.7% of share).
The four new releases included in the top ten comprise miniseries
Lo que Escondían sus Ojos (3,200,250 and 18.9% of share) and El
Padre de Caín (2,870,500 and 16.7% of share), reporting the network an average share of 18.4% in contrast to the 16.5% of Antena3
and 10.1% of La1.
Antena3 repeats last year’s numbers, with nine titles and the
same audience results. The network also relies on its great hits of
2015: Velvet, series set in the fashion world of the 60s (3,572,000
viewers and 21.6% of share); Allí Abajo, the comedy about regional
stereotypes (3,170,000 viewers and 18.3% of share); and Mar de
Plástico, a cop show (2,814,000 viewers and 17.3% of share). La
Embajada (2,639,000 viewers and 16.0% of share), set in the Spanish embassy in Thailand and starring Belén Rueda and Amaia Salamanca, is their only new release this year.
The decisive bet of TVE on domestic fiction is shown in the
high number of titles (15). They reiterate the network’s preference
for those stories set in the past with emblematic series, like Cuentáme Cómo Pasó (3,204,000 and 17.2% of share), El Ministerio del
Tiempo (2,283,000 and 12.7% of share) or the new release El Caso,
Crónica de Sucesos (1,990,000 and 10.5% of share), a mix of journalistic drama and cop show based on famous stories published on
the newspaper from the 60s with the same name. La1 is also the
338 | Obitel 2017
network offering the greatest variety of genres and formats, being
responsible for the only three TV movies in 2016 and the three new
miniseries.
Exports of shows and formats have increased in inverse proportion to imports. Velvet (Antena3) and El Príncipe (Tele5) have
been aired on Univisión channel’s UniMás. The latter has also been
distributed throughout several Latin American countries via pay
platforms DirecTV and Claro TV, while in Argentina (Telefé) and
Chile (Canal13) it was aired on open TV. In Europe, the dubbed
version of El Príncipe arrived to Italy (Canale5), Portugal (RTP)
Croatia (Nova TV) and Slovenia (Pop TV). Velvet was also available in Latin America, USA, Canada, South Korea and several other
European countries (France, Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, Greece, Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria and Finland). British Channel4 premiered Vis
a Vis (Antena3) in May, the first series to be aired on open TV in that
country. In October, RTVE signed an agreement with Olimpusat to
distribute in the USA via Vemox platform a significant portion of the
premiered series in 2016 (La Sonata del Silencio, Víctor Ros, Isabel,
Carlos, Rey Emperador, El Caso, Crónica de Sucesos). Meanwhile,
El Ministerio del Tiempo premiered in Italy and Ukraine, but it also
sued series Timeless (NBC) for plagiarism. Olmos y Robles was
aired in Portugal. Netflix will offer in exclusivity Mar de Plástico
(Antena3) as soon as the commercial exploit rights of the series are
over. The year 2016 has also been good for serials, with the raise of
El Secreto del Puente Viejo (Antena3) on Italian network Canale5
and the distribution of Seis Hermanas (La1) in Greece.
Regarding format sales, the year began with the success of the
German version of Polseres Vermelles (TV3), which received the
award as best series in that country and was renewed for a second
season. Egyptian channel CBC will air their own version of Gran
Hotel (Antena3). Chinese producer Guen Yue International prepares
an adaptation of El Ministerio del Tiempo, while CBS will develop
an adaptation of comedy Algo que Celebrar (Antena3).
Spain: pay TV takes off | 339
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Spain.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Fiction production in the state as a whole suffered a progressive
decline between 2008 and 2013, a trend timidly reverse in 2014.
Fiction produced by national generalist networks follows a similar
pattern, with the exception of a drastic decline in 2012 (33 titles
instead of 44 in 2011). Between 2008 and 2015, the network that
premiered most shows was Antena3 (111), followed by Tele5 (99)
and La1 (78). In terms of audience share, Antena3 has also been the
national network that has better capitalized on its premiere fictions
during the past three years, after the successful release of El Tiempo
entre Costuras in 2013, with an average share of premiere fiction
of 14.5%, placing the channel in the top of an ascending ranking
(16.0% in 2014 and 17.1% in 2015).
Autonomic fiction is more unstable regarding the number of
premieres, with a sharper decline (up to 17 in 2009) compared to
the increases (maximum of four titles in 2010 and 2012). TV3 is
the network with more new releases between 2010 and 2015 (54),
followed by TVG (42).
Generally speaking, the increase or reduction in the number of
titles correlates to the time on air. The format, however, also plays
a crucial role. Thus, although in 2011 there were four less national
titles than in 2010, the increase of serials resulted in more time on
air (314 more hours than in 2010). On the other hand, the decrease
of 11 national titles in 2012 compared to the previous year did not
radically change the time on air (114 hours less than in 2011) because they were mostly miniseries and TV movies.
The series is the predominant format in Spanish fiction, with
282 out of 573 titles premiered between 2008 and 2015 (183 national and 99 regional). The serial, the miniseries and the TV movie,
however, show similar number of releases during the same period,
with 73, 86 and 76 titles respectively. The release of new national
and autonomic serials is similar (36 and 37 respectively). Same goes
for the sketches (32 and 23 titles respectively). On the other hand,
340 | Obitel 2017
most of the miniseries are national (61 out of 86), while most TV
movies are regional productions (62 out of 76 during that period are
autonomic).
Contrary to the series stability, whose oscillations in the number of new releases are proportional to the increase or decrease of
investment, the ups and downs experienced by the rest of the formats are closely related to the audience share. Thus, the serial registered a drastic contraction in 2010 (six less than in 2009), although
its successive stabilization in the afternoon of Antena3 and La1 has
reinstated the format in the Spanish programming. The miniseries
experienced an unprecedented increase in 2009 (six more than in
2008), probably due to its successes in the previous year, which
culminated in 2011.16 Overall, the programming of TV movies has
been very uneven, going from 22 titles in 2008 to four in 2009, 12 in
2012 and three in 2013. The number of sketches, another of the most
unstable formats of domestic fiction, has experienced a steady decline, while the unitary format remains an unusual product in Spain,
with a single example in 2014 (Cuéntame un Cuento, Antena3).
The network with most fictions in the most watched ranking
between 2008 and 2015 is La1 (32), followed by Antena3 (25) and
Tele5 (23). For regional networks, TV3 is first in the top ten ranking (43 out of 70 titles).17 In fact, TV3 has always been the network
with most successful titles, with the exception of 2015, when it was
matched by TVG (five titles each), which holds the second position
in terms of successful titles (12).
Regarding the reception of formats, 61 out of 80 titles with best
audience results are series, a much higher number than miniseries
(15 titles) and TV movies (four titles). In 2009, however, the miniseries surpassed the series in number (five and four respectively).
The series is also the predominant format for regional networks (35
out of 70 titles), followed by the miniseries and the serial (12 titles
in both cases), the TV movie (ten titles) and the sketch (one title).
16
17
Since 2012, the average of new releases per year is six.
The reference period in this case is 2009-2015.
Spain: pay TV takes off | 341
Drama is the genre with most successful titles (39 out of 80
in the top ten from 2008 to 2015). An important portion of those
are fictions from La1 set in the past and, more recently, Antena3.
Comedy is in second place (16 titles), followed by dramedy and adventure (eight titles each), cop shows (six titles), fantasy (two titles)
and, finally, thriller (one title). It is important to mention that dramedy is represented by one series only, Cuéntame Cómo Pasó (La1),
which appears in the ranking year after year. Similarly, Águila Roja
(La1) represents six out of the eight most watched adventure titles
during the referenced period.18
The 16 airings of comedies in the top ranking are integrated by
eight series, five of them by Tele5, while the three titles in the top
ten that join fantasy and thriller belong to Antena3. Finally, the cop
show is the only genre that grows during the last seasons, as one of
its titles in the top ten (El Príncipe, Tele5) leads the classification
for three years in a row. Drama is also the preferred genre by regional viewers (45 titles), followed by comedy (18 titles), cop shows
(four titles), dramedy (two titles) and fantasy (one title).
Globomedia was the producer with most national successes
(19 out of 80 titles) during the last eight years, followed by Bambú
Producciones (ten titles), Grupo Ganga (nine titles) and Diagonal
TV (eight titles). During the last seasons Boomerang TV and Plano
a Plano have acquired a spot along the most established producers, with three titles each. Globomedia has been able to place in
the top ranking all sorts of genres, although 14 out of 19 successful
titles are equally divided between adventure and comedy, mostly
thanks to Águila Roja (La1) and Aída (Tele5). Bambú Producciones
is successful with its dramas (nine out of ten titles), especially with
stories set in the past (five titles), among which Velvet and Gran
Hotel (Antena3) stand out. This is also an identifiable profile among
Diagonal TV’s hits, as seven out of eight most watched titles during
this time are period dramas by this Catalan producer, among which
18
The other two adventure series are El Barco (Antena3) and Los Nuestros (Tele5).
342 | Obitel 2017
La Señora and Isabel (La1) stand out. Grupo Ganga, on the other
hand, owes eight out of its nine positions in the ranking of the most
watched shows to Cuéntame Cómo Pasó (La1). The rest of the production of shows in the most watched ranking is distributed among
20 different companies.
All titles in the national ranking have been aired at prime time
and there is only one adaptation of a foreign fiction (Sin Tetas no
Hay Paraíso, Tele5), highlighting the affinity of Spanish viewers
with domestic stories. Among autonomic fictions there are two adaptations of foreign scripts, both from TV3: La Dama de Monsoreau
and Cites. Although prime time also tends to be the slot with the
most successful shows, La Riera (TV3), broadcast in the afternoon
slot, and Flaman (Canal Sur), broadcast at night, are exceptions to
this rule.
Between 2008 and 2012 the audience share of the title leading
the national ranking was stable, around 29.0%, declining to 25.3%
in 2013. The next year it increases (26.9%), but only to decline,
once again, in 2015 (24.1%), reaching a historical low. For autonomic fiction, the share percentage of the most watched program
increased between 2009 and 2012 to progressively decline after that.
The oscillations (between 21% and 24%), however, are lesser than
the ones in national fiction. In short, there is a generalized decrease
in fiction’s audience share, consequence of the increase in the number of networks for both open and pay TV.
Love is, without a doubt, the main theme of Spanish television
fiction. A whole thematic constellation revolves around love, powered by passion, jealousy, infidelity, divorce and betrayals. Family
relations and friendship also have a recurring presence, although secrets, conflicts and intrigue have gained prominence during the last
four years. This is a rising trend alongside the growth of thrillers/
cop shows and action, two genres that also revert in the importance
of labor and social themes.
Gender equality and women’s rights, political corruption, intergenerational conflicts, homosexuality and unwanted pregnancies
Spain: pay TV takes off | 343
were the most common social issues during the first years. However, the increase of fictions set in the past and the consequent revision
of history they conduct have propitiated a remarkable expansion of
social themes. Thus, along with the usual issues in Spanish fiction,
others have been introduced, such as the fight for freedom and the
political instability, as well as other hot topics like labor precariousness, housing crisis, euthanasia and interculturality.
Fiction set in the past and its increasing impact
In 2009, fictions set in the past began a progressive rise that
would reach its peak in 2011, a year in which national period productions almost matched those set in the present (20 and 23 titles,
respectively). The answer from the audience was unbeatable, as the
first two fictions in the ranking during those three years were set in
the past. The success of such productions was, in great part, due to
the undisputed leader of last seasons, Águila Roja (La1), pioneer in
exploring the adventure genre set in the past, and the veteran series
Cuéntame Cómo Pasó, broadcasted uninterruptedly since 2001.
The economic crisis and the reduction in number of miniseries
and TV movies (closely related to period stories) affected the decrease
in the number of titles in 2012. It had, however, no repercussions in
terms of audience share. La1 led that year thanks to stories set in the
past, while its two big assets, Águila Roja and Cuéntame Cómo Pasó,
ranked first and were the only ones to surpass five million viewers.
Isabel was the most impactful premiere that year, and long-running
serial Amar en Tiempos Revueltos bade farewell with spectacular audience results. This data was, without a doubt, a stimulus to produce
period fiction, which in 2013 recovered the ascending trajectory and
consolidated its affinity with Spanish viewers. Five period shows and
a historical one ranked among the ten most watched in a classification headed by the best premiere of the last years, El Tiempo entre
Costuras (Antena3). This drama, set in the 30s, ended the leadership
of Águila Roja (La1) since 2009, although without reaching the five
million barrier surpassed by the adventure series.
344 | Obitel 2017
In 2014, titles set in the past experienced a subtle decrease,
compensated with the increase in historical fiction. El Tiempo entre Costuras was, once again, on the lead for the annual ranking
(reaching, this time, five million viewers), and Antena3 repeated
its success in period fiction with drama Velvet. Finally, in 2015, the
number of period productions increased once again, ratifying the
trend prior to 2014.
References
Askwith, I. (2007). Television 2.0: Reconceptualizing TV as an Engagement
Medium. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved on
January 17, 2017 at http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses/IvanAskwith2007.pdf.
Gómez Rubio, L. and López Vidales, N. (2015). Del éxito en televisión a la
participación en las redes sociales. El Príncipe y Galerías Velvet en Facebook.
Doxa comunicación, 20, 137-160.
Lacalle, C. and Castro, D. (2016). The promotion of Spanish television fiction
on the internet. Analysing broadcast-related websites content and social audience. El Profesional de la Información, 25(2), 210-217.
Puebla Martínez, B. and Gomes, Franco e Silva, F. (2014). Twitter como herramienta de lanzamiento de las series de ficción españolas: el estreno de Velvet
(Antena 3) and B&b (Telecinco). In S. Liberal Ormaechea and P. Fernández
Perea (coords.). Últimos estudios sobre publicidad: de ‘Las Meninas’ a los tuits
(p. 283-300). Madrid: Fragua.
Shade, D., Kornfield, S. and Oliver, M. (2015). The Uses and Gratifications
of Media Migration: Investigating the Activities, Motivations, and Predictors
of Migration Behaviors Originating in Entertainment Television. Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59 (2), 318-341.
Simons, N. (2014). Transmedia Critical. Audience Reception of Cross and
Transmedia TV Drama in the Age of Convergence. International Journal of
Communication, 8, 2220-2239.
Tur Viñes, V. and Rodríguez, R. (2014). Transmedialidad: series de ficción y
redes sociales. El caso del Pulseras Rojas en el grupo oficial de Facebook (Antena3. España). Cuadernos.info, 34, 115-131.
10
unIted stAtes: the yeAr
of the “suPer serIes”1
Authors:
Juan Piñón, María de los Ángeles Flores2
1. The audiovisual context of the Hispanic TV in the U.S. in 2016
This year, television was also heavily impacted by the electoral
race for the presidency in the United States. Donald Trump’s candidacy, with high media visibility due to his star persona forged by
The Apprentice, coupled with his countless incendiary statements,
produced unprecedented coverage of his candidacy. Donald Trump
climbed to the top of the list of Republican candidates due to his
status as a Washington outsider, one the press did not stop covering,
whether to praise or denounce. Trump’s image became omnipresent on all newscasts and information programs in the United States,
which found a ratings bonanza due to the audience’s appetite for
Trump spectacle.
Trump toppled the establishment of Republican candidates to
become the nominee. During the campaign, he promised to deport
more than 11 million undocumented immigrants once elected. Before
this campaign rhetoric, the Hispanic networks also maintained wide
coverage of the electoral process, at the same time launching different
campaigns on voter participation, citizenship and public awareness.
1
On behalf of Obitel, we want to express our profound recognition to Brad Poretskin,
vice president and national leader at TAM Nielsen; Theresa Smith, from Client Solutions
in Local Media at Nielsen Media Research; and Genesis Giraldo and Jose Miraya, from
the Client Solutions in Local Media team at Nielsen Media Research, for their help with
this study and for their invaluable contribution to the ield of Hispanic television research.
2
Juan Piñón is an associate professor at the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University (NYU); María de los Ángeles Flores is an assistant
professor at the University of Texas at El Paso (Utep).
346 | Obitel 2017
1.1. Hispanic broadcasting television in the United States
In 2016, the landscape of the Hispanic broadcasting television
included seven national television networks: Azteca America, EstrellaTV, MundoMax, Telemundo, UniMás, Univision and Vme.
However, by 2017 this landscape will be reduced to five national
television networks, with the demise of MundoMax, in November
2016, and the gradual exit of Vme from the open broadcasting spectrum in the first months of 2017 to a cable television channel.
Chart 1. Broadcasting national television
networks/channels in the U.S.
Private networks/channels (6)
Public networks/ channels (1)
Azteca America
Vme*
EstrellaTV
MundoMax*
Telemundo
UniMás
Univision
TOTAL NETWORKS = 7
Source: Obitel USA
*MundoMax and Vme will leave the list in 2017.
Univision and UniMás are national television networks owned
by Univision Communications Inc. (UCI), a subsidiary of Univision Holding Inc. (UHI). UHI is a corporate property owned by the
association of different financial entities led by the Saban Capital
Group, with Televisa Group as its main partner (Univision, 2017).
Univision Communications Inc. also has properties in cable television, radio, and various digital platforms.
Telemundo is owned by NBC-Universal, also owners of cable
television network NBC-Universo (before Mun2), the sister network
of Telemundo. NBC-Universal has three divisions: cable television,
broadcast television, and an entertainment park and tourist complex.
Also, NBC-U is a property of Comcast, the most important provider
of cable services and internet in the U.S. market. Azteca America
is the subsidiary television network of TV Azteca Mexico. TV Az-
United States: the year of the “super series” | 347
teca owns three television networks in Mexico: Azteca 7, Azteca 13,
and AND 40. TV Azteca is a subsidiary of Salinas Group, a corporate holding with participation in the telecommunication, financial,
banking, insurance and domestic appliances sectors. Estrella TV is
a television network subsidiary of Liberman Media Inc., owner of
radio and television stations and the Fenomeno Studios. MundoMax
closed its operations in November 2016. MundoMax was launched
as MundoFox, co-owned by RCN Colombia and Fox International
Channels. In mid-2015, Fox sold its stake to RCN Colombia, and
the network changed its name to MundoMax. However, due to distribution problems and a programming strategy that brought low ratings, the network closed by the end of 2016.
Vme is a television network with a hybrid corporate structure,
with capital from private investors (Grupo Cedel, Prisa, and Baeza
Group), but with an open broadcasting distribution agreement with
the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). On the one hand, Vme’s association with PBS has allowed the network to enjoy programming
and national coverage with a distinctive identity from the other Hispanic television networks; on the other hand, it forbids the network
to follow a commercial business model, which has prevented the
network from economic growth and sustainability. Then, in 2016,
Vme decided to initiate its transition from a public television network into a commercial one.
Graph 1. Audience and share by TV broadcasters
TV networks
Azteca America
EstrellaTV
AA (000)
%
2.9
4.4
MundoMax
1.9
Telemundo
36.1
Univision
41.4
UniMás
13.3
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
2.9% 4.4%
1.9%
Univision
13.3%
Telemundo
UniMás
36.1%
41.4%
Estrella TV
MundoFox
Azteca America
348 | Obitel 2017
Graph 2. Programming genres offered in Hispanic TV
Broadcast
Hours of
genres
exhibition
Information
4,796:45
Fiction
17,727:14
Entertainment 6,534:43
Talk shows
3,127:48
Reality TV
689:51
Sports
2,139:21
Children
826:00
programming
Comedy
2,019:13
Contest
564:61
Education
39:00
Others
1,882:58
TOTAL
40,347:43
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
%
11.9
43.9
16.2
7.8
1.7
5.3
2.0
5.0
1.4
0.1
4.7
100
5.0%
2.0%
1.7%
1.4%
4.7%
Entertainment
Talk shows
Information
5.3%
43.9%
11.9%
7.8%
Fiction
Sports
Reality TV
16.2%
Children programming
Comedy
Contest
Others
1.2. Audience trends in 2016
Univision lost audience, with a 41.1% share in 2016, compared
to 44% in 2015. That loss is much larger considering that the network
enjoyed 55.6% back in 2012 (Piñón, Manrique, Cornejo, 2013). UniMás did not show a significant change with an audience share of
13.3% in 2016 compared to 13.2% in 2015. However, the network
slowed down the growth that it had been showing until 2012 when
it had a 15.3% share (Piñón, Manrique, Cornejo, 2013). Estrella TV
had an audience share of 4.4%, showing a stable position in relation
to 2015, when it also had 4.4%. The network has apparently slowed
down the growth that it showed in 2014, when it had 5.1%. Azteca
America recuperated its share with 2.9%, up from the 2.2% that it
had in 2015. In perspective, Azteca America’s audience share in
2016 was the highest in the last five years, in comparison with 2.4%
in 2012 (Piñón, Manrique, Cornejo, 2013). MundoMax experienced
a decline in audience with 1.9%, in contrast with the 3.3% showed
in 2015, and closed its doors in November 2016.
United States: the year of the “super series” | 349
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
Univision Communications Inc. reported a third-quarter loss
of 8.7%, partially due to low ratings, which signaled alarms in the
company as it was preparing a report to enter the U.S. Stock Market.
However, in terms of annualized income in television and media,
Univision Communications earned US$ 2.7 billion, compared to
US$ 2.5 billion in 2015. Including revenues from radio properties,
its consolidated income was US$ 3 billion, up from US$ 2.8 billion in 2015 (Univision, 2017). Telemundo had revenues of US$
2.1 billion in 2016 with profits of US$ 263 million (Smith, 2017).
When Telemundo’s revenues are included with those of the open-air
broadcasting business that includes NBC network, both properties
of NBC-Universal, they showed an increase of 19% in relation to
2015, with US$ 10.1 billion in revenues (Comcast, 2017). Azteca
America has an annual income of 1.3 billion pesos, representing a
9.6% increase of all the revenues of TV Azteca, up from 8.8% in
2015. We do not have data for EstrellaTV and MundoMax.
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
Social and community responsibility on the part of the Hispanic television networks in the U.S. has always been underscored by
the necessity to connect with their targeted audiences and their urgent needs. In 2016, the campaign “Univision Contigo” (Univision
with you) stands out as a guiding effort in the domains of education,
health, and different opportunities for Latinos. “Reto 28” (Challenge
28) promotes and gives incentives for good nutrition. “Pequeños y
valiosos” (Small and valuable) focused on the well-being and education of children. Another campaign promoted voting, which was
“Vota por America” (Vote for America). Telemundo launched the
campaign “El Poder en Ti” (The Power in You), focusing on education, health and finance. “Yo Decido” (I Decide) was a campaign
that sought to promote Latino participation in the electoral process
of 2016. Azteca America continued with its own initiative “Youth
Orchestra Esperanza Azteca”, which hopes to promote the poten-
350 | Obitel 2017
tial of young Latinos through music. “Voto Latino” (Latino Vote)
promoted voting to young Hispanic millennials. Estrella TV also
launched a promotional voting campaign titled “Yo Soy el Voto” (I
Am the Vote). These efforts illustrate the perceived importance of
the Latino vote.
1.5. Communication policies
In January 2017, the Federal Communication Commission
(FCC) allowed Univision to accept an increase of Televisa’s ownership within the company, from a 10% share up to 49%, which
would give the former operational control of Univision. This move
has been hailed as the possible return of the media corporation to its
original owners: the Azcárraga family.
1.6. ICT trends
In 2016, 50% of households had a VoD service, such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, tying with the traditional VCR services, according to Nielsen (Spangler, 2016). The penetration of
VoD services has been considered one of the main reasons behind
the decline of pay TV services. Also, from 2011 to 2016, 18 to 24
year-olds dropped 1 hour and 20 minutes of television watching on
a daily base. This represents a decline of 40% in daily television
watching from this age group over that time period. One implication
is that this audience has migrated to other media platforms (Marketing Charts, 2017).
1.7. Public TV
The agreement between PBS and Vme signed ten years ago has
come to an end in 2017. This contract assured Vme a broadcasting
signal in every market in which PBS had a TV station, providing
Vme with national coverage. However, the commercial restrictions
with this hybrid business model did not allow the network to grow.
So, in 2016 the network started to sign a series of agreements with
cable providers, to initiate a transition to a commercial business
United States: the year of the “super series” | 351
model with pay TV. In 2017, Vme’s signal will gradually fade from
the markets in which PBS has had it on the air.
1.8. Pay TV
The channel that continues to lead in ratings is Galavisión, a
property of Univision Communications Inc. Following in ratings is
Discovery en Español, one of the channels from the Discovery network offerings for Latinos, which also includes Discovery Familia.
Univision Deportes dominates in sports programming, followed
by Fox Deportes, ESPN Deportes and beIN SPORTS en Español.
Other channels aimed to the U.S. Latino market, but in the modality
of English-language programming, are Fusion and El Rey; however,
others disappeared, such as SiTV and NuvoTV.
1.9. Independent producers
In a year in which miniseries, series and super series have taken
the central role to attract young and male audiences, the agreements
with independent producers have become key in the search for innovative and edgy narratives. Such narratives also may decrease the
risk of failure of in-house production work. So, in 2016, independent producers such as Somos Producciones, Argos Producciones,
BTF Media, Venevisión en Miami, Cenpro, CMO Producciones,
RTI Colombia, Teleset, TeleMéxico, Fox Telecolombia, MediaSet and AtresMedia/Bambú Producciones became key partners and
players to attract new audiences to television. It is also important
to highlight the transnational character of these corporate relationships, especially Telemundo’s partnership with Argos in Mexico,
which has taken center stage with the success of their super series.
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
In 2016, there were 64 premiere titles, 19 of which were national (USA) premieres and 45 were foreign titles from Obitel countries. The national titles include co-productions from Telemundo
or Univision, produced in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Also
352 | Obitel 2017
included are productions by American entities that premiered in the
Hispanic markets of other countries, such as those from Fox Telecolombia, a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, and Teleset in Colombia,
owned by Sony Pictures Television (Table 1). A detailed analysis
reveals that, in 2016, 19 titles premiered, two fewer titles than in
2015, when there were 21 titles. Relative to the premiere imported
titles which were produced by Obitel countries, there were 45 titles
in 2016, also two fewer than the 47 titles reported in 2015 (Table 1).
It is important to note that there was, for a second consecutive year,
an important contribution to fiction from other countries, particularly from Turkey.3
The 64 premiere titles in 2016 represent a total of 4,422 hours
and 4,373 episodes; comparing with the 4,293 hours and 4,253 episodes in 2015, this an increase of 3% in both categories.4 In 2016,
there were 1,059 hours of national production, as compared to 954
hours in 2015, an increase of 11%. Also, the Obitel premieres in
2016 consisted of 3,363 hours, which is an increase if compared
with the 3,338 hours in 2015.5
3
In 2016, there were eight non-Obitel titles. Six were from Turkey (Suleiman: El Gran
Sultán, Sura & Seyit: Amor en Guerra, Mil y Una Noches, Amor de Contrabando, Tormenta de Pasiones and Secretos Peligrosos). One was from Korea (La Mujer de mi Esposo) and one was from Greece (Brousko). To compare, in 2015 there were seven nonObitel titles: ive from Turkey (¿Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül?, Suleiman: El Gran Sultán,
Sura & Seyit: Amor en Guerra, Mil y Una Noches and Amor de Contrabando), one from
Romania (En Nombre del Honor) and one from Italy (Tierra Indomable).
4
In 2015, a total of 3,942 hours and 3,902 episodes were reported as premiere iction
titles. However, these igures do not include unitarios, which consisted of 351 hours and
351 episodes. Therefore, the correct number of hours and episodes for 2015 is as stated in
the text: 4,293 hours and 4,253 episodes.
5
The Obitel hours that were reported in 2015 were 2,987, but, adding the 351 hours of
unitarios that were not reported in 2015, it yields 3,338 hours of Obitel content. The
number of national hours for 2015 (954 hours) remains unchanged since there were no
premiere national unitarios during that year.
United States: the year of the “super series” | 353
Table 1. Fiction broadcast in the United States in 2016
PREMIERE NATIONAL TITLES – 10
Telemundo
1. Bajo el Mismo Cielo (telenovela)
2. Eva, la Trailera (telenovela)
3. Quién es Quién (telenovela)
4. Señora Acero 2 (telenovela)
5. Silvana Sin Lana (telenovela)
6. Hasta que te Conocí (series)
7. El Chema (telenovela)
8. La Doña (telenovela)
9. El Señor de los Cielos 4 (telenovela)
10. La Señora Acero 3: La Coyote (telenovela)
UniMás
38. La Embajada (series – Spain)
39. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos (telenovela – Brazil)
40. El Príncipe (series – Spain)
41. La Ronca de Oro (telenovela – Colombia)
42. Galerías Velvet (series – Spain)
43. La Viuda Negra 2 (telenovela – Colombia-Mexico)
44. Tiro de Gracia (series – Colombia)
45. Yago (telenovela – Mexico)
RERUN TITLES – 49
Azteca America
CO-PRODUCTIONS – 9
1. Cada Quién su Santo (unitario – MexTelemundo
ico)
1. Celia (series – Colombia-USA)
2. La Querida del Centauro (telenovela – 2. Mujer Comprada (telenovela – Mexico)
3. Lo que Callamos las Mujeres (unitario
Colombia-USA)
– Mexico)
UniMás
3. Ruta 35, la Válvula de Escape (series – EstrellaTV
4. Acorralada (telenovela – Venezuela)
Venezuela-USA)
4. Bloque de Búsqueda (telenovela – Co- 5. Historias Delirantes (series – Mexico)
6. Rosario (telenovela – Venezuela-USA)
lombia-USA)
5. Lady, la Vendedora de Rosas (telenovela
MundoMax
– Colombia-USA)
7. Café con Aroma de Mujer (telenovela –
Colombia)
Telemundo
6. Mentiras Perfectas (telenovela – Co- 8. Chica Vampiro (series – Colombia)
9. Un Día de Suerte (telenovela – Mexico)
lombia-USA)
7. Sin Senos Sí Hay Paraíso (telenovela – 10. La Guerrera (telenovela – Brazil)
11. Historias Clasificadas (series – CoColombia-USA)
lombia)
12. Infames (telenovela – Mexico)
MundoMax
13. José de Egipto (miniseries – Brazil)
8. Azúcar (telenovela – Colombia-USA)
9. Contra el Tiempo (series – Colombia- 14. El Laberinto de Alicia (telenovela –
Colombia)
USA)
15. Mama También (telenovela – Colombia)
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES – 45
16. A Mano Limpia (telenovela – ColomAzteca America
bia)
1. El Cazador (series – Brazil)
17. Manual para Ser Feliz (series – Co2. Ojos Sin Culpa (series – Brazil)
3. Olvide que te Quería (telenovela – Mex- lombia)
18. Los Milagros de Jesús (series – Brazil)
ico)
19. Novia para Dos (telenovela – Colom4. Pasión Morena (telenovela – Mexico)
5. Quiéreme Tonto (telenovela – Mexico) bia)
20. La Playita (series – Colombia)
6. Rabia (series – Spain)
21. Quien Mató a Patricia Soler? (tele7. Tanto Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
8. Entre el Amor y el Deseo (telenovela – novela – Colombia)
354 | Obitel 2017
22. Las Santísimas (telenovela – ColomMexico)
9. Lo que Callamos las Mujeres (unitario bia)
23. El Último Matrimonio Feliz (telenove– Mexico)
la – Colombia)
24. Así es la Vida (unitario – Colombia)
EstrellaTV
10. Amor Secreto (telenovela – Venezuela) 25. Entérese (unitario – Colombia)
MundoMax
11. Entérese (unitario – Colombia)
12. Diomedes, el Cacique de la Junta (telenovela – Colombia)
13. El Estilista (series – Colombia)
14. Francisco, el Matemático (series – Colombia)
15. Asi es la Vida (series – Colombia)
Telemundo
16. La Esclava Blanca (telenovela – Colombia)
17. Imperio (telenovela – Brazil)
18. La Sombra de Helena (telenovela –
Brazil)
Univision
19. Amor de Barrio (telenovela – Mexico)
20. Antes Muerta que Lichita (telenovela
– Mexico)
21. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (telenovela – Mexico)
22. El Color de la Pasión (telenovela –
Mexico)
23. El Hotel de los Secretos (telenovela –
Mexico)
24. Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse
(telenovela – Mexico)
25. Pasión y Poder (telenovela – Mexico)
26. Por Siempre Joan Sebastián (miniseries – Mexico)
27. A que no me Dejas (telenovela – Mexico)
28. Sueño de Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
29. Tres Veces Ana (telenovela – Mexico)
30. La Vecina (telenovela – Mexico)
31. Vino el Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
32. Yago (telenovela – Mexico)
33. Yo no Creo en los Hombres (telenovela
– Mexico)
34. Despertar Contigo (telenovela – Mexico)
35. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos (telenovela – Brazil)
Telemundo
26. La Casa de al Lado (telenovela – USA)
27. Decisiones (unitario – USA)
28. Los Herederos del Monte (telenovela –
Colombia-USA)
29. Historias de la Virgen Morena (unitario – USA)
30. Más Sabe el Diablo (telenovela – USA)
31. La Reina del Sur (telenovela – SpainColombia-USA)
Univision
32. Alma de Hierro (telenovela – Mexico)
33. Amor Bravío (telenovela – Mexico)
34. Amores Verdaderos (telenovela – Mexico)
35. Corazón Indomable (telenovela –
Mexico)
36. Corona de Lagrimas (telenovela –
Mexico)
37. La Mujer de Vendaval (telenovela –
Mexico)
38. Como Dice el Dicho 2 (unitario –
Mexico)
UniMás
39. La C.Q. (comedy – Mexico-USA)
40. Mi Corazón es Tuyo (telenovela –
Mexico)
41. Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real (unitario
– Mexico)
42. Nuevo Rico, Nuevo Pobre (telenovela
– Colombia)
43. Por Ella Soy Eva (telenovela – Mexico)
44. Que Pobres tan Ricos (telenovela –
Mexico)
45. Rosa de Guadalupe (unitario – Mexico)
46. Sortilegio (telenovela – Mexico)
47. Soy tu Dueña (telenovela – Mexico)
48. Triunfo del Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
49. La Viuda Negra (telenovela – Colombia-Mexico)
United States: the year of the “super series” | 355
36. Como Dice el Dicho 2 (unitario – PREMIERE TITLES: 19
PREMIERE FOREIGN TITLES: 45
Mexico)
37. La Rosa de Guadalupe (unitario – RERUN TITLES: 49
TOTAL TITLES BROADCAST: 113
Mexico)
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
In 2016, as in the previous year, Mexico was the number one
content provider, with 39% of new programming, or 25 titles, followed by the national production, with 30%, or 19 titles. Third on
the list is Colombia, with 13%, while Brazil is fourth, with 9% and
six titles.6
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Chapters/
%
episodes
1089
24.9
3284
75.1
Country
Titles
%
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
NON OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)*
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
National co-productions
Obitel co-productions**
TOTAL
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
19
45
29.7
70.3
0
0.0
0
0
6
0
8
0
4
19
25
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
64
0.0
9.4
0.0
12.5
0.0
6.3
29.7
39.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.6
1.6
0.0
1.6
100.0
0
257
0
959
0
97
1089
1781
0
0
0
132
58
0
58
4373
0.0
Hours
%
1059:07
3363:43
23.9
76.1
0:00
0.0
0.0
0:00
0.0
5.9
286:28
6.5
0.0
0:00
0.0
21.9 966:00 21.8
0.0
0:00
0.0
2.2
105:35
2.4
24.9 1059:07 23.9
40.7 1812:11 41.0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0.0
0:00
0.0
3.0
132:00
3.0
1.3
61:29
1.4
0.0
0:00
0.0
1.3
61:29
1.4
100.0 4422:50 100.0
* Productions made by USA house productions, in the region, either as single producers
or in co-production, were counted as national production.
** Co-productions among Obitel countries were assigned to only one country in this
table, in order to avoid a double count.
6
It is worth mentioning that, in the case of Brazil, there is a decrease in the number of
titles, but not in the place in the list, which was fourth in both years.
356 | Obitel 2017
The preferred time slot for the U.S. national premieres was
prime time at 100%. The Ibero-American titles also showed a similar tendency, but with a lower percentage at prime time, with 45%,
followed by the afternoon slot, with 37%, the morning time slot,
with 13%, and the night time slot, which showed the lowest number,
6%.
The preferred format of the national productions in 2016 was
the telenovela, at 79%, with 15 titles, followed by series, at 21%,
with four titles (Table 4). The Ibero-American premieres show a
similar tendency, with the telenovela at 67%, with 30 titles, and with
series at 22%, with ten titles. A comparative analysis of this year
and last year shows that the tendencies in the national productions
are very similar in both years. The favorite format in 2015 was the
telenovela, then the series and the miniseries. Compared to last year,
there was a decrease of 23 hours in 2016.
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours broadcast by time slot
Time slot
National
Ibero-American
%
H
%
Morning (6:00-12:00)
0
0.0
0:00
Afternoon (12:00-19:00)
0
0.0
0:00
Prime time (19:00-22:00)
1089
100
0
0.0
1089
100
Night (22:00-6:00)
Total
C/E
%
0.0
422
0.0
1185
1059:07
100
0:00
0.0
1059:07
100
Total
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
12.9
423:05
12.6
422
9.7
423:05
9.6
36.1
1226:06
36.5
1185
27.1
1226:06
27.7
1480
45.1
1517:31
45.1
2569
58.7
2576:38
58.3
197
6.0
197:00
5.9
197
4.5
197:00
4.5
3284
100
3363:43
100
4373
100
4422:50
100
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
Format
National
T
%
C/E
%
Ibero-American
H
%
T
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
15
78.9
942
86.5
901:02
85.1
30
66.7
2359
71.8
2428:58
72.2
Series
Miniseries
Teleilm
Unitario
Docudrama
4
0
0
0
0
21.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
147
0
0
0
0
13.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
158:05
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
14.9
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
10
1
0
4
0
22.2
2.2
0.0
8.9
0.0
576
19
0
330
0
17.5
0.6
0.0
10.0
0.0
588:07
18:27
0:00
328:11
0:00
17.5
0.5
0.0
9.8
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Total
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
19
100
1089
100
1059:07
100
45
100
3284
100
3363:43
100
United States: the year of the “super series” | 357
C/E
358 | Obitel 2017
During prime time, the favorite format was the telenovela, at
73%, followed by the series, at 23%. The series occupy 100% of the
night time slot. In the afternoon, telenovelas continue to dominate, at
73%, followed by series and unitarios tied at 13%. The telenovelas
also dominate the morning time slot, at 50%, followed by series and
unitarios, both at 25% (Table 5). This year’s tendencies are similar
to last year’s, except in the morning time slot, when the telenovela
format in 2015 was at 100%, and in the afternoon time slot, when
there were not premieres. The fictional time period that dominated
the premieres was the present, with 78%, followed by historical fiction, at 13%, and period fiction, at 9% (Table 6). Exactly the same
tendencies for the fiction time period were observed in 2015.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
Format
Morning
2
1
0
0
1
0
%
Telenovela
50.0
Series
25.0
Miniseries
0.0
Teleilm
0.0
Unitario
25.0
Docudrama
0.0
Others (soap
0
0.0
opera, etc.)
Total
4
100
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
AfterPrime
%
% Night %
noon
time
11
73.3 32
72.7
0
0.0
2
13.3 10
22.7
1
100.0
0
0.0
1
2.3
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
2
13.3
1
2.3
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Total
45
14
1
0
4
0
70.3
21.9
1.6
0.0
6.3
0.0
%
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
15
100
44
100
1
100
64
100
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Time period
Present
Period
Historical
Other
Total
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
Titles
50
6
8
0
64
%
78.1
9.4
12.5
0.0
100
The ten most watched titles in the U.S. are given in tables 7
and 7A. All of the titles were shown during prime time. This was a
good year for American productions, since five titles were among
the most watched in 2016. This is a very significant step because last
year there was only one American title in that list.
United States: the year of the “super series” | 359
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Title
Hasta que te
Conocí
Yo no Creo en
2
los Hombres
Pasión y
3
Poder
Señora Acero
4
2
1
5 Vino el Amor
Señora Acero
3: La Coyote
El Señor de
7
los Cielos 4
Muchacha
8 Italiana Vino
a Casarse
El Hotel de
9
los Secretos
6
10 El Chema
Country of
original
idea or
script
Producer
Channel
Screenwriter
or author of
original idea
USA
USA
Telemundo
Raul Olivares
11.1
18.8
Mexico
Mexico Univision
Caridad Bravo
Adams
10.3
18.9
Mexico
Mexico Univision
Marissa Garrido
9.84
16.9
9.36
17.1
9.02
15.9
8.88
16.8
8.84
16.3
USA
Chile
USA
USA
Rating Share
TelemunUSA
Roberto Stopello
do
Julio Rojas,
Mexico Univision
Valeria Hoffman
TelemunUSA
Roberto Stopello
do
TelemunUSA
Luis Zelkowicz
do
Argentina
Mexico Univision
Delia Gonzalez
Márquez
8.76
15.8
Spain
Mexico Univision
Ramon Campos,
Gema Neira
8.62
16
Telemundo
Luis Zelkowicz
8.58
17
USA
USA
Total productions: 10
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
Foreign scripts: 5
Table 7A. The ten most watched national titles:
rating, format, producer, time slot
1 Hasta que te Conocí
Title
Rating
11.1
Format
2 Señora Acero 2
Señora Acero 3: La
3
Coyote
4 El Señor de los Cielos 4
5 El Chema
6 Bajo el Mismo Cielo
7 Celia
9.4
Channel/ Producer Time slot
Disney/Somos/BTF
Prime time
Media
Telenovela Telemundo/Argos Prime time
8.9
Telenovela
Telemundo/Argos
Prime time
8.8
8.6
8
7.9
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Telenovela
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
8 La Querida del Centauro
7.8
Telenovela
9 Sin Senos Sí Hay Paraíso
7.6
Telenovela
10 La Doña
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
7.1
Telenovela
Telemundo/Argos
Telemundo/Argos
Telemundo/Argos
Telemundo/Argos
Fox Telecolombia/
RCN
Sony/Teleset/
Telemundo
Fox Telecolombia
Series
Prime time
Prime time
Prime time
360 | Obitel 2017
The title taking first place among American audiences is series Hasta que te Conocí, which has as its central theme the life of
Mexican singer/songwriter Juan Gabriel, who unfortunately passed
away, and Telemundo has an early release of the series. The dominant themes of the series with which the audience was able to identify were passion for music, family, love, and rivalry among singers
(Table 9). The titles Yo no Creo en los Hombres and Señora Acero 2
were placed in the top ten list after having their final week aired at
the start of January, which resulted in high ratings. At the same time,
the launch in December of El Chema, a spin-off of El Señor de los
Cielos, managed to attract the attention of the audience.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, duration, time slot
Format
Genre
Number of
chap./ep.
(in 2016)
Series
Fiction
13
Telenovela Fiction
10
3 Pasión y Poder
Telenovela Fiction
82
4 Señora Acero 2
Telenovela Fiction
10
5 Vino el Amor
Telenovela Fiction
38
Telenovela Fiction
93
Telenovela Fiction
80
Telenovela Fiction
38
Telenovela Fiction
80
Telenovela Fiction
15
Title
1 Hasta que te Conocí
2
Yo no Creo en los
Hombres
Señora Acero 3: La
Coyote
El Señor de los
7
Cielos 4
Muchacha Italiana
8
Vino a Casarse
El Hotel de los
9
Secretos
6
10 El Chema
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
First and last
broadcast
(in 2016)
01/28/201611/14/2016
12/28/201501/07/2016
12/28/201504/27/2016
12/28/201501/07/2016
08/08/201602/19/2017
07/19/201612/05/2016
03/28/201607/18/2016
08/25/201502/22/2016
01/25/201605/20/2016
12/03/2016present
Time
slot
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Prime
time
Primetime
United States: the year of the “super series” | 361
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
1
Hasta que te Conocí
2
Yo no Creo en los
Hombres
3
Pasión y Poder
4
Señora Acero 2
5
Vino el Amor
6
Señora Acero 3: La
Coyote
El Señor de los
Cielos 4
Dominant themes
Passion for music, family,
love, rivalry.
Murder, family, love.
Rivalry, family, disappointment, love, inidelity.
Organized crime, love,
family.
Family, love, deportation,
immigration, rivalry.
Immigration, love, family.
Social themes
Social class differences,
social mobility.
Household responsibility
after passing of father.
Social class differences,
corporate corruption.
Envy, ambition, rivalry,
justice, competition.
Social class differences,
envy, ambition, treason.
Envy, ambition, rivalry,
justice, competition.
Revenge, family, organized
crime, loyalty.
Politicians and police corruption, drug traficking.
Immigration, love, idelity,
ambition, sickness.
Family, love, ambition,
9
mystery, death, treason.
Family, drug trafickers,
10 El Chema
loyalty, love.
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
Social class differences,
cultural differences.
Social class differences,
mystery, betrayal.
Politicians and police corruption, drug traficking.
7
8
Muchacha Italiana
Vino a Casarse
El Hotel de los
Secretos
The audience profile of the ten most watched titles shows that
women are the main consumers of fiction in the U.S., and that people who are 50 or older most watch fiction programming. The exception to these tendencies are the super series, in which men and
the 35-49 age group dominate.
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles:
gender and age
Titles
1
2
3
4
5
Channel
Hasta que te
Telemundo
Conocí
Yo no Creo en los
Univision
Hombres
Pasión y Poder
Univision
La Señora Acero
Telemundo
2
Vino el Amor
Univision
Gender %
Age group %
Wom12- 18- 25- 35Men 4-11
en
17 24 34 49
50+
59.6
40.4
9.2
4.5
5.2 14.5 28.1 38.5
63.9
36.1 10.4
5.5
6.4 16.2 27.0 34.4
64.4
35.6 10.7
4.8
7.0 16.0 26.3 35.1
54.7
45.3 12.1
5.5
8.6 19.6 29.3 25.0
65.0
35.0 10.9
5.4
6.6 14.4 22.9 39.8
362 | Obitel 2017
La Señora Acero
Telemundo
3: La Coyote
El Señor de los
7
Telemundo
Cielos 4
Muchacha
8 Italiana Vino a
Univision
Casarse
El Hotel de los
9
Univision
Secretos
10 El Chema
Telemundo
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
6
56.5
43.5 10.6
4.6
8.1 19.4 29.4 27.8
55.1
44.9 10.8
5.2
7.2 15.7 29.0 32.1
63.6
36.4 11.4
5.1
5.9 14.0 23.7 39.9
66.4
33.6
8.4
4.9
6.9 14.6 28.2 37.0
52.6
47.4
9.1
4.4
9.5 22.0 28.8 26.3
3. Transmedia reception
In this section, we analyze the transmedia strategies of the premiere titles produced in the United States that were among the ten
most popular titles in 2016 (Table 7). Four titles were found to possess the previously described characteristics: Hasta que te Conocí,
Señora Acero 3: La Coyote, El Señor de los Cielos 4 and El Chema,
all of which were transmitted by the same television chain, Telemundo.7 For the first time, Telemundo began distributing its content
through social media Instagram.
Telemundo uses the same web page design for its four titles.
Each website offers access to all of the super series episodes as well
as exclusive photos and videos with behind-the-scenes content, allowing audiences a glimpse of how some of the scenes were produced, along with exclusive interviews with the actors. In the case
of Señora Acero 3 and El Señor de los Cielos 4, the websites also
offer access to the previous seasons’ web pages, containing all of
the seasons’ episodes. The majority of Telemundo’s websites also
distribute their content via social media, primarily Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and using hashtags as thematic threads.
The analysis was conducted starting with the most popular title
among Hispanic audiences and ending with the least popular title.
Although Hasta que te Conocí comes in first in the list of popularity,
this was the title with the least transmedia support, and it is not an
Señora Acero 2 was fourth in the list, but it was only on the air for the irst week of the
year.
7
United States: the year of the “super series” | 363
original product of Telemundo, but of Disney (Table 11). This television series was only distributed through Telemundo’s webpage
and YouTube, and it did not receive fiction content distribution support in social media. Señora Acero 3 placed sixth in audience preference. This telenovela’s episodes were distributed through six digital
platforms, of which Instagram registered an audience of 139,000
fans, followed by Twitter, with 43,000 followers, YouTube, with
2,253,446 views, and Facebook, with 2,210,709 “likes” (Table 11).8
El Señor de los Cielos 4, in turn, obtained seventh place in the
ratings list in 2016. This telenovela was distributed using five digital
platforms, but it obtained more presence on Twitter, with 242,000
followers, followed by Facebook, with 8,505,849 “likes”, and YouTube, with 2,253,453 views. This title was not distributed on Instagram. Finally, El Chema, as with Señora Acero 3, had its episodes
distributed in six platforms, achieving greatest reach on Instagram,
with 123,000 followers, YouTube, with 1,270,238 views, Facebook,
with 811,386 “likes”, and ending with Twitter, with 9,385 followers
(Table 11). In summary, there is still not a clear tendency toward a
particular preference in social media platforms. In general, all of the
social media platforms are achieving success in distributing content
to different audiences who like to access online content when time
permits. However, data were unavailable on the number of persons
accessing online fiction titles through Telemundo’s website. Also
unavailable were data on the number of times that a hashtag was
used to search for information on a particular title.
8
In the contexts of analysis on social media, one needs to consider the way in which
“visits” are counted. Instagram and Twitter only count “visitors” once, but YouTube and
Facebook count every time an individual consumes their products. Therefore, in these
two last social media there is the need to make mathematical calculations in order to
arrive to a number of users that is compatible with the social media that count single
consumers as only one visit.
364 | Obitel 2017
Table 11. Transmedia analysis of USA productions
with the highest ratings in 2016
Platforms
Web address
# Audience/
fans
Type of
interaction
Levels of
interactivity
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Interactive
viewing
N/A
N/A
N/A
Hasta que te Conocí
Facebook
no account was found
Twitter
Instagram
Hashtag
no account was found
no account was found
no account was found
https://www.youtube.com/
YouTube
watch?v=ae-famzqzvs
http://www.telemundo.com/
novelas/2016/05/02/llega-telWesite
emundo-hasta-que-te-conociuna-serie-basada-en-la-vidade-juan-gabriel
La Señora Acero 3: La Coyote
https://www.facebook.com/
Facebook
SraAcero
Twitter
https://twitter.com/sraAcero
https://www.instagram.com/
Instagram
senoraacerotlmd/
Hashtag
#senoraacero3
https://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=Z1oqO51Ol64&list=PL
YouTube
9pNdAr3-EzDTrxZ2l077GyTONTZsvEl
http://www.telemundo.com/
Website
super-series/senora-acero
El Señor de los Cielos 4
https://www.facebook.com/
Facebook
srdeloscielostv
https://twitter.com/SrDeTwitter
LosCielosTV
Instagram
no account was found
Hashtag
#ElSeñorDeLosCielos
https://www.youtube.com/
YouTube
watch?v=loK6GuGpQyw
http://www.telemundo.com/
super%20series/el-senor-deWebsite
los-cielos/capitulos/cuartatemporada
2,253,481
N/A
Viewing
Active
Active
43,2 K
Interactive
viewing
Viewing
Active
139 K
Viewing
Active
N/A
Interactive
Passive
2,253,446
Interactive
viewing
Active
N/A
Viewing
Active
8,506,849
Interactive
viewing
Active
242 K
Viewing
Active
N/A
N/A
Viewing
Interactive
Interactive
viewing
Active
Passive
Viewing
Active
2,210,709
2,253,453
N/A
Active
Active
United States: the year of the “super series” | 365
El Chema
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Hashtag
YouTube
Website
https://www.facebook.com/
ElChemaTV
https://twitter.com/ElChemaTV
https://www.instagram.com/
ElChemaTV/
#ElChema
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=RRcBjeI-WPo
http://www.telemundo.com/
super-series/el-chema/capitulos#
811,386
Interactive
viewing
Active
9,385
Viewing
Active
123 K
Viewing
Active
N/A
Interactive
Interactive
viewing
1,270,238
N/A
Viewing
Active
Active
Source: Obitel USA – Nielsen
The television corporations continue with their varied efforts
to promote and to take advantage of the new ecosystem of digital
media and the different mobile platforms. Univision made several webseries as a narrative expansion instrument of its reality TV
shows, like CNCO Evolution and Alejandra la de Tijuana. In the
fictional realm, it created webseries Ruta 35: Ruta Alternativa, in
which certain romantic sub-plots are explored and expanded upon.
Telemundo launched the application “Doble Acción” to closely follow the fourth season of El Señor de los Cielos. Also, following
with the synergies created by the secret episodes in past seasons
premiering in their digital platforms, as was the case with El Chema,
the chain produced “Episode Zero”. This episode depicts the moment Chema is placed in a maximum security prison and how he
eventually escapes. Telemundo promoted, through its Facebook,
YouTube and platform Telemundo.com, access to a virtual experience in which audiences could have a 360-degree virtual reality experience of Chema’s escape. Azteca America premiered Portuguese
telenovela El Beso del Escorpión with a daily episode through its
digital platforms.
4. Highlights of the year
The year 2016 was a period of disruption on several fronts.
Without a doubt, the most outstanding event of the year was the
366 | Obitel 2017
leading position of Telemundo at prime time during the second half
of the year. It is the first time in the Spanish-language television in
the U.S. that a television network that was not Univision (SIN in the
past) led the ratings at prime time at national levels. The network
took the lead beginning in the summer, helped by its super series.
Just five years ago, Univision had more than 50% of the audience
share, and Telemundo had around 20%. Due to Telemundo’s prime
time strategy, now Univision has 41% of share while Telemundo
has 36%. Super series Señora Acero 2, Señora Acero 3, El Señor de
los Cielos 4 and El Chema, produced by Telemundo, but made in
Mexico by Argos, allowed the network to stay in first place at prime
time during weekdays, while on Sundays the network dominated
with miniseries Hasta que te Conocí, a co-production of Disney,
Somos Producciones and BTF Media in Mexico. Univision and its
related Televisa have taken note of the change in audience’s tastes,
then, they started to work on a formula similar to Telemundo’s to
compete successfully against the super series. In 2016 Univision
and/or Televisa began working on La Piloto with Studio W and El
Chapo with Netflix to premiere in 2017.
A new programming strategy intending to consolidate and increase audiences has been deployed with the simultaneous premiere
of a telenovela/series on several television networks or by the premiere of several telenovelas/series in one network. Univision simultaneously premiered La Viuda Negra 2 on UniMás and Univision on
Sunday February 23. The networks also attempted to create synergy
by broadcasting a special program about La Ronca de Oro on Univision the Sunday before the Monday premiere of the telenovela
on UniMás. Meanwhile, Telemundo produced a lot of buzz with
the premiere of three new original productions the same night. This
programming strategy was named “Martres” (because the premiere
was scheduled on Tuesday) and resulted in the same-day premieres
of telenovelas Silvana sin Lana, Señora Acero 3: La Coyota and Sin
Senos Sí Hay Paraíso. Telemundo also made simultaneous releases
of El Vato on its network NBC Universo.
United States: the year of the “super series” | 367
Live events are still the main magnets from networks to attract
massive audiences. Univision attracted 9 million viewers with Latin
Grammy Awards, 7.3 million with Premios Lo Nuestro, and 5.6 million with Nuestra Belleza Latina. While Telemundo with Billboard
Latin American Music Awards reached 2.4 million viewers, Premios
tu Mundo, iHeart Radio and Macy’s Parade brought large audiences
to the network. The event Los Premios de la Radio, organized by
Estrella TV, also brought good audience numbers, in particular in
Los Angeles, where the network has its headquarters.
A new watershed for the Hispanic television industry has been
the incursion of Netflix as programming provider, with the premiere
in 2016 of Narcos and Club de Cuervos, two of its exclusive series.
This trend will continue with the production of El Chapo for Univision to be released in April 2017.
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in the United
States. Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Producers and networks
In 2006, year analyzed in the first Obitel Yearbook (2007), the
industry only had four national broadcasting television networks:
Univision, UniMás, Telemundo and Azteca America. This number
has grown to seven national television broadcasting networks with
the launch of Vme in 2007, EstrellaTV in 2009 and MundoMax in
2012. The promise of an increasing and buoyant Hispanic market
almost doubled the number of networks in the last ten years. However, by early 2017, this number will be reduced to five with the
demise of MundoMax and the transition of Vme to a cable television network.
Rating and share
Univision has dominated the rankings of the most watched fiction programs from 2008 to 2016. Out of the 90 titles counted as the
most watched fiction programs in this period, 80 were transmitted
368 | Obitel 2017
by Univision, which represents 89% of the total list, and only 11%
to Telemundo. Out of the 80 titles broadcast by Univision, 76 titles
were Televisa’s productions, which represents 85% of the total of
the most watched fiction programming in this period. Univision had
all the ten most watched shows in the years 2008, 2009, 2010 and
2013 and had nine of the top ten shows in 2011, 2012 and 2015. In
the case of Telemundo, out of the ten rated shows broadcast by the
network, eight of them were original productions, which represents
around 10% of the total titles during this period. It is important to
underscore that, out of the ten titles broadcast by Telemundo, the
first appeared in 2011, the second in 2012, two more in 2014, and
five, meaning half of all of them, appeared in 2016. This highlights
Univision’s long-held hegemonic position, which was broken for
the first time in 2016.
A worrisome tendency for the industry has been the audiences’
decline, particularly among young viewers, which is reflected in the
dive in rating and share numbers of the most watched titles in the
period 2009-2016. If we focus on the three most watched titles of
each year, we see a loss of 50% in rating points and a 30% decline
in share points. The report of the three most watched titles in 2009
showed an average of 20 points in ratings and 30 points in share. By
2016, the same three top spots showed an average of ten points in
rating and 16-18 points in share.
Audience
In relation to gender, the ten most watched fiction programs
during the last nine years have been traditionally favored by female
viewers, with averages of 62% of women and 38% of men. However, a new trend has emerged in which male audiences are starting to
play a key role. The aforementioned gender averages showed variations in relation to the kind of telenovela subgenre that was exhibited, whether traditional romantic, popular comedy, or police-crime
and action oriented. In particular, the repositioning of narconovelas
into super series has attracted new, young, technologically savvy,
United States: the year of the “super series” | 369
male audiences, oriented toward the consumption and use of digital
platforms.
Since 2008, when this team started following audience demographics from the top ten list, the first place was occupied by
a traditional romantic telenovela, Rosa, produced by Televisa and
broadcast by Univision, with a 60% female and 40% male audience.
However, since then the gender percentage of this kind of telenovela
has moved to 65% female and 35% male. While this change in percentage can be read, at first look, as an increase in female viewership, in fact it is rather a result of a systematic decline in male
viewership.
Otherwise, from 2008, Telemundo has seized the opportunity to attract male audiences with the scheduling of narconovelas,
which showed a gender audience composition of 50-55% of male
audience and 50-45% of female one. Bringing new male audiences,
with original Telemundo programming, was crystalized with the
success of La Reina del Sur, which triggered a sequence of new action-oriented productions, named super series, to attract this coveted
audience segment. Thus, would come the successes of El Señor de
los Cielos and its subsequent seasons 2, 3 and 4; Señora Acero and
its sequels 2 and 3; and El Señor de los Cielos spin-off, El Chema.
Then, in 2016, super series on Telemundo had 45-48% of male audience, while Univision had around 30% of male audience of the top
ten list.
Audience’s age
If we pay attention to trends of audience’s age composition in
the last nine years, in relation to the demographic composition of the
top ten list, we can see a consistent decline in the 18-49 age group.
As a segment, this age cohort went from representing 56% of the audience of the most watched titles in 2008 to 50% in 2016. However,
changes are not homogenous among the different age groups within
this 18-49-year-old demo. For instance, there was a dramatic decline
in the 18-24 bracket from 11.5% to 7%, and in the 25-34 bracket it
370 | Obitel 2017
went from 22% to 16%; meanwhile, there was an increase in the
35-49 age group from 22.2% to 26.7%. It is true that young millennials are abandoning the television sets. However, if one looks
more closely, the strategy of scheduling action-oriented telenovelas,
that is, super series, has not attracted young millennials (18-25), but
it has attracted older millennials (25-34) and 35-49-year-old audiences.
Communication policies
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) initiated an
auction process to buy TV stations, to move them from their current frequency and produce more space for the spectrum required
by the telecom sector, known as the “Spectrum Law”. In 2015, the
FCC declared “net neutrality”, which made it possible to consider
the internet a public need and resource pretty much as a utility, such
as water, gas and electricity. That decision prevented the industry to
create differentiated internet service package, which would create a
social divide between low and rapid internet services consumers. In
2017, the FCC allowed Televisa to increase its ownership share in
Univision.
Narrative strategies
The production and premiere of La Reina del Sur in 2011 was a
watershed in terms of narrative strategies in the U.S. Hispanic television programming and production. This co-production between
Telemundo, RTI Colombia, Antena 3 España, in collaboration with
Argos México, provided a successful narrative model, not only for
Latino audiences in the U.S. as well as for the region. A “reglocalized” narrative-industrial scheme entail products made from the region for global consumption (Piñón, 2014). The success of this telenovela underscored the deficits of “neutral” narratives, a long-held
strategy promoted by the network, in which linguistic accents and
social, cultural and political characteristics at local/national levels
are erased (neutralized). The local/national identifiers are removed
United States: the year of the “super series” | 371
with the assumed purpose to rely on the “universal” character of the
story. In contrast, in La Reina del Sur, the universal element of the
story is achieved through the elements of the everyday life dynamics, which only can be expressed through the local (in opposition to
the notion of the national). In this case, the narrative simultaneously
follows the interrelated stories of fictional characters positioned in
different localities, allowing the narrative to establish a sociocultural connection as identifiable identities from region to region, in
connection with Miami or Los Angeles. This formula would be followed by productions such as La Ruta Blanca, La Viuda Negra, Señora Acero, El Señor de los Cielos, among others.
Transmedia production and reception
One of the first experiments in the digital terrain with the goal
of attracting young Latino millennials was the production of webnovelas. Such mini-novelas of digital fiction were designed in short
episodes, broadcast on the networks’ websites, based on the appeal
of the star power of their casts, but with a high level of marketing strategies and product placement. Even though webnovelas
seemed an excellent tool for sponsors’ branding, actually they have
not become a product for massive consumption by young people.
However, in 2016, this format has shown better results as a tool
for transmedia expansion from already established narratives on the
television screen. A seminal element of this strategy has been the
creation of the “secret chapter” of El Señor de los Cielos between
seasons, broadcast through Telemundo’s various digital platforms.
Along with such digital episodes, the networks offered a series of
interactive digital experiences to communicate with Aurelio Casillas, the fictional leading character of El Señor. These digital environments comprised visits to jails where Aurelio has been detained
and visits to the hospital where he was preparing to have surgery to
save his life. In four seasons, El Señor de los Cielos has become a
magnet for audiences through digital platforms, and in VOD it has
created a transmedia world that nurtures and expands the narrative
372 | Obitel 2017
through comics, digital episodes, tours, memes, and fans’ interactions in social media.
References
Comcast (2017, Jan. 26). Comcast reports 4th quarter and year end 2016 results.
Comcast Corporation. Retrieved from http://www.cmcsa.com/releasedetail.
cfm?ReleaseID=1009218.
Marketing Charts (2017, Jan. 11). The State of Traditional TV: Updated With
Q3 2016 Data. Marketing Charts. Retrieved from http://www.marketingcharts.
com/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/.
Piñón, J. (2014). Reglocalization and the rise of the network cities media system in telenovela production for hemispheric consumption. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 17 (6), 655-671.
Piñón, J., Manrique, L. and Cornejo, T. (2013). Estados Unidos: en busca de
una audiencia joven: el “rebranding” de la televisión hispana. En Guillermo O.
Gómez and M. I. V. de Lopes (eds.). Memoria Social y Ficción Televisiva en
Países Iberoamericanos (p. 321-356). Porto Alegre: Sulina.
Smith, G. (2017, Mar. 2). Telemundo’s American strategy gains audience as
Univision drops. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/
news/articles/2017-03-02/telemundo-s-american-strategy-gains-audience-asunivision-drops.
Spangler, T. (2016, June 27). Americans are watching less traditional TV as smartphone
media usage booms. Variety. Retrieved from http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/
live-tv-declining-smartphone-boom-nielsen-1201804202/.
TV Azteca (2016). Resultados trimestrales 2016. TV Azteca. Retrieved from
http://www.irtvazteca.com/es/resultados-trimestrales.
Univision (2017, Feb. 16). 2016 Year End Reporting Package. Univision Communications Inc. Retrieved from http://s2.q4cdn.com/417187916/files/doc_financials/2016/q4/Final-UCI-Year-End-2016-Reporting-Package.pdf.
11
uruguAy: nAtIonAl fIctIon wIth
PublIc funds: outbound Port or refuge?
Author:
Rosario Sánchez Vilela
Research team:
Lucía Gadea, Tania González, Sabrina Torterollo
1. Uruguay’s audiovisual context in 2016
The year 2016 confirmed some trends that had already been announced in previous reports: the presence of the Turkish telenovela
was reinforced making fierce competition to the Ibero-American
fiction; the TV stations did not bet strongly on Uruguayan production, but preferred to invest resources in entertainment programs;
the national television fiction released was very reduced (little more
than eight hours) and, as in 2015, was aired by the public television
screens and financed with public funds.
The title of this chapter refers to two lines of thought that reappear throughout the data and in the analysis of the different sections of this report. One line refers to the fact that the existence of
a national fiction and a production approaching to an industrial development needs incentives of public policies; the other one points
out that fiction products such as those released in 2016 are only
sustainable with public funds: they are not competitive in the present audiovisual market and are far from a model of sustainability in
the medium or long term.
374 | Obitel 2017
1.1. Open television in Uruguay
Chart 1. Open TV stations/channels in Uruguay
Private channels (3)
Public channels (1)
Montecarlo TV, Channel 4
TNU, Channel 5
Saeta TV, Channel 10
TV Ciudad (digital open TV)
Teledoce, Channel 12
TOTAL CHANNELS = 5
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
Graph 1. Rating and share by TV station
Home
audi- % Share %
ence
Saeta Channel 10 7.8 37.2 21.2 36.9
Teledoce
7.1 33.8 19.5 33.9
Channel 12
Montecarlo
5.0 23.8 13.8 24.0
Channel 4
TNU Channel 5
1.1 5.2 3.0
5.2
TOTAL
21 100 57.5 100
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
TV station
25.00
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Saeta
Channel 10
Teledoce
Channel 12
Home audience
Montecarlo
Channel 4
TNU
Channel 5
Share (%)
The composition of open TV in Uruguay maintained the same
characteristics presented in the previous reports. The most recent
novelty was the transformation of TV Ciudad into an open digital
channel in 2015, but it does not reach all households. Although it is
part of the open TV system, its data are not included because they
are not in the measurements of Kantar Ibope Uruguay. Anyway, the
fictions that it airs are part of the programming of public channel
TNU, so its performance will be covered.
Regarding the programming offer of all origins, divided into
genres, it is observed that the highest number of hours was devoted
to entertainment (32%), information (26.9%) and fiction (25.9%).
National programs represented 16,974:36 hours, 55.99% of the total
time of emission of the year. Its composition confirms the trends
regarding to the type of production in which the channels have bet in
the last years: first information, occupying 47% of the time devoted
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 375
to Uruguayan production, which is mainly explained by the duration and quantity of newscasts (the central newscast lasts about 1.5
hour and on each channel there are at least three daily newscasts);
then entertainment, which has been another main orientation of the
national production, and the number of hours devoted to this genre
confirms it: 35%, in contrast to the scarce 0.6% that fiction (premieres and reruns) occupied.
Graph 2. Genres and hours transmitted in TV programming
Genres
Hours
%
transmitted transmitted
Entertainment
9711:20
32.0%
Information
8149:51
26.9%
Fiction
7850:58
25.9%
Documentary
1034:47
3.4%
Sports
933:47
3.1%
Religion
605:53
2.1%
Agricultural
600:42
2.0%
Others
575:09
1.9%
Infotainment
390:04
1.2%
Specials
317:28
1.0%
Health
92:42
0.3%
Education
54:04
0.2%
Total
30316:45 100.00%
1%
2%
3%
2%
Entertainment
1%
1%
Fiction
3%
4%
Information
Documentary
31%
Sports
Religion
25%
27%
Agricultural
Others
Infotainment
Specials
Health
Education
National production by genres
Genres transHours
%
mitted
transmitted
Information
7977:12
47.00%
1.7%
0.6% 0.6%
2.1% 0.6%
Entertainment
5964:18
35.1%
0.3%
Agricultural
600:42
3.5%
3.0% 2.3%
Sports
548:00
3.2%
3.2%
Others
511:54
3.0%
3.5%
Infotainment
390:06
2.3%
47.00%
Documentary
344:00
2.1%
Specials
291:48
1.7%
35.1%
Fiction
101:18
0.6%
Religion
98:42
0.6%
Health
92:42
0.6%
Education
54:06
0.3%
Total
16974:36 100.00%
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
Information
Entertainment
Agricultural
Sports
Others
Infotainment
Documentary
Specials
Fiction
Religion
Health
Education
376 | Obitel 2017
1.2. Audience trends in 2016
The average annual audience is slightly higher than in 2015
(21%), and Saeta managed to occupy the first place, reaching 37%
of rating and with a share of 21.2%. The channel changed its programming strategy – it stopped producing fiction and started to import fiction – and it paid off as in 2015.
The general data for the year revealed that the highest rating
values were obtained by fiction, specifically the telenovela, which
reached 10.3%, followed by entertainment, with 9.4%, and the third
place was occupied by information, newscasts with 8.9%, which
were often in the top spots of the most watched programs of each
day. Regarding the preferences for the telenovela, we must highlight the capture of audience achieved by the Turkish telenovela, a
phenomenon that was already pointed out in the Uruguayan chapter
of Obitel Yearbook 2015. Again the Turkish titles were the ones
that reached the highest ratings: ¿Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül?, with
22% of rating, ¿Quién se Robó mi Vida? (19%) and Sila (17%). All
of them, which were issued by Saeta, are higher values than those
recorded in the table of the top ten Ibero-American premiere fiction.
1.3. Advertising investments of the year: in TV and in fiction
The total advertising investment, of all kinds, reached US$
236 million in 2016. According to the Advertising Activity Survey
(Cinve, 2016), in the section on investment in the media, television accounted for 46%. It has dropped three points compared to
2015, but it is still the strongest investment in the media. Internet
investment rose from 9% to 11%, and the rest of the media remained
stable. As in previous years, the difficulty of getting data on the
amounts of money invested in advertising in fiction persisted. The
finest approximation that can be done is from the number of time.
According to data provided by Kantar Ibope, the amount of advertising seconds in Obitel titles reached 2,504,322.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 377
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
The products advertised in the slot of the Ibero-American premiere fiction corresponded mostly to Genomma laboratory and
were of various types, from aesthetic to health. TeleShopping is a
very present advertiser, particularly in the fictions aired in the afternoon, but also the products of Unilever, SC Johnson and newspaper
El País.
Social merchandising has not been entirely explicit in national
fictions. Nevertheless, in one of them, Rotos y Descosidos, there are
interviews to couples that, through their testimony, propose a diversity of possibilities of love relationships between people of different
race, with great differences of age or physical aspects that are not
the dominant beauty standards.
1.5. Communication policies
In April 2016, two events influenced the issues of communication policies that have been on the agenda since 2010: the Audiovisual Communication Services Act and the implementation of digital
terrestrial television. The law, passed in December 2014, had been
suspended due to the filing of several appeals before the Judiciary.
The Supreme Court of Justice ruled and declared the unconstitutionality of some articles, including the one that referred to the regulation of contents and forced the emission of two weekly hours of
television fiction or national cinema between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., in
addition to requiring that 30% of the national production came from
independent producers. The requirement to have 60% of national
production is maintained, in addition to other aspects, but the body
responsible for implementation and control has not been designated.
So far, the law has not been regulated and its specific institutions,
the Audiovisual Communication Council and the Honorary Advisory Commission for Audiovisual Communication Services, have
not been constituted.1
1
A more detailed analysis can be found in Obitel Yearbooks 2014 and 2015.
378 | Obitel 2017
Regarding digital television, administrations have had difficulties and failures in the implementation.2 The deadline for the analogue blackout, November 2015, was suspended without defining a
new date. At the beginning of 2016, the Ministry of Industry, Energy
and Mining (Miem) launched a public consultation to express opinions on whether or not conditions are set to produce the analogue
blackout.3 The two new channels (Giro and VTV), which had been
awarded signals in July 2013, had the last deadline, after several
extensions, in April 2016, but they failed to broadcast, and the contracts were withdrawn. Among the reasons given as an explanation
for this situation, one was that low-income households would have
difficulty in accessing a high definition TV set or a decoder. In sum,
the three traditional channels, which in turn are linked to the cable
operators, and the two public channels carry out digital transmissions, but this has not had consequences in terms of broadening the
offer of programs in general and of fiction in particular.
Public funds to support audiovisual production have continued
to operate. Some of the funded projects began to be broadcast, others are on the lookout for exhibit screens or are still not finished.
The only two television fictions issued in 2016 have this origin:
Feriados and Rotos y Descosidos.
The year 2016 ended with the creation of a new incentive fund
for production, through the call SeriesUy, a joint initiative of several state entities4 with a single prize of 5 million pesos (about US$
170 thousand). It was announced as a platform for the production of
2
More detailed information about the process can be found in the Uruguayan chapter of
the Obitel Yearbook 2014.
3
http://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/tv-digital-apagon-analogico-demora.html; http:
//www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/incertidumbre-tv-digital.html.
4
The new fund was born from the alliance of the National Board of Telecommunications
and Audiovisual Communication Services from the Ministry of Industry, Energy and
Mining (Miem-Dinatel), the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ofice of Locations
of the Municipality of Montevideo, the Board of National Cinema and Audiovisual (Dicau), the public TV stations (TNU and TV Ciudad) and Antel, the State telecommunication enterprise. http://www.dinatel.gub.uy/-/esta-abierta-la-convocatoria-seriesuy-quebrinda-fondos-para-la-produccion-de-una-serie-de-iccion-nacional.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 379
television fiction series, which will finance a fiction of ten chapters
between 46 and 48 minutes long, with a view to export them. The
winning project will be announced in April of each year and will be
issued in October of the same year.5 Once the winner is known, it
will have to dedicate two months to the pre-production with the tutorial by a foreign scriptwriter and producer; then, it will go on with
the production, which must be completed in three months, having
a last month for the post-production. This is intended to generate
a faster pace of production than usual. The result of this first edition was known in late March 2017: Todos Detrás de Momo was
the award-winning creation, a series of police plot in humor, in ten
chapters of one hour each and that will be broadcast on public television.6 This relationship between public funds and television fiction will be seen later in this chapter, in sections 4 and 6.
1.6. ICT trends
Available data reveal the expansion of access to technological
devices and the growth of connectivity. Below we present the data
that were selected from the survey “El perfil del internauta uruguayo
2016” (Radar Group), because of its relevance when considering
open television in general and television fiction in particular. The
penetration of computers in Uruguayan households reached 94%,
and the composition of the technology available for homes shows
the decrease of the percentage of desktop computers, while notebooks (51%) and tablets (31%) grow. The most important growth
is that of smartphones: 2.2 million people have them (in four years
the number multiplied by 18) in a population of just over 3 million
people. This expansion takes on particular importance if it is considered in relation to the internet access data and the uses of the cell
phone for audiovisual consumptions, which will be detailed below.
5
http://ecos.la/LA/10/5Sentidos/2016/12/19/10092/series-uy-una-plataforma-para-incentivar-la-produccion-nacional/.
6 http://www.elobservador.com.uy/tanco-stoll-y-biniez-ganan-concurso-producir-unaserie-n1052071.
380 | Obitel 2017
Generally speaking, in 2016, 80% of the Uruguayan population is an internet user (more than 2.6 million users of all ages). The
penetration of Wi-Fi has also been increasing: six out of ten people
live in homes with Wi-Fi. Growth is maintained in the low socioeconomic sectors, people over 65 years old and in the rural areas,
which indicates the reduction of the digital gap in several levels:
generational and socioeconomic ones. Internet penetration among
people over 65 years old increased by more than ten points in the
last year (45% in 2015, 56% in 2016). The same could be said about
the low socioeconomic level, which reached 72%.
Smartphones surpass any other type of device with access to
internet. Currently, 78% of the population live in homes in which
there is this type of device, which is present fairly evenly in all socioeconomic sectors: 91% in high level, 76% in the middle one and
70% in lowest one. Also, 90% of the population has internet on their
cell phone and 83% use it.
The cell phone usage grows in importance when watching films
or series by YouTube, Netflix and Spotify. Among the surveyed
people, 40% watched films or series on the cell phone in 2016, and
they were 13% in 2015. Also, 61% stated they watched online films
or series on YouTube on the cell phone, and 44% saw Netflix on
that device. In addition to the rise in the numbers of flat-screen TVs,
74% in 2016, an increase in the number of smart TVs in households
is also verified: 6% in 2014, 13% in 2015 and 22% in 2016. Regardless of the device employed, Netflix users reached 530 thousand in
the last year and the number continues to grow.
1.7. Public TV
The two public television channels aired the two national fiction titles. In both cases, webcasting was not exploited. The broadcasting logic prevails, and online viewing can only be accessed in
the same broadcasting time set for the traditional screen. Vera TV,
digital channel on the internet that belongs to the state-owned internet provider, Antel, which offered them in its programming, did not
keep them available either.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 381
The public television integrated the funds of support to the national production, and specifically TNU offered its own funds of
development.7 According to press reports8, in order to reach 80%
of national programming, it called for three programs that would
integrate its grid of 2017. Each will have a budget of $ 1.3 million
and will be developed in three areas: a humor program, one about
the environment and a third one about life in rural areas.
1.8. Pay TV
Pay television reached 731,753 services, distributed 40% in
Montevideo and 60% in the rest of the country. Cable operators
market shares are distributed unequally, and the predominant ones
in Montevideo are TCC (19%), Nuevo Siglo (17%), Montecable
(16%), DirecTV (18%), Multiseñal (7%) and Cablevisión (23%).9
As for the programming of the national cable channels, journalistic programs and the airing of musical shows or plays are predominant. There is no fiction, except for some national production that
has been emitted in its corresponding TV station.
7
The call’s requirements included that the channel would have the rights and “the decision over the ‘inal cut’ of the work, which means the last version of the product from
the point of view of the content as well as the technical conditions and its production
and low”. http://www.tnu.com.uy/content/download/Bases%20llamado%20para%20
contenidos%20televisivos.pdf.
8
http://www.elobservador.com.uy/el-nuevo-impulso-la-pantalla-n1010688.
9
Data came from the most recent statistical report of the Regulatory Unit of Communication Services (Ursec).
382 | Obitel 2017
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fiction exhibited in 2016 (national and imported;
premieres and reruns; and co-productions)
NATIONAL PREMIERES – 2
24. El Chiringuito de Pepe (series – Spain)
25. Pasión y poder (telenovela – Mexico)
TNU
1. Rotos y Descosidos (series)
2. Feriados (series)
TNU
26. Amar en Tiempos Revueltos (series –
Spain)
IMPORTED PREMIERES – 38
27. Cuéntame (series – Spain)
28. El Ministerio del Tiempo (series –
Teledoce
Spain)
3. Los Ricos no Piden Permiso (telenovela 29. Victor Ros (series – Spain)
– Argentina)
30. Hermanos (series – Spain)
4. Signos (miniseries – Argentina)
31. Los Archivos del Cardenal (series –
5. Mujeres Ambiciosas (telenovela – Bra- Chile)
zil)
32. Los Misterios de Laura (series – Spain)
6. Por Siempre (telenovela – Brazil)
33. Frágiles (series – Spain)
7. Reglas del Juego (telenovela – Brazil)
8. Verdades Secretas (telenovela – Brazil) Saeta
9. El Cazador (miniseries – Brazil)
34. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos (tele10. Amores Robados (telenovela – Brazil) novela – Brazil)
11. Velvet (series – Spain)
35. Celia (telenovela – Colombia)
12. Gran Hotel (series – Spain)
36. Niños Robados (miniseries – Spain)
13. Esperanza Mía (telenovela – Argen- 37. La Esclava Blanca (telenovela – Cotina)
lombia)
14. Lado a Lado (telenovela – Brazil)
15. Imperio (telenovela – Brazil)
CO-PRODUCTIONS – 3
Montecarlo
16. Educando a Nina (telenovela – Argentina)
17. La Leona (telenovela – Argentina)
18. Por Amarte Así (telenovela – Argentina)
19. El Tiempo Entre Costuras (telenovela
– Spain)
20. Camelia la Texana (telenovela – USA)
21. Corazón que Miente(telenovela – Mexico)
22. Amores con Trampa (telenovela –
Mexico)
23. La Única Mujer (telenovela – Portugal)
Source: Obitel Uruguay
Montecarlo
38. Juana la Virgen (telenovela – Venezuela and USA)
39. El Señor de los Cielos (telenovela –
Colombia, Mexico and USA)
40. Loco por Vos (series – Argentina and
USA)
RERUNS – 3
41. Casados con Hijos (series – Argentina)
42. Dulce Amor (telenovela – Argentina)
43. Somos (unitario – Uruguay)
TOTAL OF PREMIERES: 40
TOTAL OF RERUNS: 3
TOTAL OF TITLES EXHIBITED: 43
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 383
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
Titles
%
Chapters/
episodes
19
2561
528
651
24
186
0
666
40
178
0
179
19
0
109
0
NATIONAL (total)
2
5.0
OBITEL COUNTRIES (total)
38
95.0
Argentina
6
15.0
Brazil
9
22.5
Chile
1
2.5
Colombia
2
5.0
Ecuador
0
0.0
Spain
12
30.0
USA (Hispanic production)
1
2.5
Mexico
3
7.5
Peru
0
0.0
Portugal
1
2.5
Uruguay
2
5.0
Venezuela
0
0.0
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
3
0.0
Uruguayan co-productions
0
0.0
Co-productions among Obitel
3
0.0
109
countries
GENERAL TOTAL
40
100
2580
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
%
Hours
%
0.7
0.3
8:35
99.3 2457:15 99.7
20.5 487:00 19.8
25.2 580:05 23.5
0.9
22:25
0.9
7.2 160:25 6.8
0.0
0:00
0.0
25.8 700:50 28.4
1.6
45:55
1.9
6.9 160:35 6.5
0.0
0:00
0.0
6.9 200:00 8.1
0.0
8:35
0.3
0.0
0:00
0.0
0.0
99:55
3.8
0.0
0:00
0.0
0.0
99:55
0.0
0.0
2465:40
100
The composition of the offer of fiction was characterized by a
significant increase in the number of Spanish titles and a decrease
in the number of Brazilian and Argentine titles. In 2015 the fictions
from Brazil were 11 and those from Argentina were eight, which
had reached 13 in 2014. The sum of titles of both origins was around
50% of the offer in previous years, while in 2016 they represented
37%. Likewise, there is a significant decrease in fictions from Mexico, another of our historical fiction providers. Although there was
already a growth in the presence of Spanish fiction, this year they
occupy 30% of the offer and surpass in number of hours the other
countries. This is mainly due to TNU’s programming strategy, but
also to the fact that the other channels incorporated one or two titles
of that origin. The national fiction, concentrated in TNU, represents
5% of the offer of titles and it represented 0.3% of the emission
hours. Finally, it should be noted that, while the number of titles
remain in the usual range, the number of hours of Ibero-American
premiere fiction declined in 128 hours.
Time slot
Morning(6:00-12:00)
Afternoon (12:00-19:00)
Prime time (19:00-22:00)
Night (22:00-06:00)
Total
National
%
H
0.0
0:00
0.0
0:00
100.0
8:35
0.0
0:00
100.0
8:35
C/E
0
0
19
0
19
%
0.0
0.0
100.0
0.0
100.0
Ibero-American
%
H
0.0
0:00
28.1
720:22
15.4
358:11
56.5
1378:42
2457:15
100.0
C/E
0
720
395
1446
2561
Total
%
0.0
29.3
14.6
56.1
100.0
C/E
0
720
414
1446
2580
%
0.0
27.9
16.0
56.0
100.0
H
0:00
720:22
366:46
1378:42
2465:40
%
0.0
29.2
14.9
55.9
100.0
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
Table 4. Formats of national and Ibero-American iction
Format
National
Ibero-American
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
0
0.0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
22
55.0
1830
70.9
1690:10
68.6
Series
2
100.0
19
100.0
8:35
100.0
14
35.0
709
27.5
741:10
30.0
Miniseries
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
4
10.0
41
1.6
34:20
1.4
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Others (soap opera, etc.)
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00
0.0
Total
2
100.0
19
100.0
8:35
100.0
40
100.0
2580
100.0
2465:40
100.0
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
384 | Obitel 2017
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours aired by time slot
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 385
The national fictions were broadcast at prime time, while the
Ibero-American ones concentrated the highest emission of hours
firstly at night (56%) and secondly in the afternoon (29.3%). The
format adopted by national fictions was that of the series of few
chapters, and in Ibero-American fictions there was strong predominance of telenovelas, which occupy 70.9% of the screen hours of
premiere fiction.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
Format
Morning
0
0
0
0
0
0
Telenovela
Series
Miniseries
Teleilm
Unitario
Docudrama
Others (soap
0
opera, etc.)
Total
0
Source: Obitel Uruguay
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Afternoon
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0.0
0
0.0
2
100.0
0
0.0
4
100.0
%
%
Prime
% Night %
time
0
0.0
0
0.0
2
100.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
To%
tal
0
0.0
2 100.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Time
Titles
Present
24
Period
12
Historical
4
Other
0
40
Total
Source: Obitel Uruguay
%
60.0
30.0
10.0
0.0
100.0
As in previous years, most of the stories are set in present time,
but those that refer to the past consisted of 40%, and four of them
recreate historical episodes, biographies of real personalities, as in
the case of Celia. When considering stories located in the past, a
highlight went for Velvet and Gran Hotel, Spanish fictions that were
aired by Teledoce.
386 | Obitel 2017
Table 7. The ten most watched titles: origin, rating, share
Title
Country
of original idea
or script
Moisés y los
1 Diez Mandamientos
Brazil
Rede Record
Saeta
Colombia
Fox Telecolombia
Saeta
Brazil
Globo
Teledoce
Brazil
Globo
Teledoce
Brazil
Globo
Teledoce
Brazil
Globo
Teledoce
2 Celia
3
Mujeres
Ambiciosas
4 Imperio
Reglas del
Juego
Verdades
6
Secretas
5
ProducScriptwriter
tion house Channel or author of Rating Share
(country)
original idea
Vivian de
Oliveira
Andrés
Salgado, Paul
Rodríguez
Gilberto
Braga, Ricardo
Linhares, João
Ximenes
Aguinaldo
Silva
Joao Emanuel
Carneiro
Walcyr
Carrasco
Claudia F.
Sánchez,
Said Chamie,
Andrés Burgos
7
La Esclava
Blanca
Colombia
Caracol
Televisión
Saeta
8
Esperanza
Mía
Argentina
Pol-ka
Teledoce
9
Amores
Robados
Brazil
Globo
George
Teledoce Moura, Sergio
Goldenberg
Adrián Suar
17.7
28.2
16.7
29.5
15.3
21.7
14.6
23.6
14.2
20.5
14.2
22.2
13.0
22.8
13.0
20.8
11.5
22.9
Los Ricos
10 no Piden
Argentina
Pol-ka
Teledoce Adrián Suar
11.6
Permiso
Total of productions:
Foreign scripts:
100%
0%
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
17.7
The top ten presented some novelties. In the first place, Teledoce’s leadership in previous years was weakened: although seven of
the ten titles have been aired by that channel, Saeta managed to place
three fictions of its programming and won the first two places of the
ten most watched Ibero-American premieres. Secondly, although it
is not strange that a Brazilian production occupies the first place, it
was a novelty that the title did not come from Globo. Considering
the global panorama of television fiction competition in program-
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 387
ming, since 2015 the privileged position of the fictions produced by
Globo or Pol-ka (from Argentina) has been weakened, firstly due
to the growth in supply and the uptake of audiences of the Turkish
telenovelas, and more recently because of the success of fictions of
Rede Record. The presence of Argentine fiction continued to decrease: only two titles – and one of them, Esperanza Mía, began to
be aired in 2015. As in the case of Imperio, these were fictions that
managed to maintain their audience for two consecutive years.
Table 7A. The most watched national titles
Title
Rating Format
Channel/production
house
Time slot
1 Feriados
0.9
Series
Manso Films
Prime time
2 Rotos y Descosidos
0.8
Series
Aceituna Films
Prime time
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
The two television fiction titles released that year failed to reach
a rating point and were around 1.2% of share. These are publicly
funded productions aired on public television (TNU, TV Ciudad).
Although several press releases related to their premiere have been
published and the channels have aired some expectation campaign,
the results in terms of audience were meager and in line with the
audience levels obtained by TNU, with an annual average rating of
1.1% and 3% of share. Its most viewed fiction titles, like Los Misterios de Laura, did not surpass 1.9% of rating.
These titles will be referred to in section 4 of this chapter, but it
is worth noting here that TNU emission conditions were not always
the best: the quality of the image was poor and, as it will be seen
in the section on transmedia reception, the viewing by internet was
only possible while it was being aired.
To complete the national production panorama, it is necessary
to mention other productions that, for different reasons, were not
included in this table, nor were they counted as hours of national
television fiction. Anselmo Quiere Saber, by Tarkiomedia, is an animated series of national production that was characterized by offer-
388 | Obitel 2017
ing multiplatform contents: cartoons, a game for Ceibal Plan tablets,
online comics and an interactive web. The series was broadcast by
TNU within El Canal de los Niños, a program that included a variety of contents of diverse origin. It was not listed in the tables of this
report because it was not possible to identify information about its
time slot, duration and audience in Kantar Ibope registry.
Regarding to the public television offer, a third series was included, with documentary characteristics and some fictional elements, but they are not enough to consider it a fiction. This was
Guía 1917210, which in nine episodes focused on issues related to
the law of legalization and regulation of the consumption, sale and
cultivation of marijuana, hence the name of the program refers to the
law number. It is often presented as a docufiction. The fictional elements are some of the false documentary; a framework that places
the documentary as a work of the thesis that has to do the presenter,
some situations that recreate instances of journalistic production or
obstacles in the realization, the artificial presence behind the scenes,
for example. However, it does not constitute a fictional universe,
and the narrative logic as well as the purposes are of documentary,
so it was not included in the list of fictions.
Private channels did not offer any title of national television
fiction. However, Teledoce offered on its website María Fracasada, which is a webseries inspired by telenovela María la del Barrio. At times, it seems a parody of telenovela topics, but soon the
plot reveals the classic melodramatic intent. Its director, Eduardo
Maquieira, declares himself a fan of telenovelas. In Teledoce he is
responsible for the promotions of Brazilian telenovelas and for publishing “scenes of the next chapter” at the end of each one (Solomita, El País, July 16, 2016). María Fracasada had eight chapters
of five minutes each. The number of visits was 14,157 in the first
chapter and 2,915 in the last one. The channel advertised it in some
of its morning programs; however, the offer of this webseries did
10
Created and directed by Daniel Hendler, co-produced by Cordon Films (Uruguay) and
La Vaca (Argentina), it also received funds from Icau.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 389
not seem to be part of a expansion strategy in this line, but rather an
isolated and casual fact.
Lastly, among the most important national production efforts
of the year was El Origen, by Mueca Films. It was a documentary of a few chapters per year, with a careful elaboration and very
good audience results in the three years it was broadcast. In 2016 it
dealt with humor programs of the River Plate’s region in the Uruguayan television history. It was aired on Sundays and was the most
watched program when broadcast.
Table 8. The ten most watched titles: format, duration, time slot
First and
last emission (in
2016)
Time slot
Night
Title
Format
Genre
Number of
chap./ep.
(in 2016)
Moisés y los
1 Diez Mandamientos
Telenovela
Melodrama –
Epic
170
05/09-12/30
2 Celia
Telenovela
Biography –
Romance
105
02/29-07/22 Afternoon
Mujeres
3
Ambiciosas
Telenovela
Melodrama
116
05/09-11/17
Night
Telenovela
Melodrama –
Suspense
75
01/04-05/15
Night
09/12-12/29
Prime
time
11/21-12/29
Night
4 Imperio
Reglas del
Telenovela Police drama
61
Juego
Verdades
Telenovela Melodrama
22
6
Secretas
La Esclava
Telenovela Melodrama
61
7
Blanca
Esperanza
Comedy –
Telenovela
8
31
Mía
Romance
Amores
9
Miniseries Police romance
8
Robados
Los Ricos
Telenovela Melodrama
217
10 no Piden
Permiso
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
5
07/18-10/10 Afternoon
01/01-02/12
Prime
time
01/26-02/18
Night
02/15-12/30
Prime
time
The telenovela was the predominant format in the top ten most
viewed titles. As for the schedules, there was a change in the trends
of previous years, in which prime time and night dominated. In 2016
two of the fictions were broadcast in the afternoon. From the point
390 | Obitel 2017
of view of genres and themes, a diversity of combinations was observed. Although melodramatic matrices and romantic stories have
crossed all fictions, plots usually incorporated some dimension of
police and/or detective cuts; in some cases they constituted biographical stories and in others they had a characteristic of comedy.
The greatest novelty for the Uruguayan screen was the presence of a
narrative with biblical theme in which melodrama and epic narrative
of the liberation of the Hebrew people were combined.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most watched titles
Title
Main themes
Social themes
The story of Moses, love,
Moisés y los Diez
Power relations, religious
power, bastardy, identity
1
Mandamientos
values, moral, family.
disclosure.
Life of Celia Cruz, Cuban
Individual freedom, social2 Celia
revolution, love, power,
ism, politics, success.
identity disclosure.
Mujeres AmbiRelations of power, love,
Gender, social advancement,
3
ciosas
ambition, crime, revenge.
prostitution.
Relations of power, bastardy, Homosexuality, homophobia,
4 Imperio
ambition, revenge.
gender identity, adoption
Love, revenge, relations of
Social integration, inequality,
5 Reglas del Juego
power, crime.
deprivation of liberty.
Relations of power, love,
Child sexual exploitation,
6 Verdades Secretas
jealousy, love triangle.
prostitution, drug addiction.
La Esclava
Relations of power, identity Racism, slavery, Afro7
Blanca
disclosure.
descendant community.
Love, celibacy, religious
Abandonment of the biologi8 Esperanza Mía
vocation, bastardy, identity
cal mother, reconstruction of
disclosure.
the links.
Love, jealousy, passion,
Gender, inidelity, love
9 Amores Robados
revenge, love triangle.
relationships.
Los Ricos no
Love, jealousy, relations of
Domestic violence, family
10
Piden Permiso
power, ambition, betrayal.
inheritance, alcoholism.
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 391
Table 10. Audience proile of the ten most watched titles: gender,
age, socioeconomic status
Titles
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Moisés y los Diez
Mandamientos
Celia
Mujeres Ambiciosas
Imperio
Reglas del Juego
Verdades Secretas
La Esclava
Blanca
Esperanza Mía
Amores Robados
Los Ricos no
Piden Permiso
Titles
Channel
Gender %
Socioeconomic status %
Women Men A+A- M+
M
M- B+B-
Saeta
71.0
29.2
11.0
18.0
20.0
Saeta
66.0
35.0
16.0
14.0
24.0 17.0
30.0
Teledoce
65.0
35.0
15.0
22.0
16.0 15.0
33.0
Teledoce
Teledoce
Teledoce
73.0
62.0
66.0
27.0
38.0
34.0
17.0
18.0
17.0
17.0
20.0
21.0
20.0 10.0
18.0 14.0
20.0 20.0
36.0
31.0
22.0
Saeta
67.0
33.0
6.0
21.0
17.0 21.0
35.0
Teledoce
Teledoce
69.0
79.0
31.0
21.0
17.0
18.0
16.0
12.0
21.0 11.0
22.0 11.0
35.0
37.0
Teledoce
72.0
29.0
14.0
18.0
18.0 15.0
35.0
Channel
4-11
12-17
Age group %
18- 2535-49 50-59
24
34
Moisés y los Diez
Saeta
4.0
3.0
2.0 8.0
Mandamientos
2 Celia
Saeta
4.0
4.0
3.0 13.0
Mujeres Ambi3
Teledoce 4.0
8.0
8.0 9.0
ciosas
4 Imperio
Teledoce 7.0
7.0
5.0 17.0
5 Reglas del Juego Teledoce 4.0
7.0
10.0 8.0
6 Verdades Secretas Teledoce 2.0
4.0
10.0 7.0
La esclava
7
Saeta
4.0
2.0
2.0 11.0
Blanca
8 Esperanza Mía
Teledoce 7.0
7.0
7.0 16.0
9 Amores Robados Teledoce 6.0
6.0
7.0 19.0
Los Ricos no
10
Teledoce 6.0
7.0
8.0 11.0
Piden Permiso
Source: Obitel Uruguay based on Kantar Ibope Media data
1
17
34
60+
15.0
17.0
52.0
22.0
19.0
36.0
21.0
15.0
34.0
19.0
20.0
22.0
12.0
16.0
15.0
34.0
34.0
39.0
16.0
17.0
47.0
21.0
21.0
14.0
11.0
27.0
29.0
20.0
13.0
35.0
The audience continued being predominantly constituted by
women, but in 2016 the percentage of men was lower compared to
2015. In that year, the lowest percentage of men was 27% and only
in one title. The rest of the ten most viewed titles had a percentage
of men ranging from 30% to 35%. In 2016 the male audience had
a more unequal distribution, with a sharp decline as in the case of
Amores Robados.
392 | Obitel 2017
The profile of the audience from the point of view of the socioeconomic status revealed that the highest proportion of the ten
most viewed titles was concentrated in the lowest socioeconomic
level. It is noteworthy that the status M- was represented with the
lowest percentage values, as if it were a more disaffected sector with
respect to the consumption of these programs. The titles that showed
a higher percentage of audience of the higher status were mainly
Brazilian and aired at prime time and night. As for the age composition, there was a tendency for young audiences to be meagre,
the proportion in the 35-49 year segment increased, and the highest
concentration was on people over 60 years old.
3. Transmedia reception
National fiction in 2016 was only aired on public television,
and this fact gave the opportunity to analyze the transmedia dimension developed by the oldest public channel, TNU, for these fictions
produced with public support. The case chosen to study transmedia
reception this year was series Feriados, although much of the findings also apply to the other national fiction, Rotos y Descosidos.
The transmedia project developed by TNU to convey the contents of Feriados was implemented through the articulation of the
official website of the channel and its official profiles on Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube. Its proposal was based on a strategy of propagation (Fechine, 2013), that is to say those that seek to pass on the
fictional universe between platforms, through reformatted contents
of anticipation, such as trailers and promotional advertising of each
chapter, as well as promotional informative contents, for example,
interviews to the directors of the series in other programs of the
same channel.
When observing TNU practices, it was possible to identify a
transmedia strategy aimed to the propagation of closed statements,
which did not appeal to the action (Fechine, 2013:30) of the addressee as a constituent part of the statement, that is to say: they
did not require participation or cooperation of the recipient to be
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 393
completed. For its part, the broadcasting logic distorted the expansive potential and the involvement of the audience as constitutive
elements of any transmedia project in the participatory culture. The
official website of the channel (tnu.com.uy) offered a trailer of the
series within the section Contenidos (during the whole cycle) and
allowed access to the online viewing of each chapter within the section Vivo, but only when the fiction was on air. Once broadcast, the
chapters were not available anymore, either on the site or on any
other platform. This situation is the same for Rotos y Descosidos
and extends to Vera TV.
The directors of series Feriados developed in parallel their own
transmedia strategy with the articulation of different platforms: an
official fan page on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts and
a YouTube channel of the production house. The analysis of the
audience activity for this chapter focused on the official fan page of
Feriados, since there was the greatest activity from the transmitters
and receivers (in relation to other platforms) from the beginning of
the transmission by TNU.
Quantitative data of the fan page activity from April 1st, 2016
(prior to TNU transmission) to July 6th, 2016 (day after the end of
TNU cycle) are shown here: the number of fans at the end of the analyzed period was 4,197; 142 posts; 17,387 likes, 1,249 comments
and 2,790 shares. In order to verify the post that had greater impact
among the fans of the page during the analyzed period, the engagement index was used.11 The concept of engagement accounts for the
interaction level of the community of the network with a brand or
campaign, in the case of Facebook, following the actions such as
likes, shares and comments. Below is the average engagement of the
page during the analyzed period.
11
The formula of the average engagement of a page is: (number of interactions of the
period (comments + likes + shares) / number of posts of the period) / total fans of the
period = result × 100.
394 | Obitel 2017
Average engagement of the period12
(from April 1st to July 6th, 2016)
Published
4/1 to 4/30/16
5/1 to 5/31/16
6/1 to 6/30/16
7/1 to 7/6/16
Total
Posts
25
68
54
20
142
Comments
215
737
240
57
1,249
Likes Shares Fans Engagement
3,641
570 2,156
8.21%
9,151 1,472 3,184
5.24%
3,266
555 4,077
1.84%
1,329
193 4,197
1.88%
17,387 2,790 4,197
3.59%
The total engagement of the fan page during the whole period
was 3.59%. The highest level of fans interactions was concentrated
in the month of April (8.0%), before the beginning of the transmission, and in May (5%), month of the beginning of the cycle. The
following data show the posts of the issuer that achieved the greatest
impact in each month of the period.
Engagement13 of the posts with greater impact
of each month of the period
Published
4/22/16
5/9/16
6/22/16
7/6/16
Posts
Comments Likes Shares Fans Engagement
“Feriados arrives to
22
542
87
2,156
30.19%
the screen”
“Trailer #2”
163
1,876 366 3,184
75.53%
“(Promo) Penultimate
36
376
63
4,077
11.65%
chapter”
“(Thank) In the name
21
349
21
4,197
9.31%
of…”
The post with highest level of engagement of the period was
the Trailer #2 of the series (75%) published on May 9th, 2016, the
day before the premiere. The public comments that were collected
(52 comments) referred to: wishes for success for the acting and
technical team (30 comments): “Great work, Go!”, “Luck with this
project”, “Capos building cinema”; manifestations of pride around
national production (14 comments): “Go, Go, Uruguay”, “Go the
12
The data used in this table for the average engagement was obtained from the statistics
provided by Feriados oficial fan page (Feb. 15, 2017).
13
Formula of the engagement of a post: (number of interactions of the period (comments
+ likes + shares)) / total fans of the period = result × 100.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 395
national fiction!!!!”, “Very good and better because it is a national
product .... although we have to lose some canned programs, or some
‘program’ of Argentinian gossip”. Finally, there were frequent complaints about the availability of chapters on the internet (8): “Can I
see it on the internet?”, “How can we see the ones when we work at
that time???”.
The transmedia strategy of Feriados in the fan page included
trailers and chapter advertisements, chapter summaries, interviews
to the directors, backstage photos and videos, and links to national
music themes that appeared in the chapters. Most of the contents
that formed the basis of Feriados transmedia project, although varied, are framed within a strategy of propagation.14 Nevertheless,
before the airing of the cycle by TNU, a campaign was developed
– “Tell us what holydays mean to you” –, a content of recreational
extension15 that, although it corresponds to an expansion strategy16,
was an isolated action and did not have great impact.
4. Highlights of the year
National television fiction production has been reduced in the
last three years to that which was financed by public funds, and its
display screen was exclusively that of public channels (TNU and
TV Ciudad). As we have seen, the average TNU17 audience is very
low, with 1.1 in rating and 3.0 share, and these titles in particular
reached very low audiences. On the other hand, it is necessary to
point out the poor quality of the image in the TNU emission that
affected the possibility of perceiving the technical quality of these
series, which is observed when viewed on the internet.
14
The strategies of propagation are articulated from contents whose statements do not
depend on the performance of the recipient to be completed (Fechine, 2013).
15
Contents in which the recipient is invited to participate in some kind of experience with
the transmedia ictional universe (Fechine, 2013).
16
“Expansion strategies involve procedures that complement and/or overlow the narrative universe beyond television.” They could be given through contents with a recreational or narrative function. (Fechine, 2013:34).
17
We have not had access to audience measurements of TV Ciudad, an open digital channel not available to the entire population.
396 | Obitel 2017
Feriados18 was supported by Promotion for Script Development in 2013 and by the Development Fund for the Production of
TV Series in 2014 – both from the Directorate of the Institute of
Cinema and Audiovisual of Uruguay (Icau) – and also by Montevideo Filma and Montevideo Socio Audiovisual, of the Municipality
of Montevideo. Its premiere was in May 2016 and was broadcast at
prime time on Tuesdays: nine chapters with about 26 minutes each.
Its creators have presented it as “a series about a generation, how the
country and we have changed ten years after the economic crisis”.
This intention is explicit in a dialogue of the first chapter, in which a
character directly names the crisis of 2002. They have also defined
the realization of the series as a “laboratory” and “search” work that
resorted to improvisation in the work with the actors.19
The series organizes its narrative around nine holidays of different entity20, one by chapter, and in each one the story revolves
around a character. The narrative construction of each episode has
a unitary functioning, with some connecting threads through the
characters that reappear throughout the series: a character that has
a secondary role in one story acquires a chief character in another
and reoccupies a secondary role on the next. The protagonists move
between the choral and the individual or dual.
Rotos y Descosidos21 was a winning project in 2013 of two development funds of the Icau and Montevideo Socio Audiovisual,
in addition to the Egeda Uruguay Development Award and Doc
Montevideo Pitching Series. In 2015 the project also won the Icau
Production Fund. At the beginning the production house Aceituna
Films presented it as a transmedia series, but then it stopped an18
Manso Films Production House. Script and original idea: Mateo Chiarino, Lucas Cilintano, Leonardo Pintos and Claudio Quijano. Cast: Sebastián Calderón, Mateo Chiarino,
Cecilia Cósero, Dahiana Méndez, Carla Moscatelli, Victoria Pereira, Leonardo Pintos,
Claudio Quijano and Federico Torrado.
19
http://www.elobservador.com.uy/tnu-estrena-nueva-serie-iccion-feriados-n908252.
20
From relevant dates when the labor activity stops, such as May 1st, to other less marked
as St. Valentine.
21
Aceituna Films Production House. Script/original idea: Eduardo Navarro, Paula Chiappara and David de Esteban. Cast: Virginia Rodríguez, Alfonso Tort, Florencia Colucci.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 397
nouncing it in that way and called it a combination of fiction and
documentary or docufiction. With some characteristics of sitcom,
the story revolved around the character of Majo, a TV producer who
is forced by her boss to leave her journalistic program and start producing a documentary on love and looking for stories of couples.
The program is called as the series, Rotos y Descosidos. Majo introduces herself through her voice-off, like a 35-year-old single woman who lives with her mother, totally disbelieved and who fights
against the impositions of her boss: “Why me, the singlest single in
the country. I am a committed journalist, I dedicate myself to important issues, not to this nonsense of love”. The scheme of chiefs
characters is completed with Peter – the innocent, good-natured and
romantic cameraman of the new program – and Anita, the production assistant, a young happily committed, romantic, also innocent
and somewhat silly lady.
As the fictional plot unfolds – the comings and goings of Majo
and her colleagues on the television station –, documentary fragments are inserted: interviews with couples and common people
who talk about their love stories. These interviews are mostly on a
static shot where only the testimony is heard, and neither the questions nor the interviewer – that should be Majo – appear. Despite
the narrative nexus between documentary sections and fiction (generally through some phrase in the dialogue), the characters of the
producer do not appear interacting with the interviewees, nor are
they seen in the same place; it is perceived that it is a recording that
was made at another time, which is not the time and space where the
story takes place. The documentary is not integrated into the story
beyond a weak argument justification and the verbally explicit linkage of the recording that was made at another time, which is not the
time and space where the story takes place. The documentary is not
integrated into the story beyond a weak argumentation and the verbally explicit link of Majo’s love relationship experiences; the documentary testimonies of the couples interviewed are like fragments
embedded into the fiction. The combination of fiction and docu-
398 | Obitel 2017
mentary is not a novelty in Uruguayan fiction productions of recent
years22 (Sánchez Vilela, 2016), however, in this series the separation
of the fictional and documentary sections keeps it away from the
aesthetics and dynamics of the mockumentary and at the same time
it does not configure a fictional universe sustained in itself.
Other television fiction projects have obtained incentive funds
for audiovisual production, usually referred to as coming titles, but
finally they were not emitted. The reasons are often linked to difficulties when finishing the product, usually because of reduced economic resources and also because of a lack of display screen. Such
is the situation of El Mundo de los Videos, a series of six chapters by
Matías Ganz and Rodrigo Lappado (creators of REC) that was made
with Fona23 funds. Its transmission was awarded to Saeta, but the
TV station does not seem to have decided for its broadcast.
The national fiction that persists in open television is supported
by public funds and seems unable to exist without them. The titles to
which we referred in previous chapters and in this one give account
of the qualified performance of some professional and technical
roles, weaknesses in others, especially in the quality of the script.
They tend to be quite obsessed with Uruguay – “the Uruguayez” –:
telling “our stories”, showing “our cultural identity”. These ideas
are present in the declarations (both in the manifestations of the creators as in the institutional discourses), but also in the narratives
that are produced that often fail to go beyond local boundaries. The
two fictions issued in 2016 were made with more than three incentive funds each, and it took them between two and three years to be
on air.24 At the beginning of this chapter, it was stated that perhaps
22
REC, Paleodetectives or webseries Escuela de Canotaje and Uruguay Desconocido are
some titles that were analyzed in Obitel Yearbook 2016.
23
The Fund for the Promotion and Development of National Audiovisual Production
(Fona), of the Municipality of Montevideo, created in 1995, has more than two decades
of existence and was created thanks to the contributions of the Ministry of Education and
Culture, plus money the channels had to contribute as part of the agreement for the installation of the wiring for cable television. Funded productions are allocated by draw to a
channel that can issue it without cost.
24
In the case of Rotos y Descosidos, an old program of ive years ago could be found in
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 399
these fictions were only sustainable through public funds and public
television. However, they fell short from being an impulse to the
creation of a national industry: because of the number of hours, the
rhythm of production and their economic profitability in the medium term. It seems reasonable to think that a national audiovisual
industry needs public policies of incentives and supports, as well as
they are necessary in other areas of productive activity. Due to the
Uruguayan scale, fiction production will only be sustainable if it
achieves the same path as rice: to be a very good product that can be
inserted in the international market.
The year 2016 ended with the expectation of a new type of
public funds, SeriesUy, which announces its intention to stimulate
a system of production with a more agile rhythm and seeking guidance for international projection. The year 2017 began with the
news that the winning project was Todos Detrás de Momo, whose
creators are Carlos Tanco, Pablo Stoll and Adrián Biniez. They meet
the skills of one of the best humor columnists in the country and two
of the best filmmakers. Would it be possible to take a step forward
in the transition between a fiction only sustainable by public funds
to a sustainable fiction?
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Uruguay.
Analysis of ten years of Obitel
The purpose of these pages is to analyze the last decade of television fiction in the Uruguayan open TV. That was the objective we
defined in Obitel once the first ten years of work were completed.
However, in the case of Uruguay, it is convenient to extend a little
further back the analysis to better understand the ups and downs,
years of productive impulse and moments of sterility, which have
characterized the production of national television fiction. In the
history of Uruguayan television fiction there are two moments of
high productive capacity: the first, between 1999 and 2004; and the
Vimeo that has several of the couple’s interviews, but with another ictional framework.
400 | Obitel 2017
second, between 2009 and 2012. Both of them seemed to announce
the possibility of an audiovisual industry linked to television, while
demonstrating some installed capacity and continuity of the will of
production of some actors, at the same time that discussions and legislative initiatives were processed with demands of a screen quota
for the national television fiction. However, the two productive impulses have been frozen in those two moments. From the year 2014
until now, only four titles were produced with public funds, containing few chapters and an insignificant number of hours to meet the
needs of coverage of the programming of any channel.
The period 1999-2004 is a relevant moment because there several national fictions were produced, using different models and
production agreements, with continuity and unprecedented presence
in Uruguayan television: A Cara o Cruz (1999), El Año del Dragón
(2000), Mañana Será Otro Día (2002), Constructores (2003), 8x8
(2004), Uruguayos Campeones (2004) and Diez Mandamientos
(2004). In those years, it was the screen of Montecarlo that offered
almost all of the national fiction. Only the last title was aired by
Saeta, which, however, will be the main producer of television fiction in the following decade. In this set of productions, the bet was
for telenovelas and the number of chapters (26 and 35 chapters),
a choice that will not be repeated in the following years (Ibiñete,
2007).
In the years 2005 and 2006 the screen did not offer national
fiction. However, the production intention of Saeta, manifested in
2004 with the cycle of unitarios Diez Mandamientos, was expressed
in 2006 when it called the National Talent Contest for Television
(Conta). The winning fiction was Piso 825, a sitcom of seven chapters, emitted in 2007, that recreated the atmosphere of a public office. That same year, Teledoce broadcast a comedy of 13 chapters,
La Oveja Negra, which was one of the most watched television fic25
The creator Alan Goldman, then an audiovisual student at ORT University, was supported by Saeta for the realization, which also had the support of Argentine scriptwriter
Jorge Maestro.
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 401
tion titles that year, with 12 rating points (Ibiñete, 2007). The following year, 200826, the national television fiction was absent again.
There were four years, then, of a very small presence of national
fiction.
In the second period of productive concentration (2009-2012),
there were 13 titles on open television and two on the public cable
channel, which in the historical perspective of Uruguayan television
was an unprecedented event. The period was also exceptional for
other reasons: national fictions were aired on all four open television
channels, three of them in the top ten of their respective broadcasting years; thematic and narrative exploration was diversified, and
production models were tested with local and international alliances.
From the thematic and narrative point of view, in the fictions
of this period we can observe the tendency to different nuances of
humor: from the explicit proposal of a sitcom, like Bienes Gananciales, to the narration of the stories in a tone of comedy and sporadic insertion of laughable situations, like in Las Novias de Travolta.
However, at the same time that this tendency is showed, a variety of
narrative explorations is recognized, which include thriller (Correr
el Riesgo), literary adaptation (Somos) or a case like REC, presented
as a “homemade series” and with techniques that refer to the false
documentary. The themes expose human conflicts and dramas, like
those that arise in Historias de Diván, with the framework of psychoanalysis as therapeutic practice, or the cycle of unitario Adicciones, which explores stories of pathological dependencies (alcohol,
psychotropic, drug consumption, etc.) with an explicit purpose of
social merchandising. The narrative temporality usually follows a
linear development, with the sporadic use of some flashback.
From the point of view of the formats, it is observed that, while
in the period 1999-2004 the telenovela predominated, during this
second productive moment the tendency was formats of few chapters, in the modality of series, miniseries and, to a lesser extent,
26
This is the year that Uruguay joins Obitel, and since then we apply the same methodology of observation and analysis.
402 | Obitel 2017
unitarios. In some cases, according to the result, a second season
was attempted. Perhaps one of the most relevant aspects in historical perspective is the learning of the serialization, both in terms of
configuration of an industrial way of production and the development of frames with narrative continuity. The most ambitious titles
in terms of frequency and number of emission hours have been
Porque te Quiero Así 1 and 2, Bienes Gananciales, with three weekly broadcasts, and Dance! La Fuerza del Corazón, the daily series
that reached 80 chapters. All of them were formats and production
practices in which serial models were tested and, as stated by Saeta’s manager of national production, Luis Castro27, the experience of
production of serial fiction in those years moved to the production
of other types of programs, for example, entertainment.
Montecarlo and Saeta have been the channels that aired more
national titles throughout the decade. Saeta also developed a leading
role in the production of television fiction. This channel invested in
the restoration of the old emblematic building of the Athletic Institution Sud America (Iasa), which was turned into a recording studio in
such a way that it allowed the development of 12 scenes simultaneously. In the year 2012 Bienes Gananciales, Somos and Historias
de Diván were being produced at the same time. In 2011, Dance! La
Fuerza del Corazón was one of the most ambitious productions and
perhaps the one that best expressed the intention to bet on an industrial development. According to information published in the press,
45 scenes were recorded daily, in shifts that involved 150 people
during five months. The total cost of production was US$ 5 million.
Serial production trials were also a search for sustainable production models, with local28 and international alliances. The association with foreign resources in different fields (production, direction,
screenplay, acting) was experimented, as well as alliances to place
27
Interview conducted by the author in November 2013.
As an example, at the beginning of the century, Montecarlo was associated to a group
of actors (ATP) and then to producer Detaquito Films; in 2012, Saeta associated with
Agadu to produce Somos, and to Argentine producers and international distributors such
as Telemundo Internacional or Frecuencia Latina.
28
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 403
productions in international markets (Sánchez Vilela, 2012:521527).
In order to get a good productivity result, it is necessary to
achieve a balance between the number of hours needed to cover the
television flow, production costs and investment results. According
to what has happened in the last three years, a sustainable model
does not seem to have been achieved. In 2013 Historias de Diván
was aired, the last fiction co-produced by Saeta in 2012. Since then
the channel has abandoned this type of production, and from 2014
until now in the open television only four titles29 were emitted.
These titles had few episodes, were produced with public funds and
aired by public television.
An attempt will now be made to review some of the possible
explanations for this constraint in the production of television fiction. The link between survival and costs has recurrently been emphasized. In interviews with different actors of the audiovisual business in Uruguay, it is highlighted that, in a small market such as
Uruguay, it is necessary to achieve a model of transnational production that facilitates exports.30 Thus, Santiago López argues that the
co-production is the only alternative, and he added that public funds
are very scarce, which makes it difficult to achieve quality projects
and leaves the domestic producers in a situation of weakness with
potential co-producers.31 For his part, Castro32 said that a 40-minute
chapter costs between US$ 17,500 and US$ 20,000. He also referred
to the context of the other open television channels: “We are quite
alone in the long-term strategy”. Competitors did not take the same
risks and solved their programming efficiently and with good re-
29
Paleodetectives, Los Artistonautas (2015), Feriados, Rotos y Descosidos (2016), all
aired by TNU.
30
In this direction were the manifestations of different actors interviewed by the author
between 2013 and 2015, such as Luis Castro, National Production Manager of Saeta,
Pablo Artola and José Alonso, directors of OZ Media and Pop TV, and Santiago López,
of Oriental Features.
31
Interview conducted by the author in August 2016.
32
Interview conducted by the author in November 2013.
404 | Obitel 2017
sults in terms of rating. “The scheduling hours to be filled in relation to competitors is a problem”, emphasizes Castro. Faced with
the urgency to improve the position in front of the competitors that
solve their grid with Argentine and Brazilian fiction, the alternative defined by the channel was to compete producing entertainment
programs with a serial structure: frequency of three or four days a
week33. The weakness or inefficiency of internationalization strategies for the placement of national productions in a broader market,
the volume of costs, and a development of competition in which different risks are assumed appear to have led to the present situation.
The second productive moment (2009-2012) happened in a
context of hard discussion and formulation of communication policies: the Law of Audiovisual Communication Services and the assignment of digital TV signals. It is appropriate to include them in
this analysis because both initiatives contained specific indications
referring to national production in general and television fiction in
particular, which could either encourage or promote the idea that
there would necessarily be an increase in production and competition and that different actors would have to prepare for it. Specifically, the law required 60% of national production on all open TV
channels and two hours per week of television fiction or national
films at prime time; in addition to that, 30% had to be from independent producers. An Audiovisual Promotion Fund was also created.
The law was passed in December 2014, but its contents were in the
public discussion since 2010, when the Technical Advisory Committee began working on the inputs of the law. The Committee published its document at the end of the same year. This environment
that emphasized the requirement of national production was completed with the call for the assignment of new digital signals. The
call required presenting a communication34 plan in which national
33
Interview conducted by the author in November 2013.
All were required to submit a business and operational plan, programming, employment, etc. and an advisory commission (Chai) that would evaluate them in a non-binding
way, but the plans were also presented at a public hearing in mid-2014. Traditional channels (4, 12 and 10) were exempted from competition by a resolution of the then president
34
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 405
production was valued and national fiction was included (Sánchez
Vilela, 2013, 2014).
However, the law and the implementation of digital terrestrial
television, for different reasons, did not contribute to the strengthening of national production. Paradoxically, in 2014, when the law
was passed, national fiction disappeared from open television, along
with the retraction in that category of its main producer.35 On the
other hand, the appeals of unconstitutionality filed against several
articles of the law slowed its implementation, and the article that
demanded the quota screen for the national fiction was declared unconstitutional. Regarding the expectations that could have generated
the new digital television channels, they would also be frustrated.
Currently, only private channels, traditional operators, and public
channels (TNU and TV Ciudad) are broadcasting digitally. The two
new channels (Giro and VTV), after postponing several times the
beginning of their broadcasts, gave up their projects and/or lost the
assignment of the signal.
During these years, several public funds programs for audiovisual production36 have also operated. Some of the projects that received funds and/or support from public entities were: REC, Paleodetectives, Los Artistonautas, Feriado and Rotos y Descosidos. This
productions have been the only national ones offered in Uruguayan
television in the last two years. They had few episodes (between six
José Mujica. Changes in resolutions, competition rules and number of channels, suspension of deadlines and contradictions in the inal allocation of winners characterized the
whole process between 2012 and 2014. The analogue blackout, deined by November
2015, was suspended without deining a new date. More detailed treatment can be found
in the Uruguay chapters of Obitel Yearbooks 2014 and 2015.
35
In 2013, Saeta changed its production strategy and orientated it to the production of
entertainment programs. It also reduced the offer of Ibero-American iction titles and in
2015 introduced the Turkish telenovela. This strategic change placed the TV station in
a favorable competitive position and managed to obtain higher ratings than the top ten
Ibero-American iction titles of the last two years.
36
The most important funds were: Development Fund and Fone, promoted by Icau; Montevideo Audiovisual Partner, from the Location Ofice of Montevideo Municipality; DocTV, specially focused on documentaries; and the Cultural Incentive Fund (FI), offered by
the Ministry of Education and Culture.
406 | Obitel 2017
and nine each), of short duration, always by the public TV and with
very small audiences.
Transmediality from the strategies of production and from the
reception have been two dimensions specially studied by Obitel
Uruguay, in a particularly expansive national context of ICTs and
connectivity, as discussed in section 1.6 of this chapter. TV channels
in Uruguay have renewed and improved their websites, but as far as
television fiction is concerned, their transmedia strategies were very
meagre and seemed to turn their back on the possibilities of digital
convergence. As an example, the public TV stations (TNU and TV
Ciudad), which broadcast the national productions of the last years,
only allowed to watch the chapter by internet at the same time it was
aired, in the old logic of the broadcasting. The general trend in the
rest of the open television has been the availability of the chapters
for a time on the web, photos of the characters with a brief review,
but without any space for interactivity or call for participation. Exceptions to this rule were seen in Saeta. In 2009, it produced Hogar
Dulce Hogar, in which TV, internet and cell phone, with a game on
the official page37, proposed questions and slogans about the program. In 2010 and 2011 Porque te Quiero Así offered on the web
exclusive content that promoted the link with the series beyond the
moment of broadcast: videos of the actors presenting their characters and behind the scenes, but with limited interactivity. Dance! La
Fuerza del Corazón could be qualified as a milestone in the transmedia deployment, in addition to a representative expression of the
type of transnational38 production followed by this channel. As in no
other national fiction production, it was sought to keep the audience
in constant contact.39
37
http://www.hogardulcehogar.com.uy/.
Aired in 2011, it is the irst daily series for teenagers, co-produced by Saeta with Powwow Media Partners, an Argentine company dedicated to the creation of content and TV
formats for export. When offered to the public, the way it was presented, the campaign
of expectation and the realization of the casting for dancers in Uruguay contributed to
show it as a national iction, although the majority of the actors were Argentine and the
aesthetic resembled to the series of Cris Morena’s type.
39
In addition to the chapters, it had a Facebook and Twitter account (also managed by the
38
Uruguay: national fiction with public funds: outbound port or refuge? | 407
Final conclusions
In diachronic perspective, the national fiction has shown the
existence of an audience eager to watch it, although it has not always integrated the top ten list. In three consecutive years, national
productions have become part of the ten most viewed titles: Las Novias de Travolta, Porque te Quiero Así 1 and Adicciones. In the case
of the latter, after the end of the cycle, the channel decided to broadcast at that same time slot ten Uruguayan films, which obtained an
average rating of 12.7 points, and the three most seen films of the
cycle were in turn the most seen of the day. However, the current
situation is that of productions supported by public funds, which
obtained very low audience levels and that, because of their scarce
competitiveness or possibilities of international projection, are only
possible in this way.
On the other hand, the issuers do not seem to take into account
neither the new conditions of reception of the audience nor the opportunities to develop transmedia strategies tending to create loyalty
with incentives to the participation. The data on expansion of ICTs
and connectivity in Uruguay, discussed in section 1.6 of this chapter, show an increasingly narrow digital gap (by socioeconomic status, but also by age) and leave the question about what is the future
of open television and fiction in Uruguay.
References
AAVV, Cinve (2016). La industria publicitaria y su impacto en la economía
uruguaya. Audap. Retrieved from http://www.audap.com.uy/sitio/wp-content/
uploads/2016/12/ESTUDIO-AUDAP-CINVE-2016-Ppt-pública.pdf.
Fechine, Y. (coord.) (2013). Como pensar os conteúdos transmídias na teledramaturgia brasileira? Uma proposta de abordagem a partir das telenovelas da
Globo. In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes (ed.). Estratégias de transmidiação da ficção
iction producers) and a chat that allowed communication with each of the protagonists,
as well as the possibility to see their tweets. Although the site did not have the chapters
available, it encouraged the download of some of the exclusive content that previously
could be acquired by text message only by the users of phone company MoviStar. The
download of wallpapers was also available.
408 | Obitel 2017
televisiva brasileira. Teledramaturgia, v. 3. Meridional: Porto Alegre.
Ibiñete, L. (2007). Producción de ficción nacional en televisión. Degree thesis,
Universidad Católica del Uruguay.
Radar. El perfil del internauta uruguayo 2016. Retrieved from www.gruporadar.com.uy.
Sánchez Vilela, R. (2012). Caminos de aprendizaje. In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes
and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). Transnacionalización de la ficción televisiva en
los países iberoamericanos. Porto Alegre: Globo-Sulina.
Sánchez Vilela, R. (2013). Búsqueda de un modelo sustentable. In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). Memoria social y ficción televisiva
en países iberoamericanos. Porto Alegre: Globo-Sulina.
Sánchez Vilela, R. (2014). Ficción nacional, impulso y freno. In M. I. Vassallo
de Lopes and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). Estrategias de producción transmediática en la ficción televisiva. Porto Alegre: Globo-Sulina.
Sánchez Vilela, R. (2015). La ley del deseo. Entre la normativa y la producción.
In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). Relaciones de género
en la ficción televisiva. Porto Alegre: Globo-Sulina.
Sánchez Vilela, R. (2016). La invasión turca: transformaciones en la pantalla y
en la audiencia. In M. I. Vassallo de Lopes and G. Orozco Gómez (eds.). (Re)
invención de géneros y formatos en la ficción televisiva. Porto Alegre: GloboSulina.
Ursec (2016). Informe Estadístico de Telecomunicaciones 2016.Ursec. Retrieved
from https://www.ursec.gub.uy/wps/wcm/connect/ursec/e2763c0b-5780-4f0f88bb-f55db2bd999e/Informe+Telecomunicaciones+%28junio+2016%29+Co
rregido..pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CONVERT_TO=url&CACHEID=e2763c0b5780-4f0f-88bb-f55db2bd999e.
12
venezuelA: frActure of democrAcy
Authors:
Morella Alvarado, Luisa Torrealba, Pedro de Mendonca,
Verónica Fuenmayor, Zicri Colmenares, Erick García1
1. Venezuela’s audiovisual context in 2016
During the year 2016, the social, economic and political crisis
affecting Venezuela intensified. Around 28,479 people were killed
in violent acts, for a rate of 91.8 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV,
2016). Severe shortages of food, medicine and other staple commodities, as well as the high indices of insecurity, brought about
at least 5,772 protests and 711 acts of looting, according to records
of the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS, 2017).
Inflation rate for the end of the year is estimated to have surpassed
550%, according to unofficial figures. The obscurity and concealment of these data by government officials is more and more airtight. The crisis intensified after the actions by the Executive Power
and the Judiciary Power, which ignored the functions of the National Assembly. Both powers progressively disqualified the body
that was made up of majority opposition representatives, who took
office in January 2016, thereby violating the National Constitution
and fracturing the country’s democratic fabric.
Amidst this complex panorama, there was a low production of
Venezuelan fiction contents and a recession in the IT sector. This afSpecial thanks to company Nielsen for its selless collaboration in the development of
this research, especially to Alejandra Cuttone and Jesús Blanco, for their valuable contribution. This work also had the invaluable support of “Culture and Mass Media” students,
corresponding to the degree in Motion Picture Arts (2017-1), coordinated by Dr. Morella
Alvarado Miquilena.
1
410 | Obitel 2017
fected access to TV contents via subscription broadcasting services,
as well as via internet and television on demand systems. Obscurity
and lack of transparency on the part of official bodies also had an
inflexion point in 2016, which brought about many obstacles and
difficulties for the monitoring work performed by the Obitel team,
the Venezuelan chapter.
1.1. Open television in Venezuela
Chart 1. National open television networks/channels in Venezuela
Private networks/chanPublic networks /channels (7)
nels (8)
Canal I
Fundación Audiovisual Nacional de Televisión
Globovisión
La Nueva Televisión Del Sur C.A. – Telesur
Meridiano Televisión
Fundación Televisora Venezolana Social – Tves
Televen
Visión Venezuela – Vive TV
TV Familia
Colombeia. La televisora educativa de Venezuela
Tvepaco
Compañía Anónima Venezolana de Televisión VTV
Vale TV
TV Fanb
Venevisión
Conciencia TV
TOTAL NETWORKS = 0 TOTAL CHANNELS = 16
Source: Obitel Venezuela
Chart 1. TV rating and share by station 2
Station
Rating
Globovisión
2.07
Venevisión
1.13
Televen
0.73
Meridiano
0.63
VTV
0.43
TV Familia
0.11
TOTAL
5.10
Share
40.59
22.16
14.31
12.35
8.43
2.16
100
50
40
30
Rating
20
Share
10
0
Globovisión
Venevisión
Televen
Meridiano
VTV
TV Familia
Source: Obitel Venezuela
2
Obitel Venezuela team had no access to data on the average behavior of rating and
share during the entire year of the open TV stations in the country. The data presented
correspond to the measurement of the ranking of the TV stations that broadcast via TV
subscription company DirecTV, for July 2016. Estimation of share was made from estimations by Obitel Venezuela team, 2017.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 411
A noteworthy fact related with the previous year is that digital channel ConCiencia TV, airing via open digital television, was
transferred to open TV signal, in addition to the creation of channel Corazón Llanero TV, broadcasting via open digital television
(MPPEUCT, 2016). This channel, whose responsibility falls on
lieutenant Juan Francisco Escalona, President Nicolás Maduro Moros’ aide-de-camp and the presidency’s Commissioner for Special
Projects of Caracas General Staff, is part of the transmedia government project of the Cultural Foundation Corazón Llanero. It includes radio, TV, record label, recording studio, digital magazine
and multimedia portal.
In the year 2016, a measurement carried out by AGB Nielsen
between January 1st and October 2nd detected a growth in Vale TV
rating (2.98), surpassing the channels that had previously stood out
as the most popular ones, such as Globovisión (2.96) and Meridiano TV (1.80). Among the lowest ratings are: Vive TV (1.13), TV
Familia (1.09), Ávila TV (1.08) and Canal I (1.07) (Producto, 2016).
Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), in February 2016, announced that
it would undergo an image and programming makeover that would
include, among other genres, the telenovela (Elabrelata, 2016),
however, what it eventually broadcast throughout the entire year
was just opinion and information programs with a propaganda slant.
Chart 2. Genres and hours aired on TV programming
Hours
%
2%
running
Information
27:110:55 40,7
3%
12%
3%
Fiction
15:578:53 23,4
1%
Entertainment
9:776:02 14,7
15%
Religion
1:028:35 1,5
41%
Sports
1:828:35 2,7
23%
Education
2:076:00 3,1
Politics
8:276:30 12,4
Others
1:024:28 1,5
TOTAL
66:700:08 100
Source: Data obtained by Obitel Venezuela research team – 2017
Genres aired
Information
Fiction
Entertainment
Religion
Sports
Education
Politics
Others
412 | Obitel 2017
1.2. Audience tendencies in 2016
With respect to the audience tendencies, the national channels
that led the Venezuelans’ preferences were Venevisión and Televen.
In this sense, the most viewed shows on both channels in terms of
TV fiction was Entre tu Amor y mi Amor, a Venevisión telenovela,
and, in the case of Televen, Piel Salvaje, produced by RCTV Producciones. This fiction is an adaptation made by writer Martín Hahn
of memorable telenovela La Fiera, by Julio César Mármol, aired by
Radio Caracas Televisión in 1978. Piel Salvaje shared the spotlight
with Caracol Colombian series Lo que Diga el Corazón. It should
be pointed out that, when Piel Salvaje finished airing (July 2016),
Lo que Diga el Corazón took over the first spot in Televen’s ranking
(AGB Nielsen Venezuela, 2016). Another programming tendency
during the year 2016 was the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (in August),
whose official channel was Tves.
1.3. Advertising investment of the year: in TV and in fiction
For the year 2016, according to Nielsen, the advertising sectors that remained in the first three places in terms of investment
were: food and drinks, with Bs. 5,358,046,114; cosmetics and personal care products, Bs. 2,357,745,715; and telephone services, Bs.
1,050,168,716. On the other hand, as to the airing of commercials
by category, from January to August 2016, the companies occupying the first places were: first, insurance companies; second, restaurants; third, commercial banks; fourth, soft drinks; fifth, gambling
systems; and, finally, cellular telephone companies (AGB Nielsen
Venezuela, 2016). However, the economic crisis the country is undergoing also affected advertising companies in 2016. Due to the
shortage of raw material and products to offer, some clients reduced
their ads. Another element that contributed to the decline of the
products to be advertised is associated with the restrictions imposed
on the advertisers. The categories related with pharmaceuticals and
foods are among the ones undergoing the most significant limitations when it came to advertising them, given the severe shortage of
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 413
products. In addition, many agencies made the decision to migrate
to digital advertising and the management of social networks with
the aim of remaining on the consumer’s mind (Torres, 2016).
1.4. Merchandising and social merchandising
During 2016 and in compliance with the stipulations of the Act
on Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Electronic Media (LRSRTV-ME), the prohibition of performing direct marketing
within the audiovisual contents remained in place. As to social marketing, some TV stations continued the practice of incorporating
messages within the TV offer, and Venevisión and Televen were the
channels that stood out the most in this regard.
In relation with the previous year, some Venevisión campaigns
remained, such as “Somos lo que Queremos”. In 2016, it premiered
new messages targeting children with the aim of promoting citizen
values among the youngest audiences. Said messages were aired
within the space allocated to show Atómico, dedicated to children.
Moreover, the micros “Al Acoso Escolar, Sácalo del Juego”, “Con
Violencia no Hay Paraíso”, “El Buen Venezolano” and “Al Natural es Mejor” were maintained, which were broadcast within the
space of Noticiero Venevisión, along with the campaign “Si te Apuras, ¿qué Ganas?”, whose aim was to prevent teenage pregnancy.
In addition, in 2016, the campaign “Las Mujeres no Callamos” was
launched, aimed at raising the audiences’ awareness about violence
against girls and women and at contributing to its prevention. As an
innovative aspect, this campaign used examples from scenes of the
telenovela with the most viewership of the channel, Entre tu Amor y
mi Amor, and from there renowned Venezuelan actresses invited the
audience to reflect about the issue of gender violence and women’s
rights.
1.5. Communication policies
The threats of applying sanctions – based on the LRSRTV-ME
and the Telecommunications Organic Act – on independent means
414 | Obitel 2017
of communication, because they are airing contents that may be regarded as critical of the national government administration, were
recurrent in 2016. As a consequence, Venezuelan television made
a very limited or null coverage of acts connected with insecurity,
food and medicine shortages and the high inflation rates affecting
the country. Fear of receiving sanctions became the cause of selfcensorship, which affected the contents of the main TV media, in
stark contradiction with the prohibition of censorship, established in
article 57 of the National Constitution. The National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), which regulates the telecommunications activities in the country, ordered the subscription television companies to “refrain” from airing telenovela El Capo and any
other show considered as a “narconovela”, because they consider
that these shows promote anti-values, sexual and gender violence
and they “glorify” the lives of people connected with drug traffic,
which contravene the Law (Conatel, 2016a).
1.6. ICT tendencies
Censorship and self-censorship limiting diffusion of free, plural information on TV media has caused the audience to seek alternative spaces to obtain information on the internet more and more
often. The social networks, especially Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, have become channels to access the news. Side by side, the
digital media continue to consolidate, which enable daily coverage
of newsworthy events with the use of tools for broadcasting live
videos thereby covering public-interest events.
The number of internet subscribers during 2016 amounted to
3,530,500, with 18,329,389 people as users of the service. Internet
penetration reached 61.80 %, according to Conatel records. However, the possibility of downloading videos online was hindered
by the slow speed of internet in Venezuela, which was 1.9 Mbps,
occupying the penultimate place among Latin American countries,
surpassing only Paraguay (Akamai, 2016). Both media have filled
the informative gap imposed on the large open TV media, due to the
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 415
government pressures and censorship. It is also worth mentioning
that internet channel Capitolio TV was opened, which arose from
the National Assembly’s need to release information related with
the body’s sessions, after the former signal of ANTV was suspended on December 31st, 2015, following the orders of the Executive
Power.
The cellular telephony sector underwent a decline; nevertheless, its penetration continues to be high. In the third quarter of
2016, it reached 29,158,082 subscribers (1,670,262 fewer than the
previous year), of which 27,825,933 have active lines, which represents a penetration of 90.06%. Of the total number of subscribers,
13,274,377 own smartphones, which contributed to the fact that social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and applications like WhatsApp, became channels for the access and exchange
of information censored on traditional media (the press, radio and
television). These devices and internet access were the means the
audiences used to access TV contents, even before they were formally premiered in the country, such as it happened in October 2016
when a trailer of series El Comandante was leaked. This biographical story based on the life of the former Venezuelan president, Hugo
Chávez, produced by Sony Pictures Television, was leaked and released on a YouTube account. The promotional video captured the
attention of Venezuelan web surfers and, thanks to them, the piece
positioned itself in the first places trending on the social networks.
Open digital television in 2016 had over 935,402 users (MPPRE, 2016); 19 TV stations also broadcast with this technology, 14
of them are state-run stations, three of them are private and two are
international channels.3
3
Public stations: 123 TV, Alba TV, ANTV, Sibci HD, Ávila TV, Colombeia TV, TV
ConCiencia, Pdvsa TV, Telesur, Tves, TV Fanb, Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), Vive
TV, Corazón Llanero. Private stations: Venevisión, Televen, Meridiano TV. International
stations: Russia Today and China Central Television (CCTV).
416 | Obitel 2017
1.7. Public TV
Since January 1st, 2016 the National Assembly’s TV station (national legislative power) was liquidated and declared unlawful. This
station had been administered by Fundación Asamblea Nacional
Televisión (ANTV). This liquidation was carried out by the former
executive body of that legislative corps, most of whom were progovernment, and by the channel’s president, a representative of the
official Socialist Unified Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Darío Vivas.
This way, the legislative power was stripped of its television channel, whose membership had changed, since, in the December 2015
parliamentary elections, the majority of the elected deputies come
from opposition parties. The equipment and other assets belonging
to the channel were removed from the parliamentary premises and
transferred to a group of channel workers who were President Nicolás Maduro’s sympathizers. Then, they created a new TV station,
called Fundación Audiovisual Nacional de Televisión ANTV: the
Legislating People’s Signal (Ipys Venezuela, 2016), which went on
air for the first time, in a test period, on January 5th, 2016 and a new
programming started on January 15th, 2016. The broadcasts originate from outside the premises of this body, with a programming
and editorial line where political propaganda prevails in favor of the
national government and few contents are related with legislative
life. The new channel is subordinated to the Ministry of Communication and Information (Minci), and thereby it formally stopped
being the National Assembly’s channel. Later on, on October 13th,
2016, the National Assembly launched a new TV station via internet, named Capitolio TV, to broadcast the Legislative Power sessions and thus fill the informative void about parliamentary activities left when ANTV went off the air.
As in previous years, there is a prevalence of propaganda in
favor of Nicolás Maduro’s government on the public media, while
other important political or social actors of the government administration do not have a voice. During 2016, the simultaneously
transmitted addresses amounted to 179 hours, 58 minutes and 16
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 417
seconds, while the special broadcasts and programs by President
Nicolás Maduro, aired via state-run Venezolana de Televisión (the
oldest state-run TV station in the country), amounted to 255 hours,
38 minutes and 43 seconds (Monitoreo Ciudadano, 2017).
1.8. Paid TV
Penetration of paid television reached 66.36 %, for a total
number of 4,964,358 subscribers (Conatel, 2017). The percentage
of subscribers accessing the service under the satellite modality is
68%, while 32% use the cable modality. The economic recession
afflicting the country, the censorship measures that have forced the
companies to stop broadcasting fiction programs such as the socalled “narconovelas”, and the foreign exchange control valid in the
country, which restricts access to the foreign currency that enables
individuals to afford the cost of programming by international channels, have hindered growth in the sector. For example, the number of subscribers of paid television experienced a slight decline in
2016, 0.5% less as compared with the 2015 records, which reached
66.86% (Latam, 2016).
1.9. Independent producers
In this point, it should be remembered that the figure of National Independent Producer (PNI) exists in Venezuela, and open signal
stations are bound to transmit a minimum of five hours a day of
national independent production within their programming. Despite
this, not all the productions made in 2016 were national independent
productions; there were fictions made by international independent
production companies, national production companies belonging to
TV channels and national independent production companies.
Among the independent productions, we find telenovelas: Piel
Salvaje, made by RCTV Producciones (formerly RCTV channel)
and aired by Televen, and Vivir para Amar, produced by Tomates
Fritos Producciones and aired by Tves; as to series, the following
were made: A Puro Corazón (a remake of A Todo Corazón, aired by
418 | Obitel 2017
Venevisión in 1997), a series for the young audience produced by
Laura Visconti Producciones and aired by Televen, and Escándalos,
a series of self-contained stories produced by VIP 2000 and co-produced by Ideas Estudios and Televen (also aired by Televen).
1.10. International tendencies
Within the international tendencies for the year 2016, we can
mention the remake of telenovela Juana la Virgen, but in the AngloSaxon version, whose name in English is Jane the Virgin, which
premiered in 2014 on The CW. By 2016 its third season was being
released. The copy rights of this fiction were bought by Spanish
company Mediaset to make a version adapted for the Iberian audience. On the other hand, Televen created an international channel
called Televen América, which was launched in December 2015.
An event that was not positive for Venezuela, at the international
level, was the cancelation of channel E! Entertainment programming production that was being made in the country. The channel
had Venezuela as its base of operations for an important part of
its regional programming; however, in 2016 it stopped producing
shows Coffee Break, by Patricia Zavala, E! VIP Caracas, by Caterina Valentino, and La Sopa, de Led Varela.4 The trailer of series
El Comandante stands out (produced by Sony Pictures Television),
because it was leaked in October 2016 through the social networks
and caused different reactions in the audience, especially those by
some government spokespeople, who condemned this production
warning that it would never be aired in the country.
4
Information available at http://www.eluniversal.com/noticias/television/deja-fuerashows-caterina-valentino-patricia-zavala-led-varela_247104.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 419
2. Analysis of the year: national and Ibero-American premiere fiction
Table 1. Fictions exhibited in 2016
NATIONAL PREMIERE TITLES – 5
CO-PRODUCTIONS – 2
VENEVISIÓN – 2 national titles
1. Amor Secreto (telenovela)
2. Entre tu Amor y mi Amor (telenovela)
VENEVISIÓN – 1 title
33. Rosario (telenovela – Venezuela,
USA)
TELEVEN – 2 national titles
3. A Puro Corazón (telenovela)
4. Piel Salvaje (telenovela)
TELEVEN – 1 title
34. Escándalos (unitarios – Venezuela,
Mexico, USA, Panama)
TVES – 1 national titles
5. Vivir Para Amar (telenovela)
RERUN TITLES – 25
VENEVISIÓN – 9 titles
1. Arroz con Leche (telenovela – Venezuela)
2. El Chavo (series – Mexico)
3. El Nombre del Amor (telenovela – Mexico)
4. Natalia del Mar (telenovela – Venezuela)
5. NPS (youth series – Venezuela)
6. Qué Clase de Amor (youth series – Venezuela)
7. Teresa (telenovela – Mexico)
8. Tomasa, te Quiero (telenovela – Venezuela)
9.Un Esposo para Estela (telenovela –
Venezuela)
IMPORTED PREMIERE TITLES – 27
VENEVISIÓN – 11 imported titles
6. Amores con Trampa (telenovela – Mexico)
7. Corazón que Miente (telenovela – Mexico)
8. El Hotel de los Secretos (telenovela –
Mexico)
9. El Tesoro (series -Colombia)
10. Hasta que te Conocí (miniseries –
Mexico)
11. La Sombra del Pasado (telenovela –
Mexico)
12. La Vecina (telenovela – Mexico)
13. Lo Imperdonable (telenovela – Mexico)
14. Lola, Érase una Vez (series – Mexico)
15. Pasión y Poder (telenovela – Mexico)
16. Un Camino Hacia el Destino (telenovela – Mexico)
TELEVEN – 12 imported titles
17. Alma de Hierro (telenovela – Mexico)
18. Hermanitas Calle (telenovela – Colombia)
19. La Esclava Blanca (telenovela – Colombia)
20. Laura, una Vida Extraordinaria (telenovela – Colombia)
21. Lo que Diga el Corazón. Niche (series
– Colombia)
TELEVEN – 9 titles
10. Angélica Pecado (telenovela –Venezuela)
11. Carita Pintada (telenovela – Venezuela)
12. Doña Bella (series – Colombia)
13. Dulce Amargo (telenovela – Venezuela, Mexico, USA)
14. El Desprecio (telenovela – Venezuela)
15. Hasta el Fin del Mundo te Amaré (telenovela – Mexico)
16. Nacer Contigo (telenovela – Venezuela)
17. Viva la Pepa (telenovela – Venezuela)
18. Xica da Silva (telenovela – Brazil)
420 | Obitel 2017
22. Los Miserables (series – Mexico)
23. Macarena no Tiene Remedio (telenovela – Colombia)
24. Pulseras Rojas (series – Spain)
25. Silvana sin Lana (telenovela – USA)
26. Tierra de Reyes (telenovela – USA)
27. Tu Voz Estéreo (series – Colombia)
28. Una Rosa con Amor (telenovela – Brazil)
TVES – 7 titles
19. El Aparecido (series – Argentina)
20. El Zorro: la Espada y la Rosa (telenovela – Colombia)
21. Guerreras y Centauros (telenovela –
Venezuela)
22. Lado a Lado (telenovela – Brazil)
23. Miranda Regresa (miniseries – Venezuela)
24. Una Familia con Suerte (telenovela –
TVES – 4 imported titles
Mexico)
29. Amores de Historia (unitarios – Ar- 25. Violetta (youth series – Argentina)
gentina)
30. Babylon (miniseries – Argentina)
TOTAL PREMIERE TITLES: 34
31. Cuento Encantado (telenovela – Bra- TOTAL RERUN TITLES: 25
TOTAL TITLES EXHIBITED: 59
zil)
32. Volver a Nacer (unitarios – Argentina)
Source: Obitel Venezuela
In 2016, 59 titles were exhibited, one more than in the previous
year. Canal I and Colombeia did not include serialized fiction in
their programming. Televen transmitted the first Greek telenovela,
Brusko, la Pasión de lo Prohibido, which is not included in the table.
Spanish telenovela Pulseras Rojas stands out in Televen programming. It should be pointed out that very few Spanish shows were
broadcast in Venezuela. During the year, Brazilian telenovela Xica
da Silva and Mexican series El Chavo were transmitted, which have
been broadcast several times in the country. On the other hand, children’s program Atómico aired several series for the young audience,
which were not included in the table either due to the fact that it was
impossible to access the information.
Table 2. Premiere iction in 2016: countries of origin
Country
NATIONAL (total)
OBITEL COUNTRIES
(total)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
%
Hours
%
5
Chapters/
episodes
14.7
582
14.8
436:30:00
18.7
29
85.3
3348
85.2 1891:44:00 81.3
3
2
0
7
8.8
5.9
0.0
20.6
39
255
0
577
1.0
6.5
0.0
14.7
Titles
%
33:35:00
215:45:00
0:00:00
429:45:00
1.4
9.3
0.0
18.5
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 421
Ecuador
Spain
USA (Hispanic production)
Mexico
Peru
Portugal
Uruguay
Venezuela
CO-PRODUCTIONS (total)
National co-productions
Co-productions between
Obitel countries
GENERAL TOTAL
Source: Obitel Venezuela
0
1
2
12
0
0
0
5
2
2
0.0
2.9
5.9
35.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
14.7
5.9
5.9
0
28
97
1584
0
0
0
582
186
186
0.0
0.7
2.5
40.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
14.8
4.7
4.7
0:00:00
19:36:00
68:19:00
985:14:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
436:30:00
139:30:00
139:30:00
0.0
0.8
2.9
42.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
18.7
6.0
6.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0:00:00
0.0
34
100.0
3930
100.0 2328:14:00 100.0
Table 2 shows that only 14.7% of the premieres correspond to
national titles, whereas 85.3% belong to international productions,
which comes to show once again that there is an unequal proportion
that has remained as a tendency in the last decade in terms of production and exhibition. Telenovela Piel Salvaje stands out among
the premieres because it is the first production by RCTV Producciones after the channel was closed down in 2007, when the open
signal concession was not renewed.
Table 3 shows a change in the time slots. In previous years
the prime time was positioned as the star time slot, however, the
night hours were prioritized due to the summaries and reruns that
Tves has maintained since 2015. It should be pointed out that IberoAmerican productions occupy the first place in all the time slots as
compared with the national ones.
National
Ibero-American
Total
Time slot
Morning (6:00-12:00)
Afternoon (12:00-19:00)
Prime time (19:00-22:00)
Night (22:00-6:00)
Total
Source: Obitel Venezuela
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
H
%
C/E
%
0
262
120
200
582
0.0
45.0
20.6
34.4
100.0
0
196:30:00
90:00:00
150:00:00
436:30:00
0.0
45.0
20.6
34.4
100.0
0
593
1385
1370
3348
0.0
17.7
41.4
40.9
100.0
0:00:00
393:01:00
748:43:00
750:00:00
1891:44:00
0.0
20.8
39.6
39.6
100.0
0
855
1505
1570
3930
0.0
21.8
38.3
39.9
100.0
H
%
0:00:00
0.0
589:31:00 25.3
838:43:00 36.0
900:00:00 38.7
2328:14:00 100.0
Table 4. National and Ibero-American iction formats
National
Time slot
Ibero-American
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Titles
%
C/E
%
H
%
Telenovela
Series
Miniseries
Teleilm
Unitario
Docudrama
Others (soap opera, etc.)
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
582
0
0
0
0
0
0
100.00
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
436:30:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
17
8
2
0
2
0
0
58.6
27.6
6.9
0.0
6.9
0.0
0.0
2912
878
56
0
84
0
0
69.1
28.0
0.9
0.0
2.0
0.0
0.0
1599:44:00
678:00:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
50:30:00
0:00:00
0:00:00
68.7%
29.1%
0.0%
0.0%
2.2%
0.0%
0.0%
Total
5
100.0
582
100.0
436:30:00
100.0
29
100.0
2912
100.0
2328:14:00
100.0%
Source: Obitel Venezuela
422 | Obitel 2017
Table 3. Chapters/episodes and hours aired by time slot
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 423
For over 60 years, the telenovela has been the main entertainment for Venezuelans, and this year was no exception. As it can be
observed in Table 4, this format occupied the first place, with 22
national and Ibero-American productions. The formats series, miniseries and unitarios were broadcast, but there were fewer.
Table 5. Formats of national iction by time slot
MornAfterPrime
To%
%
% Night %
%
ing
noon
time
tal
Telenovela
0
0.0
2
100.0
1
100.0
2
100.0 5 100.0
Series
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Miniseries
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Teleilm
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Unitario
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Docudrama
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
Others
(soap op0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
era, etc.)
Total
0
0.0
2
100.0
1
100.0
2
100.0 5 100.0
Source: Obitel Venezuela
Format
Table 5 shows that the five telenovelas transmitted were aired
in the afternoon slot (12:00-19:00), two at night (22:00-6:00) and
one at prime time (19:00-22:00).
Table 6. Time period in which iction is set
Time
Titles
%
Present
Period
Historical
Other
Total
Source: Obitel Venezuela
5
0
0
0
100.0
0
0
0.0
100.0
As it can be observed in Table 6, the time period that prevailed
in the TV space was the present. This tendency is motivated by the
economic crisis afflicting the country, the high costs associated with
production, among other factors.
424 | Obitel 2017
Table 7. The ten most viewed titles
Title
Country
of original idea
or script
Hasta
1 que te
Conocí
Mexico
Amores
2 con
Trampa
Mexico
3 Teresa
Mexico
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Production
company
Channel
Scriptwriter
or author of
Rating Share
the original
idea
Disney Latinoamérica,
Venevisión Raúl Olivares 3.98% 48.64%
Somos Productions
Carlos Oporto, David
3.60% 43.83%
Televisa Venevisión
Bustos, Jaime
Morales
Ximena
Televisa Venevisión
3.41% 47.99%
Suárez
Arroz con
Venezuela Venevisión Venevisión Doris Segui
Leche
Amor
Venezuela Venevisión Venevisión César Sierra
Secreto
Lo ImperCaridad
Mexico
Televisa Venevisión
donable
Bravo Adams
Pasión y
Marissa GarMexico
Televisa Venevisión
Poder
rido
Unavailable data
Unavailable data
Unavailable data
Total number of productions: 7
100%
Source: Obitel Venezuela and ABG Nielsen Venezuela
3.36% 48.67%
3.17% 42.38%
3.03% 43.10%
2.78% 39.94%
Foreign scripts:
50%
Table 7 has undergone a considerable change in relation with
the previous year. Only seven titles appear, which is due to the fact
that the country’s current situation has limited access to information. Foreign scripts continue to lead the preference of the Venezuelan audience, such is the case of Hasta que te Conocí, based on the
life of singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel, which hogged the rating. The
recession experienced by the production of national fiction is also
reflected in the table. Of the two telenovelas included, only one corresponds to a premiere, the other one is a rerun.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 425
Table 7A. The ten most viewed national titles
Title
1 A Puro Corazón
2 Amor Secreto
3 Arroz con Leche
Entre tu Amor y mi
4
Amor
5 Escándalos
6 Guerreras y Centauros
7 Piel Salvaje
Rating Format Channel/producer Time slot
No data Telenovela
Televen
Prime time
3.17% Telenovela
Venevisión
Night
3.36% Telenovela
Venevisión
Afternoon
8 Rosario
No data Telenovela
No data Telenovela
Venevisión
Night
No data Unitarios
No data Telenovela
No data Telenovela
Televen (co-prod.)
Tves
Televen
Venevisión (coprod.)
Televen
Tves
Prime time
Afternoon
Night
9 Viva la Pepa
No data Telenovela
10 Vivir para Amar
No data Telenovela
Total number of titles: 10
Source: Obitel Venezuela and ABG Nielsen Venezuela
Night
Afternoon
Night
Tables 7A, 8, 9 and 10 show incomplete information5, therefore, the analysis was made with the data presented. As it can be
observed in Table 7A, the titles were organized alphabetically. The
five national premieres ranked among the most viewed. Venevisión
had a greater presence than the rest of the TV stations that broadcast
serialized fiction. Only two ratings are shown.
Table 8. The ten most viewed titles: format, length, time slot
Title
Hasta que te
Conocí
Amores con
2
Trampa
1
5
Number of First and last
chap./ep. transmission Time slot
(in 2016)
(in 2016)
Format
Genre
Miniseries
Drama
13
09/13-09/29
Prime time
Telenovela
Drama
37
01/04-02/22
Prime time
It is very important to point out that, when this report was being drafted (May 2017),
political and economic instability intensiied in the country. The mass occupation of the
public space by collective demonstrations demanding the restitution of the National Assembly functions, elections, the opening of the humanitarian channel and the release of
political prisoners resulted in irregular situations. Among these, excessive repression on
the part of the State security forces, as well as the intervention of task force groups, some
of which are associated with paramilitarism. Also, 51 days of protests have left a toll of
49 people killed and a large number of civilians arrested; many of them put at the disposal
of military courts charged with rebellion and treason. All the above has had a dramatic
impact on the location of and access to information, given the constant interruptions of
the internet service.
426 | Obitel 2017
Telenovela Drama
3 Teresa
58
4 Arroz con Leche Telenovela Dramedy
135
Telenovela Drama
5 Amor Secreto
150
6 Lo Imperdonable Telenovela Drama
121
Telenovela Drama
7 Pasión y Poder
135
Source: Obitel Venezuela and ABG Nielsen Venezuela
01/04-03/28 Afternoon
02/01-08/28/ Afternoon
01/04-02/15
Night
02/16-07/29
Night
02/23-08/26 Prime time
The presence of two Venezuelan telenovelas stands out in Table
8, Arroz con Leche and Amor Secreto. The miniseries about Mexican singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel led the list of the most viewed at
prime time, with only 13 episodes, which is a lot less than the usual
number of telenovela chapters.
Table 9. Themes in the ten most viewed titles
Title
Hasta que te
Conocí
Prevailing themes
Social themes
Prejudice, music icon, Mexican
music enhancement, success.
Rural world culture and habits,
Amores con
Deception, love, family rela2
social inequality and mobility,
Trampa
tions and revenge.
migration.
Poverty, social classes, eco3 Teresa
Greed, revenge, betrayal.
nomic crisis, classism.
Love, Inidelity, hairstyling as Polygamy, sexual diversity,
4 Arroz con Leche
a professional practice.
gender violence.
Culture and customs of the
rural and urban worlds,
Low self-esteem, personal inse5 Amor Secreto
inequality and social mobility, curity, success at work.
migration.
Love, forgiveness, betrayal,
6 Lo Imperdonable
Violence, suicide, homicide.
obsession, ambition.
Gender violence, corruption in
7 Pasión y Poder
Love and power.
politics and business, bastardy.
Source: Obitel Venezuela
1
Biography, music, poverty
and abandonment.
Love and betrayal remain as a constant prevailing theme. The
biographical approach stands out in the list due to miniseries Hasta
que te Conocí, based on the life of singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel;
while poverty and violence headed the social themes, especially
gender violence against women.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 427
Table 10. Proile of the audience in the ten most viewed titles
Gender %
Title
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Hasta que te Conocí
Amores con Trampa
Teresa
Arroz con Leche
Amor Secreto
Lo Imperdonable
Pasión y Poder
Title
Socioeconomic level %
Channel
Venevisión
Venevisión
Venevisión
Venevisión
Venevisión
Venevisión
Venevisión
Channel
1 Hasta que te Conocí Venevisión
2 Amores con Trampa Venevisión
3 Teresa
Venevisión
4 Arroz con Leche
Venevisión
5 Amor Secreto
Venevisión
6 Lo Imperdonable
Venevisión
7 Pasión y Poder
Venevisión
Source: ABG Nielsen Venezuela
Women
Men
AB
C
D
E
3.82
3.68
3.08
3.13
3.55
3.27
3.18
2.76
2.91
2.57
2.43
2.44
2.34
2.39
0.37
0.48
0.06
0.28
0.30
0.51
0.89
3.06
2.58
2.13
2.26
2.45
2.66
2.30
3.18
3.30
3.09
2.71
3.32
2.95
3.12
4.02
4.08
3.06
3.55
3.01
2.86
2.64
4-7 8-11
2.02
1.56
1.42
1.49
1.32
1.07
1.27
2.28
1.72
1.77
1.47
1.52
1.20
1.22
Age groups %
12- 18- 25- 3517
24
34 44
2.20 2.94 2.28 2.78
2.94 2.84 2.37 1.63
2.98 2.69 2.32 1.80
2.60 2.20 2.49 1.64
2.74 2.44 2.28 1.50
2.76 2.55 2.58 1.62
2.63 2.23 2.63 1.75
4554
4.29
5.41
4.12
4.59
4.39
4.31
4.34
55+
5.88
5.96
4.20
4.28
5.80
4.49
4.39
Just as it is observed in Table 10, telenovelas continue to be the
genre viewed the most by women between 45 and over 55 years old,
with an E socioeconomic level. Although men are also an important
part of TV viewership, the last few years have shown that women
have an inclination towards serialized fiction.
3. Transmedia reception
Despite some advances on digital platforms (that are very much
advertised on TV broadcasts), transmedia reception connected with
TV fiction in Venezuela continues to be limited to posting comments by the audience via social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and, with more presence in 2016, Instagram.6
According to oficial igures of Instagram itself, reviewed by the Spanish newspaper
ABC, this network has doubled the number of its users between 2014 and mid-2016.
6
428 | Obitel 2017
The digital context of Venezuelan television this year was
marked by the incorporation of live transmissions of the entire programming of Tves and Canal I on its webpages and the live broadcast of information and opinion spaces El Noticiero, Diálogo Con
and José Vicente Hoy, via Televen webpage. The three TV stations
renovated their images on screen, an aspect that is also reflected in
the new presentation of their webpages.7 In the case of public station
Tves, the incorporation of download tabs stands out, because this
way its visitors can download information about issues as diverse as
“Venezuela’s achievements in the 2016 Olympic Games”, tips for
dealing with stress, propaganda about the Clap (the Local Committees for Supply and Production, the Venezuelan government’s policy by means of which food bags are distributed among the impoverished population), etc. On this tab, internet users can also download
digital magazine Tves al Día, available in a non-periodic manner
since 2014, whose last issue was in November 2016, with information about the channel’s productions and interviews of its talents.
In addition, by pressing this button, it is possible to download some
books in their PDF version.8 On the other hand, Venevisión and
Tvepaco webpages9 did not undergo any substantial changes with
respect to 2015: the former renewed slightly its on-screen image,
which was replicated on its web platform, and the latter continued
using its rudimentary site, in which only two features were available: the timeline of the Twitter account @VEPACOTV12 and a
frame with the live broadcast of the signal, which was not available
during a good part of the year.
In order to exemplify the above, let us take the case of Piel Salvaje, a domestic telenovela produced by RCTV Producciones and
transmitted by Televen. This drama had an unofficial account on
7
The new websites of these channels can be accessed at http://www.televen.com/, http://
www.tves.gob.ve/senal-en-vivo/ and http://www.canal-i.com/seal-en-vivo.
8
Some titles that stand out are: Cien Años de Soledad, by Gabriel García Márquez; El
Libro de Los Abrazos, by Eduardo Galeano; Palabras de Abril, by Hugo Chávez, former
president, and Juan Isaías Rodríguez, former vice-president of the Republic.
9
Available at http://www.venevision.com/ and http://tvepaco.com.ve/.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 429
the social network Twitter (@PielSalvaje_Tv) and another that was
not official either on Instagram (@pielsalvaje_tv).10 The behavior
of Televen accounts on the social networks was characterized by
the promotion of the telenovela chapters, above all during its early
and final days. On Facebook, out of 584 posts made on Televen
account11 from January 10th (when the first Piel Salvaje flyer was
posted) to July 26th (when the telenovela ended), 26 (4.45%) were
about the drama in question (20 flyers and six videos, which were
the same used to advertise the telenovela on TV). Out of these 26
posts, six were before and during the first month in which the production was premiered and eight before and during the last month;
three in March, one in April and two in May. On Twitter, the account @TelevenTV posted four tweets with the phrase “Piel Salvaje” and 169 with the hashtag #PielSalvaje, from January 9th to
July 26th. On Instagram, in turn, from January 9th (the date of the
first post related with the production) to the final day of the telenovela, the official account @televentv posted a total of 21 flyers
to advertise the fiction on the TV screens, ten of which were meant
to announce the telenovela’s premiere. In this period, the number of
posts on this account was 847, that is, just 2.48% of the posts in this
semester concerned Venezuelan telenovela Piel Salvaje. The Instagram account @ireneesser, by the leading star of the story, Irene Esser, posted more photos and, above all, videos about the production:
222 posts from January 9th (when the first video of the telenovela
was published on this account) to July 26th, 32 (14.41%) were about
the telenovela. It should be pointed out about Esser that, unlike the
channel’s account, her posts were more evenly distributed in time
(they were not concentrated in the beginning and the end of the telenovela) and they were different, ranging from videos recorded on
her cell phone as she watched the episodes on the screen, photos of
10
Both accounts boast over 2,000 and 9,000 followers, respectively, linked with Facebook page called Piel Salvaje RCTV (facebook.com/Piel-Salvaje-RCTV), which surpassed 3,000 subscriptions.
11
Available at https://www.facebook.com/TelevenTV/.
430 | Obitel 2017
the shooting of the telenovela to flyers. Her “likes” to her followers’
comments also stand out. The activity of the leading actor, Carlos
Felipe Álvarez (@filipao9), on this social network was less intense:
from January 21st (when he published his first post about the telenovela) to the day the telenovela ended, he only posted five images.
It is also true that his activity on this social network was lesser: the
total number of posts in this period was 72. The behavior of both
of them on Twitter was almost nil.12 None of them has a Facebook
page.
The scant presence of the telenovela on the networks translated
into little interaction by the audience. The 26 posts made on Televen Facebook account during the running time of the telenovela
obtained 274 comments: 10.54 per post. The number of “likes” and
“loves” of these 26 posts was 2,960 (113.85 per post); they were
shared 127 times (an average of 4.88 times per post). The six videos
uploaded onto this network during the transmission of the telenovela were viewed 13,841 times, that is, 2,306.83 views each. These
are very low figures, considering that the account in question surpassed 320,000 subscribers in 2016. On the channel’s official Twitter account, out of the 173 tweets with the hashtag #PielSalvaje and
the phrase “Piel Salvaje” throughout the duration of the telenovela
transmission, only 53 answers were received (0.31 per tweet, which
reflects that there were indeed many that resulted in no interaction);
they were retweeted on 231 occasions (each post was retweeted 1.33
times) and they got 361 “favorites” (2.09 per post). @TelevenTV
celebrated on Twitter having surpassed one million followers in
2016. Lastly, the Instagram figures repeat the same characteristic:
the 21 posts made on the official @televentv account about Piel Salvaje obtained 5,638 “likes”, that is, 268.48 per post, and 270 comments, that is, 12.86 each.
12
Irene Esser (@IreneEsserQ) posted only 18 tweets from February 2nd, the date of the
premiere, to May 10th, two months before the end, with the phrase “Piel Salvaje” and
the hashtag #PielSalvaje. During the telenovela’s transmission, Carlos Felipe Álvarez
(@CarlosFilipao) only posted one tweet, in response to a follower’s negative criticism.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 431
This scant presence of Piel Salvaje on the social networks
is similar to that of productions of the same kind, such as A Puro
Corazón, also aired by Televen and made by producer Laura Visconti. A different behavior was displayed by Venevisión productions Amor Secreto and Entre tu Amor y mi Amor: though they had
a pattern on the social networks that was similar to that of Televen,
they stand out because their content was varied. There were not just
flyers and videos to advertise the episodes, but also interviews of the
crew and cast, behind the scenes, bloopers, greetings by the actors
to their followers on the social networks, etc. That behavior has also
been followed by Televen for the variety shows produced by the
same company, such as Lo Actual, Vitrina, La Bomba, Se Ha Dicho,
El Avispero, etc. This gives us grounds to claim that TV channels in
Venezuela generate digital contents that are exclusive for the shows
produced domestically. This has been a tendency year after year,
with Instagram gaining more strength, but with an audience that is
limited to passiveness.
4. Highlights of the year
TV fiction production during the year 2016 continued to be
contracted. The number of premiere fictions was just five domestic titles and two co-productions, which shows that the crisis has
reached a sector that in the 1980s and 1990s stood out as one of the
greatest producers of fiction in Ibero-America. Despite the fact that
the Act on Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Electronic
Media (LRSRTV-ME) establishes, in its article 7, that at least 50%
of the telenovelas broadcast in the “general public” (between 7 a.m.
and 7 p.m.) and “PG” hours (between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and between
7 p.m. and 11 p.m.) must be produced domestically, it was confirmed that only 17 (42.5%) of the 40 telenovelas broadcast during
the year correspond to national production. Of these, only five were
telenovelas produced in the country (Amor Secreto, Entre tu Amor y
mi Amor, A Puro Corazón, Piel Salvaje and Vivir para Amar), one
was a co-production (Rosario –Venezuela/USA), ten were rerun
432 | Obitel 2017
telenovelas (Arroz con Leche, Natalia del Mar, Tomasa, te Quiero,
Angélica Pecado, Carita Pintada, Un Esposo para Estela, El Desprecio, Nacer Contigo, Viva la Pepa, Guerreras y Centauros) and
one was a rerun co-production (Dulce Amargo – Venezuela/Mexico/
USA).
The production of four animated fictions targeting children
stands out in 2016. They were produced with the financing of the
Social Responsability Fund of the National Telecommunications
Commission (Conatel). They are: Los Cuentos de Don Tulio; Oh
Mundo; Ekiraja, Cuentos Indígenas (3D animation); and Sucre, el
Gran Mariscal de América – which have educational contents promoting Venezuelan culture. They were presented during the event
Gala Audiovisual, by Conatel, held on December 20th, celebrating
the tenth anniversary of the Social Responsability Fund. During the
event, 17 programs were released and Conatel granted the transmission rights of these independent productions to channels Tvepaco,
Tves, VTV and Venevisión (Conatel, 2016b).
The serialized fiction transmitted by the open signal in Venezuela is made up of foreign telenovelas, series and miniseries for the
most part, which have been bought from the Obitel member countries. In addition, the transmission of Greek telenovela Brusko, la
Pasión de lo Prohibido on Televen stands out because this is the
first time this country enters the screens of Venezuelan television.
The presence of Spanish telenovela Pulseras Rojas, transmitted by
Televen as well, is also noteworthy because this country has not often been present on Venezuelan screens. Another element of interest
was the fact that Asian fictions have disappeared from our screens.
TV station Radio Caracas Televisión – a channel whose concession was withdrawn by the Venezuelan state in 2007 –, which at
present works as content producer and distributer at international
level, continued having a presence on the national screen, with the
release of telenovela Piel Salvaje, made by this company, which now
goes by the name of RCTV Productions. This channel also made the
news because Televen reran Angélica Pecado, Carita Pintada and
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 433
Viva la Pepa, telenovelas that had reached high ratings when they
were released by RCTV open signal in the years 2000, 1999 and
2000, respectively. It was remarkable that the first spot in the top
ten was occupied by Hasta que te Conocí, a Mexican series based
on the life of singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel. The rating leadership
reached by this production ratifies the preference that Venezuelan
viewers have had in previous years for biopic productions. The top
ten of the year also revealed the audience’s preference for comedy,
which was present in telenovelas Amores con Trampa (Mexico) and
Arroz con Leche (Venezuelan rerun).
5. Theme of the year: one decade of television fiction in Venezuela. Analysis of ten years of Obitel
Ever since Venezuela joined the Ibero-American Observatory
of Television Fiction, in 2009, the main constant has been the difficulty entailed by accessing the data year after year. This is associated to the scant tradition the country has of systematizing information and its diffusion. Therefore, there are different obstacles that
must be overcome to obtain exact, updated figures regarding the
tendencies of serialized fiction transmitted in the country. That is
so even when we have the timely and invaluable collaboration of
company Nielsen. Generally, the information available is not processed, it is inaccurate or must be found in different sources, which
forces us to collect and compare the data and sometimes even to perform our own calculations to identify general tendencies. In addition, we find that, although broadcasting companies provide weekly
programming for the audience, this programming is constantly
changed, without offering any kind of explanation to the viewers.
There are several factors generating this situation, from the interruptions made by the central government to transmit the so-called radio
and television cadenas (addresses to the audience that are broadcast
simultaneously on all the stations)13 to the arbitrary changes in the
13
According to Monitoreo Ciudadano, a project that seeks to reveal the abuse of power
through the use of the public and private mass media in Venezuela, between February
434 | Obitel 2017
programming, which reveal the little respect the channels have for
the audience.
In these ten years Obitel has been in operation, it should be
worth noticing that there has been a great variation in the spaces
for the broadcast of serialized fiction by open signal in Venezuela.
By the early 2007, the country already had five private channels,
through which it was possible to access fiction: Canal I, La Tele,
RCTV, Televen and Venevisión. That same year, one of the major
fiction producers, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV, 1BC group),
stopped operating through the open signal. That happened after its
concession to use the radioelectric signal was not renewed as political retaliation. Today, RCTV Producciones, one of the branches of
1BC group, works as a production and distribution company whose
contents are aired through Televen, as it was the case of Piel Salvaje. For 2016, fiction had disappeared from the TV offer of two
channels: Canal I and La Tele. Hence, the serialized Ibero-American fiction that circulates through the nation-wide open signal in
Venezuela is played by Tves, Televen, Venevisión and, to a lesser
extent, Venezolana de Television, which represents two public and
two private channels.
Regarding rating and share, it was possible to observe in the
early years that national premiere production had managed to insert
within the top ten constantly. Later on, the decline of these figures is
dramatic. In the first report, in 2009, the top ten was entirely made
up of national productions, when ¿Vieja Yo? reached 10.21 rating
points. In 2010, nine national productions reached the top ten, and
one reached the first spot, La mujer perfecta, with 8.55 rating points.
In 2011, 13 national titles and three co-productions were produced,
out of which three national productions and one co-production with
the USA ranked in the top ten. That year, the production La Viu-
1st, 2013 and April 27th, 2017 there were 710 interruptions of the radioelectric signal by
means of the so-called “Cadena Nacional de Radio y Televisión” in Venezuela. This
represents 733:05:22 hours transmitting oficial messages of propaganda nature, with an
average 00:27:56 minutes per day.
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 435
da Joven reached the first spot, with 7.25 rating points. In 2012,
13 national productions and nine co-productions were made; four
national titles ranked in the top ten, with Mi Ex me Tiene Ganas
reaching the first spot, with 5.38 rating points. In 2013, only one national production and six co-productions with Colombia, USA and
Mexico were made. That year, although three original Venezuelan
scripts ranked in the top ten, only two productions were made in the
country. De Todas Maneras Rosa reached the sixth spot, with 4.92
rating points. In 2014, nine national titles were produced, five of
them in co-production; three titles managed to secure a spot in the
top ten, and, of these, Corazón Esmeralda ranked sixth, with 4.22
rating points. In 2015, national production resulted in seven titles
and two co-productions; three titles reached the top ten, with Voltea
pa que te Enamores in the fourth spot, with 3.70 rating points. In
2016, there are five premiere titles and two co-productions; only
two productions managed to enter the top ten. Of these, the one with
the most points was Arroz con Leche, a Venevisión rerun that ranked
fourth, with 3.36 rating points. After eight years, the crisis afflicting
Venezuela has also enthroned in the fiction production, as well as in
the viewership. Eight years ago, the number one fiction scored over
ten points, but in 2016 it barely reached 3.98. This reveals that the
audiences, though still connected with fiction, are having access to
the audiovisual universe via spaces that are not only available on the
open signal.
Through the decade, Venezuelan TV fiction has had the impact
of two aspects connected with public policies. On one hand, it is
possible to observe encouraging actions that aimed at diversifying
the production of contents and thereby the producers’ voices. This
was done specifically through the figure of National Independent
Producers (PNI) and the setting up of the Social Responsibility
Fund on Radio and Television, in charge of which is Conatel, encouraging both content generation and the equipment and funding
for the production. Under the PNI scheme, contents of the epic and
historical kind were created, such as telenovela Guerreras y Centau-
436 | Obitel 2017
ros (2016), series La Precursora (2017) or series Operación Orión
(2016), still to be released. Under the Social Responsibility Fund,
between the years 2006 and 2016, 599 productions were made in
different formats (audio, multimedia and audiovisual). Several of
these productions stand out, among them miniseries El Diario de
Bucaramanga (2013), as well as telenovela Teresa en Tres Estaciones (2012), comedies Hotel de Locura (2011) and Nos Vemos
en el Espejo (2012), unitario Mía Magdalena (2010) and Autólisis
(2011), with a religious content. The call made by the Social Responsibility Fund for the year 2014 did not include financing for
production, but for the development of scripts. The other aspect that
has influenced fiction is the existence of a legislation that controls
the contents imposing different forms of censorship and self-censorship through regulation instruments. An example of this action was
the removal of the air of Chepe Fortuna, El Capo, Rosario Tijeras
and La Reina del Sur. A strategy that has had an impact on the production of serialized fiction is the creation of feature films for the
movies – through state-run production company Fundación Villa
del Cine – that are segmented and presented as miniseries. Such is
the case of Miranda Regresa (2007).
Regarding the themes, we see that, in keeping with the telenovela format, the plots are built on the basis of love stories. In
addition to this, there have been a large number of topics that are
vital when it comes to offering contents with a social impact. Thus,
the life in a popular market and the operations of the informal
economy were portrayed in Ciudad Bendita (2006); the inclusion
of the gender perspective was shown in Voltea pa que te Enamores
(2006) and Teresa en Tres Estaciones (2012); the struggles of a rural
community in the face of predatory tourism in Aunque Mal Paguen
(2007); the inclusion of sexual diversity by means of a transgender
character in Tomasa, te Quiero (2009); the vindication of a mature
woman in ¿Vieja Yo? (2008); the inclusion of the body, disease and
the myth of beauty in La Mujer Perfecta (2010). Another trend that
has stood out, especially from the perspective of production made
Venezuela: fracture of democracy | 437
with public funding, is the inclusion of the socialist political project
not only through the topics but also as a style of production. Under this scheme, a group of film makers, united in a cooperative,
produced Amores de Barrio Adentro (2004, rerun in 2014), through
which an attempt was made to promote the medical assistance project connected with the Cuban government called Misión Barrio
Adentro, as well as showing the clash between officialism and opposition from a Manichean perspective. Another product that stands
out is Caramelo e’ Chocolate (2008, rerun in 2015), which extolled
the so-called blackness. Subsequently, it was suggested from the
State to make “socialist telenovela”, as a way of transmitting contents that were not negative, such as the ones presented especially
by the narconovelas. Based on this scheme, the abovementioned
telenovela Teresa en Tres Estaciones was produced, conceived as a
youthful telenovela, which promoted the railway system in Valles
del Tuy. Interestingly, there was an interest in including the historical telenovela as a formula. Appealing to history to legitimize
heroism and the military perspective is a constant phenomenon in
the State production. Regarding the narrative forms, there are two
aspects that stand out within the national production. On one hand,
the inclusion of humor as a stylistic device, alluding to one of the
sociocultural characteristics of Venezuelans and its variables, such
as irony, parody or sarcasm. With it, the comedy tone is inserted in
the production of Venezuelan serialized fiction, either through key
characters, situations or specific dialogs. The other stylistic device
used is the inclusion of suspense and intrigue, along with the use of
the thriller as a format. In this context, Martin Hahn stands out as
the dramatic writer who has given this feature to Venezuelan production, leaving an imprint on the audiences. Co-production as a
formula was the resource used to sort out the profound economic
crisis afflicting the country. Thus, Colombia, the USA, Mexico and
Panama have worked as strategic partners. Regarding production
formulas, a sign that came close to connecting with the new technologies was the inclusion of webnovelas, such as Bleep (2014),
438 | Obitel 2017
with a comedy format, as well as availability of full episodes of their
productions on the channels’ websites. This fact reveals that transmediation of Venezuelan production is still very weak and there is
little relation established with the audiences; in addition, there are
limited resources invested for them. Apparently, this possibility for
interaction is largely ignored by the channels and, therefore, it is
not exploited much, compounding the connectivity problems of the
country in question. After ten years, the challenges lie in strengthening the potentials of the sector, namely a knowhow accumulated
for many years; their production capacity and the low costs that producing in Venezuela entail – paradoxically – in relation with other
contexts and, especially, the wealth that exploiting the scripts and
the stories in a profitable, sustainable manner would bring. All of
this amidst the most profound and dramatic political, social and economic crisis that afflicts the country today.
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toP ten tv fIctIon In
obItel countrIes
ARGENTINA
1. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos
Production: Record TV
Direction: Daniel Ghivelder,
Alexandre Avancini, Vivianne Jundi, Michele Lavalle, Armé Mamente, Hamsa Wood
Script: Vívian de Oliveira
Cast: Guilherme Winter, Sérgio
Marone, Camila Rodrigues, Giselle
Itié
2. Educando a Nina
Production: Underground, Telefe
Direction: Mariano Ardanaz, Javier
Pérez, Daniel De Felippo
Script: Ernesto Korovsky, Silvina
Frejdkes, Alejandro Quesada
Cast: Griselda Siciliani, Esteban
Lamothe, Diego Ramos, Jorgelina
Aruzzi, Nicolás Furtado
3. Los Ricos no Piden Permiso
Production: Pol-ka
Direction: Gustavo Luppi, Rodolfo
Antúnez, Alejandro Ibáñez
Script: Marcos Carnevale, Willy
Van Broock, Jessica Valls, Christian
Basilis
Cast: Luciano Castro, Araceli González, Gonzalo Heredia, Agustina
Cherri, Luciano Cáceres, Julieta
Cardinali, Juan Darthés, Sabrina
Garciarena
4. Los Milagros de Jesús
Production: Record TV
Direction: Eduardo Gomes, Bruno
Ahmed, Bruno Padilha
Script: Camilo Pellegrini, Vívian
de Oliveira, Renato Modesto, Paula
Richard, Maria Cláudia Oliveira,
Gustavo Reiz
Cast: Flávio Rocha, Caio Junqueira,
Marcello Gonçalves, Maurício Ribeiro, Rodrigo Vidigal, Pierre Santos, Pedro Coelho, Diogo Cardoso
5. Loco x Vos
Production: Telefe, Sony Pictures
Entertainment
Direction: Negro Luna
Script: Daniel Cuparo, Lily Ann
Martin
Cast: Juan Minujín, Julieta Zylberberg, Fernán Mirás, Marina Bellati,
Agustina Lecouna, Damián Dreizik
6. Esperanza Mía
Production: Pol-ka
Direction: Sebastián Pivotto, Lucas
Gil
Script: Marta Betoldi, Claudio
Lacelli, Lily Ann Martin
Cast: Lali Espósito, Mariano
Martínez, Tomás Fonzi, Natalie
Pérez, Gabriela Toscano, Ana María
Picchio, Rita Cortese
442 | Obitel 2017
7. La Leona
Production: El Árbol
Direction: Negro Luna, Pablo Ambrosini, Omar Aiello
Script: Pablo Lago, Susana Cardozo
Cast: Nancy Dupláa, Pablo Echarri,
Miguel Ángel Solá, Esther Goris,
Mónica Antonópulos, Ludovico Di
Santo
8. Silencios de Familia
Production: Pol-ka
Direction: Daniel Barone
Script: Javier Daulte
Cast: Adrián Suar, Julieta Díaz,
Florencia Bertotti
9. Por Amarte Así
Production: Azteka Films, CTV
Contenidos, Endemol
Direction: Viviana Guadarrama,
Mauro Scandolari
Script: Claudio Lacelli, Carolina
Parmo
Cast: Gabriel Corrado, Aylin Prandi, Catherine Fulop, Maite Zumelzú,
Sergio Surraco, Héctor Bidonde,
Brenda Asnícar, Gastón Soffritti
10. Imperio
Production: Globo
Direction: Rogério Gomes, Pedro
Vasconcelos, André Felipe Binder
Script: Aguinaldo Silva
Cast: Alexandre Nero, Lília Cabral, Leandra Leal, Drica Moraes,
Marjorie Estiano, Caio Blat, Rafael
Cardoso, Andreia Horta, Daniel
Rocha, Marina Ruy Barbosa
BRAZIL
1. A Regra do Jogo
Production: Globo
Direction: Amora Mautner, Joana
Jabace, Paulo Silvestrini
Script: João Emanuel Carneiro
Cast: Alexandre Nero, Giovanna
Antonelli, Vanessa Giácomo, Cauã
Reymond, Tony Ramos, Susana
Vieira, Cássia Kis, José de Abreu
2. Totalmente Demais
Production: Globo
Direction: Luiz Henrique Rios
Script: Rosane Svartman, Paulo
Halm
Cast: Marina Ruy Barbosa, Fábio
Assunção, Juliana Paes, Felipe Simas, Vivianne Pasmanter, Humberto
Martins, Glória Menezes, Reginaldo
Faria
3. Velho Chico
Production: Globo
Direction: Luiz Fernando Carvalho
Script: Benedito Ruy Barbosa,
Edmara Barbosa, Bruno Barbosa
Luperi
Cast: Antonio Fagundes, Christiane
Torloni, Rodrigo Santoro, Camila
Pitanga, Domingos Montagner,
Irandhir Santos, Selma Egrei, Marcelo Serrado
4. Êta Mundo Bom!
Production: Globo
Direction: Jorge Fernando
Script: Walcyr Carrasco
Cast: Sergio Guizé, Débora Nascimento, Flávia Alessandra, Eriberto
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 443
Leão, Bianca Bin, Marco Nanini,
Eliane Giardini, Elizabeth Savalla
Vitti, Ana Beatriz Nogueira, Herson
Capri
5. Haja Coração
Production: Globo
Direction: Fred Mayrink
Script: Daniel Ortiz
Cast: Mariana Ximenes, Malvino
Salvador, João Baldasserini, Cleo
Pires, Alexandre Borges, Malu
Mader, Sabrina Petráglia, Marcos
Pitombo
9. Ligações Perigosas
Production: Globo
Direction: Denise Saraceni, Vinícius Coimbra
Script: Manuela Dias
Cast: Patrícia Pillar, Selton Mello,
Marjorie Estiano, Alice Wegmann,
Jesuíta Barbosa, Leopoldo Pacheco,
Lavínia Pannunzio, Aracy Balabanian
6. Justiça
Production: Globo
Direction: José Luiz Villamarim
Script: Manuela Dias
Cast: Débora Bloch, Jesuíta
Barbosa, Adriana Esteves, Enrique
Diaz, Luísa Arraes, Jéssica Ellen,
Cauã Reymond, Marjorie Estiano
7. A Lei do Amor
Production: Globo
Direction: Denise Saraceni, Natália
Grimberg
Script: Maria Adelaide Amaral,
Vincent Villari
Cast: Cláudia Abreu, Reynaldo
Gianecchini, Vera Holtz, José Mayer, Tarcísio Meira, Alice Wegmann,
Humberto Carrão, Isabella Santoni
8. Rock Story
Production: Globo
Direction: Dennis Carvalho, Maria
de Médicis
Script: Maria Helena Nascimento
Cast: Vladimir Brichta, Nathalia
Dill, Alinne Moraes, João Vicente
de Castro, Caio Paduan, Rafael
10. Além do Tempo
Production: Globo
Direction: Rogério Gomes, Pedro
Vasconcelos
Script: Elizabeth Jhin
Cast: Alinne Moraes, Rafael
Cardoso, Paolla Oliveira, Irene
Ravache, Ana Beatriz Nogueira,
Felipe Camargo, Juca de Oliveira,
Júlia Lemmertz
CHILE
1. Señores Papis
Production: Mega (Patricio López)
Direction: Patricio González, Javier
Cabieses
Script: Rodrigo Cuevas, Ximena
Carrera, Nicolás Wellmann, Isabel
Budinich, José Fonseca
Cast: Jorge Zabaleta, Francisco
Melo, Simón Pesutic, María Gracia
Omegna, Francisca Imboden, Francisca Walker and others
2. Papá a la Deriva
Production: Mega (Daniela Demicheli, Claudia Cazenave)
444 | Obitel 2017
Direction: Felipe Arratia, Mauricio
Lucero
Script: Daniella Castagno, Alejandro Bruna, Paula Parra, Felipe
Contreras, Raúl Gutiérrez
Cast: María Gracia Omegna, Gonzalo Valenzuela, Francisca Imboden,
Ignacio Achurra, Fernando Larraín
and others
3. Pobre Gallo
Production: Mega (Daniela Demicheli, Bruno Córdova)
Direction: Nicolás Alemparte,
Enrique Bravo
Script: Rodrigo Bastidas, Milena
Bastidas, Hugo Castillo, Elena Muñoz, Alejandra Saavedra
Cast: Álvaro Rudolphy, Paola Volpato, Ingrid Cruz, Augusto Schuster,
Mariana di Girólamo, Francisco
Puelles, Antonia Zegers and others
4. Amanda
Production: AGTV/Mega (Daniela
Demicheli, Cecilia Aguirre)
Direction: Matías Stagnaro
Script: Luis Ponce, Daniela Lillo,
María Luisa Hurtado, Felipe Montero, Lula Almeyda
Cast: Daniela Ramírez, Felipe
Contreras, Carlos Díaz, Álvaro
Gómez, Ignacio Garmendia, Loreto
Valenzuela and others
5. Ámbar
Production: Mega (Patricio López)
Direction: Felipe Arratia, Enrique
Bravo
Script: Daniella Castagno, Paula
Parra, Alejandro Bruna, Felipe Ro-
jas, Raúl Gutiérrez
Cast: Sigrid Alegría, Gonzalo
Valenzuela, Giulia Inostroza, María
José Bello, Álvaro Morales, Coca
Guazzini and others
6. Te Doy la Vida
Production: AGTV/Mega (Patricio
López, Cecilia Aguirre)
Direction: Claudio López, Manuel
Buch
Script: María José Galleguillos,
Arnaldo Madrid, Hugo Morales,
Rosario Valenzuela
Cast: Cristián Riquelme, Celine
Reymond, Álvaro Espinoza, León
Izquierdo, Constanza Araya, María
José Illanes and others
7. Eres mi Tesoro
Production: AGTV/Mega (Daniela
Demicheli, Cecilia Aguirre)
Direction: Nicolás Alemparte,
Manuel Buch
Script: Yusef Rumie, Pablo
Riquelme, Francisco Bobadilla, Luis
Ponce, Rosario Valenzuela, Isabel
Budinich
Cast: María José Bello, Álvaro
Morales, Viviana Rodríguez, Felipe
Contreras, César Caillet and others
8. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos
Production: Rede Record
Direction: Alexandre Avancini
Script: Vivian de Oliveira
Cast: Guilherme Winter, Sergio
Marone, Camila Rodrigues, Giselle
Itié, Petronio Gontijo, Denise del
Vechio and others
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 445
9. Veinteañero a los 40
Production: Canal 13 (Patricia
Encina, Jorge Singh)
Direction: Germán Barriga, Enrique
Aedo
Script: Sergio Díaz, Adela Boltansky, José Fonseca, Diego Niño,
Carla Stagno, Rodrigo Urrutia
Cast: Francisco Pérez-Bannen,
Tamara Acosta, Pablo Macaya,
Fernanda Urrejola, Silvia Santelices,
Sigrid Alegría, Néstor Cantillana
and others
10. Abismo de Pasión
Production: Televisa
Direction: Sergio Cataño, Claudio
Reyes Rubio, Janet Bernardo
Script: Juan Carlos Alcalá, Rosa
Salazar, Fermín Zúñiga, Rossana
Ruiz
Cast: Angelique Boyer, Alejandro
Camacho, Blanca Guerra, David
Zepeda, Mark Tacher, Sabine
Moussier and others
COLOMBIA
1. La Niña
Production: Caracol Televisión
Direction: Rodrigo Triana, Camilo
Vega
Guión/idea original: Juana Uribe
Cast: Ana María Estupiñán, Sebastián Eslava, Roger Moreno, Marcela
Benjumea, Fernando Arévalo, Juan
Millán, Alberto Cardeño, Marcelo
Dos Santos
2. Las Hermanitas Calle
Production: Caracol Televisión
Direction: Luis Alberto Restre-
po, Juan Carlos Vásquez, Jorge
Sandoval
Guion: César Betancurt
Cast: Yury Vargas, Carolina Gaitán,
Juan Pablo Urrego, Gill González
Hoyos
3. La Esclava Blanca
Production: Caracol Televisión
Direction: Liliana Bocanegra
Guión/idea original: Claudia F.
Sánchez, Said Chamie, Andrés
Burgos
Cast: Nerea Camacho, Sara Pinzón,
Orián Súarez, Miguel de Miguel,
Modesto Lacen
4. Sin Tetas Sí Hay Paraíso
Production: FOX Telecolombia
Direction: Diego Mejía
Guión/idea original: Gustavo
Bolívar
Cast: Catherine Siachoque, Fabián
Ríos, Carolina Gaitán, Juan Pablo
Urrego
5. Cuando Vivas Conmigo
Production: Caracol Televisión
Direction: Andrés Biermann
Guión/idea original: Mario Vargas
Llosa, Ana María Parra
Cast: Caterin Escobar, Diego Trujillo, Sandra Reyes, Christian Tappan
6. Anónima
Production: Sony Pictures
Direction: Andrés Biermann, Carlos
Mario Urrea
Script: Juan Andrés Granados, Juan
Francisco Domínguez, Gerardo
Pinzón Cast: Verónica Orozco, San-
446 | Obitel 2017
tiago Alarcón Julián Arango, Carlos
Serrato
7. Hasta que te Conocí
Production: Disney Latino/Somos
Producción
Direction: Álvaro Curiel
Script: Raúl Olivares
Cast: Julián Román, Dolores Heredia, Damayanti Quintanar, Andrés
Palacios, Luis Fernando Ruiz Capuena, Ernesto Gómez Cruz
8. Bloque de Búsqueda
Production: Teleset
Direction: Israel Sánchez, Rodrigo
Lalinde
Script: Jörg Hiller
Cast: Rafael Novoa, Carolina Gómez, Sebastián Martínez, Verónica
Orozco
9. Celia
Production: Fox Telecolombia
Direction: Víctor Mallarino, Liliana
Bocanegra
Script: Andrés Salgado, Paul
Rodríguez
Cast: Jeimy Osorio, Aymee Nuviola, Modesto Lacen, Willy Denton,
Carolina Gaitán, Marcela Gallego,
Aida Bossa, Margoth Velásquez,
Moisés Angulo
10. Contra el Tiempo
Production: Fox Telecolombia
Direction: Diego Mejía, Mónica
Botero
Script: Alberto “Albatroz” Gonzales, Alejandro Torres Reyes
Cast: Diego Cadavid, Carolina
Ramírez, Sebastián Martínez, Eileen
Roca, Manuel Navarro, Marcelo
Dos Santos, Carlos Manuel Vesga
ECUADOR
1. El Más Querido
Production: Ecuavisa
Direction: Peky Andino
Script: Peky Andino, María Beatriz
Vergara
Cast: Santiago Carpio, Estela Redondo, Ana Lucía Silva, Érika Vélez
2. 3 Famílias
Production: Ecuavisa
Direction: Marcos Espín
Script: Eddie González, Cristian Cortez, Cecil Stacio, Ernesto
Landín, Alfredo Piguave, Daniel
Jiménez
Cast: Martín Calle, Cecilia Cascante, Marcela Ruete, Frank Bonilla,
Érika Vélez, Diego Spotorno
3. Diómedes, el Cacique de la Junta
Production: RCN Televisión
Direction: Herney Luna
Script: Fernán Rivera, Sandra
Gaitán, Juan Troncoso, Pedro
Hernández
Cast: Orlando Liñán, Juan Escalona,
Kimberly Reyes, Laura Rodríguez
4. La Trinity
Production: Ecuavisa
Direction: Luis Aguirre, Darío
Fernández, Diana Jaramillo
Script: Xavier Hidalgo, Alfredo
Piguave, Cecil Stacio, Eduardo
Valverde, Pablo Velázquez
Cast: José Caballero, Samantha
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 447
Grey, Adriana Bowen, Tábata
Galvez, Diego Álvarez
5. Verdades Secretas
Production: Globo
Direction: Mauro Mendonça Filho
Script: Walcyr Carrasco, María
Elisa Berredo
Cast: Rodrigo Lombardi, Drica
Moraes, Camila Queiroz, Marieta
Severo
6. 3 Familias
Production: Ecuavisa
Direction: Lucho Aguirre
Script: Eddie González, Alfredo
Piguave
Cast: Marcela Ruete, Christian
Maquilón, Érika Vélez, Cecilia
Cascante, Martín Calle
7. Los Hijos de Don Juan 2 Production: TC Televisión
Direction: Manuel Arias
Script: José Navarrete, Bertha Tejada, Karina Villavicencio, Ángela
Chavarría, Ronald Hidalgo
Cast: David Reinoso, Víctor Aráuz,
Leonardo Moreira, Isaam Eskandar,
José Urrutia
8. Los Hijos de Don Juan 1
Production: TC Televisión
Direction: Manuel Arias
Script: José Navarrete, Bertha Tejada, Karina Villavicencio, Ángela
Chavarría, Ronald Hidalgo
Cast: Víctor Aráuz, Leonardo
Moreira, Isaam Eskandar, José Urrutia
9. Imperio
Production: Globo
Direction: Rogério Gomes, Pedro
Vasconcelos, André Felipe Binder
Script: Aguinaldo Silva
Cast: Alexandre Nero, Lília Cabral,
Caio Blat, Leandra Leal, José Mayer
10. Señora Acero
Production: Telemundo, Argos
Direction: Jaime Segura, Walter
Doehner, Miguel Varoni
Script: Roberto Stopello
Cast: Blanca Soto, Carolina
Miranda, Michel Duval, Luis Ernesto Franco, Gaby Espino, Lincoln
Palomeque
SPAIN
1. El Príncipe
Production: Plano a Plano
Direction: Norberto López, José
Ramos Paíno, Iñaki Mercero, Javier
Quintas, Alfonso Arandia
Script: Aitor Gabilondo, César
Benítez (creators and executive producers), Verónica Fernández, Carlos
López, Joan Barbero
Cast: Álex González, Hiba Abouk,
José Coronado, Rubén Cortada,
Stany Coppet, Elia Galera, Juanma
Lara, Thaïs Blume, Ayoub El Hilali,
Susana Córdoba, Tomás Calleja
2. La que se Avecina
Production: Contubernio
Direction: Laura Caballero, Miguel
Albaladejo
Script: Alberto Caballero, Laura
Caballero, Daniel Deorador, Araceli
Álvarez de Sotomayor
448 | Obitel 2017
Cast: Ricardo Arroyo, Cristina
Castaño, Pablo Chiapella, José Luis
Gil, Nacho Guerreros, Macarena
Gómez, Eva Isanta, Cristina Medina,
Antonio Pagudo, Vanesa Romero,
Jordi Sánchez, Luis Miguel Seguí,
Nathalie Seseña, Fernando Tejero,
Petra Martínez, Paz Padilla
3.Velvet
Production: Bambú Producciones
Direction: David Pinillos, Manuel
Gómez Pereira, Carlos Sedes, Jorge
Sánchez-Cabezudo
Script: Ramón Campos, Gema R.
Neira (creators), Teresa FernándezValdés
Cast: Paula Echevarría, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón,
José Sacristán, Manuela Velasco,
Adrián Lastra, Miriam Giovanelli,
Manuela Vellés, Cecilia Freire, Marta Hazas, Javier Rey, Juana Acosta,
Llorenç González, Ángela Molina,
Diego Martín, Raúl Arévalo, Gorka
Otxoa, Rosario Pardo, Ingrid Rubio,
Amaia Salamanca, Asier Etxeandia
4. Cuéntame Cómo Pasó
Production: Grupo Ganga
Direction: Agustín Crespi, Antonio
Cano, Moisés Ramos, Óscar Aibar
Script: Ignacio del Moral, Joaquín
Oristrell (coordinators), Eduardo Ladrón de Guevara, Joaquín Oristrell,
Ignacio del Moral, Pablo Bartolomé,
Sonia Sánchez, Bárbara Alpuente,
Curro Royo, Jacobo Delgado
Cast: Immanol Arias, Ana Duato,
Ricardo Gómez, María Galiana,
Juan Echanove, Pablo Rivero, Irene
Visedo, Paula Gallego, Ana Arias,
Manolo Cal, Silvia Espigado, Santiago Crespo, Elena Rivera, Santiago
Crespo, Antonio Canal, Lluvia Rojo
5. Lo que Escondían sus Ojos
Production: MOD Producciones
Direction: Salvador Calvo
Script: Helena Medina (adapted
from the telenovela of the same
name by Nieves Herrero)
Cast: Blanca Suárez, Rubén Cortada, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, Charlotte Vega, David Solans, Loreto
Mauleón, Pepa Aniorte, Pepa Rus,
Javier Rey, Víctor Clavijo, Antonio
Pagudo, Cristina de Inza, Verónika
Moral, Ben Temple, Belinda Washington, Ricardo de Barreiro
6. Allí Abajo
Production: Plano a Plano
Direction: Iñaki Mercero, Joaquín
Mazón, Jacobo Martos
Script: Óscar Terol, Olatz Arroyo,
Marta Sánchez, Natxo López
Cast: María León, Jon Plazaola,
Mariano Peña, Ane Gabarain,
Salva Reina, Mari Paz Sayago,
Alberto López, Óscar Terol, Gorka
Aguinagalde, Iker Galartza, Maribel
Salas, Santi Ugalde, Noemí Ruiz,
David Arnaiz, Nerea Garmendia,
Beatriz Cotobal, Teresa Quintero
7. El Padre de Caín
Production: Boomerang TV
Direction: Salvador Calvo
Script: Alejandro Hernández
(adapted from the telenovela of the
same name by Rafael Vera)
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 449
Cast: Quim Gutiérrez, Patxi
Freytez, Aura Garrido, Luis Bermejo, Oona Chaplin, Cristina Plazas,
Teresa Hurtado de Ory, Ricardo
Gómez, Patrick Criado
8. Mar de Plástico
Production: Boomerang TV
Direction: Norberto López Amado,
Alejandro Bazzano, Javier Quintas
Script: Juan Carlos Cueto, Rocío
Martínez Llano, Pablo Tebar Alberto, Manzano Almudena Ocaña,
Juan Carlos Blázquez
Cast: Rodolfo Sancho, Belén López,
Pedro Casablanc, Patrick Criado,
Federico Aguado, Andrea del Río,
Lisi Linder, Will Shephard, Lucho
Fernández, Jesús Castro, Andrea
Ros, Nya de la Rubia, Máximo Pastor, Adelaida Polo
9. Buscando el Norte
Production: Aparte Producciones
Direction: Nacho G. Velilla, Oriol
Capel, Antonio Sánchez, David S.
Olivas, Antonio Sánchez, Oriol Ferrer, Javi Luna
Script: Oriol Capel, David S. Olivas, Antonio Sánchez, Marina Pérez,
Jorge Anes
Cast: Antonio Velázquez, Belén
Cuesta, Manuel Burque, Terele
Pávez, Silvia Alonso, Goizalde
Núñez, Fele Martínez, Jesús Carroza, Elisa Mouliaá, Kimberley Tell,
Jorge Bosch, Bárbara Santa-Cruz,
Luis Zahera, Ferran Rañé, Gillian
Apter
10. Bajo Sospecha
Production: Bambú Producciones
Direction: Ramón Campos,
Gema R. Neira, Silvia Quer, Jorge
Sánchez-Cabezudo
Script: Ramón Campos, Gema R.
Neira, Teresa Fernández-Valdés,
Eligio R. Montero, Moisés Gómez,
Adolfo Valor, Cristóbal Garrido,
María José Rustarazo, Carlos Portela
Cast: Yon González, Blanca Romero, Lluís Homar, Pedro Alonso,
Alicia Borrachero, Armando del
Río, Melanie Olivares, Gloria Muñoz, Natalia de Molina, José Ángel
Egido, Vicente Romero, Georgina
Amorós, Roger Padilla, María Cotiello, Concha Velasco
UNITED STATES
1. Hasta que te Conocí
Production: Disney, Somos Productions, BTF Media
Direction: Álvaro Curiel, Leonardo
Aranguibel, Rigoberto Castañeda,
Alfonso Pineda
Script: Raúl Olivares, Leonardo
Aranguibel, Hector Barrios, Denis
Languérand, Elías Marín Govea,
Alfredo Mendoza
Cast: Julián Román, Dolores Heredia, Marco Treviño, Carlos Elías
Yorvick, Irán Castillo
2. Yo no Creo en los Hombres
Production: Televisa
Direction: Erick Morales, Xavier
Romero, Luis Vélez
Script: Caridad Bravo Adams, Aida
Guajardo, Felipe Ortiz
Cast: Adriana Louvier, Gabriel
450 | Obitel 2017
Soto, Rosa María Bianchi, Azela
Robinson, Macaria
3. Pasión y Poder
Production: Televisa
Direction: Salvador Garcini, Alejandro Gamboa, Salvador Sánchez,
Roberto Escamilla
Script: Marissa Garrido, Ximena
Suarez, Janely Lee, Julián Aguilar,
Vanesa Varela
Cast: Jorge Salinas, Fernando
Colunga, Susana González, Marlene
Favela
4. Señora Acero 2
Production: Telemundo, Argos
Direction: Miguel Varoni, Walter
Doehner, Jaime Segura, Carlos Villegas, Daniel Aguirre
Script: Roberto Stopello, Sergio
Mendoza, José Vicente Spataro,
Indira Páez, Juan Manuel Andrade,
Amaris Páez, Christian Jiménez
Cast: Blanca Soto, Litzy, Lincoln
Palomeque, José Luis Reséndez,
Jorge Zárate, Aurora Gil
5. Vino el Amor
Production: Televisa
Direction: Santiago Barbosa, Salvador Sánchez
Script: Janely Lee, Julio Rojas,
Vanesa Varela
Cast: Gabriel Soto, Irina Baeva,
Cynthia Klitbo, Azela Robinson
6. La Señora Acero 3: La Coyota
Production: Telemundo, Argos
Direction: Dany Gavidia, Camilo
Villamizar, Daniel Aguirre
Script: Roberto Stopello, Juan
Manuel Andrade, Christina Jiménez,
Sergio Mendoza, Indira Páez, Amaris Páez
Cast: Carolina Miranda, Luis
Ernesto Franco, Sergio Goyri, Litzy,
Laura Flores, Jorge Zárate, Lincoln
Palomeque
7. El Señor de los Cielos 4
Production: Telemundo, Argos
Direction: Dany Gavidia, Jaime
Segura
Script: Andrés López, Luis Zelkowicks, Carmina Narro, Juan Manuel
Andrade, Iris Dubs
Cast: Rafael Amaya, Fernanda
Castillo, Carmen Aub, Maritza
Rodríguez, Vanesa Villela, Sabina
Seara
8. Muchacha Italiana Viene a
Casarse
Production: Televisa
Direction: Pedro Damián, Juan
Carlos Muñoz, Luis Pardo
Script: María Eugenia Cervantes,
Martha Espinal, Delia González,
Rocio Lara
Cast: Libia Brito, José Ron, Naiela
Norvid, Mike Biaggio, Fernando Allende, Isela Vega, Maribel Guardia
9. El Hotel de los Secretos
Production: Televisa
Direction: Francisco Franco, Ana
Lorena Pérez
Script: Gerardo Pérez Zermeño,
Carlos Pascual
Cast: Irene Azuela, Erick Elías,
Daniela Romo, Diana Bracho, Jorge
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 451
Poza, Carlos Rivera, Dominika
Paleta
10. El Chema
Production: Telemundo, Argos
Direction: Nicolas Di Biasi, Danny
Gavidia
Script: Carmina Narro, Iris Dubs,
Luis Zelkowics, Juan Manuel
Andrade
Cast: Mauricio Ochmann, Mariana
Seoane, Julio Bracho, Sergio Bazañes, Itatí Cantoral
Script: Juan Carlos Pérez
Cast: Daniel Arenas, Ela Velden,
Sara Corrales, Aura Cristina
Geithner, Enoc Leaño, Gonzalo
Peña, Armando Silvestre
5. Vino el Amor
Production: Televisa
Direction: José Alberto Castro
Script: Julio Rojas
Cast: Irina Baeva, Gabriel Soto,
Kimberly Dos Ramos, Azela Robinson, Christian de la Campa
MEXICO
1. Por Siempre Joan Sebastián
Production: Televisa
Direction: Carla Estrada
Script: Humberto Olivieri
Cast: José Manuel Figueroa, Julián
Figueroa, Arcelia Ramírez, Livia
Brito, Irán Castillo, Lumi Cavazos
6. Tres Veces Ana
Production: Televisa
Direction: Angeli Nesma
Script: Liliana Abud
Cast: Angelique Boyer, Sebastian
Rulli, David Zepeda, Pedro Moreno,
Eric del Castillo, Susana Dosamantes
2. La Rosa de Guadalupe
Production: Televisa
Direction: Miguel Ángel Herros
Script: Carlos Mercado
Cast: Several actors from Televisa’s
acting school
7. El Hotel de los Secretos
Production: Televisa
Direction: Silvia Cano
Script: Ramón Campos
Cast: Irene Azuela, Erick Elías,
Diana Bracho, Jorge Poza, Ilse Salas
3. Un Camino Hacia el Destino
Production: Televisa
Direction: Leticia Díaz
Script: Mariela Romero
Cast: Paulina Goto, Horacio
Pancheri, Ana Patricia Rojo, René
Strickler, Candela Márquez
8. Corazón que Miente
Production: Televisa
Direction: Mauricio Rodríguez
Script: Caridad Bravo
Cast: Thelma Madrigal, Pablo Lyle,
Diego Olivera, Alejandro Tommasi,
Dulce María, Lourdes Reyes
4. Amo Despertar Contigo
Production: Televisa
Direction: Pedro Damián
9. Las Amazonas
Production: Televisa
Direction: César Rondón
452 | Obitel 2017
Script: Lucero Suárez
Cast: Danna García, Andrés Palacios, Grettell Valdez, René Casados,
Mariluz Bermúdez, Juan Pablo Gil
10. Hasta que te Conocí
Production: TV Azteca
Direction: Álvaro Curiel
Script: Raúl Olivares
Cast: Julián Román, Dolores Heredia, Damayanti Quintanar, Andrés
Palacios, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Irán
Castillo, Verónica Langer
PERU
1. Al Fondo Hay Sitio, 8
Production: América Televisión,
Efraín Aguilar
Direction: Efraín Aguilar
Script: Gigio Aranda
Cast: Areliz Benel, Gustavo Bueno,
Sergio Galliani, Magdyel Ugaz,
Andrés Wiese, Adolfo Chuiman,
Joaquín Escobar, Yvonne Frayssinet, Karina Calmet, Mónica Sánchez, Erick Elera, Nataniel Sánchez,
Gianella Neyra, Bruno Odar, Laszlo
Kovacs, Tatiana Astengo, Christian
Thorsen, Luis Ángel Pinasco, César
Ritter, Mónica Torres, Melania
Urbina
2. Mis Tres Marías
Production: Del Barrio Producciones, América Televisión
Direction: Francisco Álvarez, Aldo
Salvini, Sandro Méndez
Script: Víctor Falcón, Eduardo
Adrianzén
Cast: David Villanueva, Vanessa
Saba, María Gracia Gamarra, Zoe
Arévalo, Silvana Cañote
3. Ven Baila Quinceañera
Production: PRO TV Producciones
Direction: Luis Barrios
Script: Guillermo Aranda, Luis del
Prado, Cinthia McKenzie, José Luis
Varela
Cast: Andrea Luna, Fernando
Luque, Diego Val, Daniela Camaiora, Carolina Cano, Sofía Rocha,
Nicolás Galindo, Rodrigo Sánchez
Patiño, Junior Silva
4. Valiente Amor
Production: Del Barrio Producciones
Direction: Francisco Álvarez
Script: Víctor Falcón, Eduardo
Adrianzén
Cast: Stephanie Orué, Nicolas
Galindo, Sofía Rocha, Rodrigo Sánchez Patiño, Jimena Lindo, André
Silva, Fernando Luque, Andrea
Luna, Nikko Ponce, Tula Rodríguez
5. VBQ Todo por la Fama
Production: PRO TV Producciones
Direction: Luis Barrios
Script: Guillermo Aranda, Luis del
Prado, Cinthia McKenzie, José Luis
Varela
Cast: Flavia Laos, Alessandra
Fuller, Mayra Goñi, Pablo Heredia, Patricia Portocarrero, Andrés
Vílchez
6. El Regreso de Lucas
Production: América Televisión,
Telefe
Direction: Mauro Scandolari, Ge-
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 453
rardo Herrera
Script: Manuel Méndez, Bruno
Luciani
Cast: Ana María Orozco, Salvador
del Solar, Diego Bertie, Fabrizio
Aguilar, Lucho Cáceres, Pablo Martínez, Macarena Achaga
7. Amores que Matan
Production: América Televisión
Direction: Jorge Tapia
Script: Rosa Mongrutt, Ana Lucía
Roeder, Luis del Prado
Cast: Mónica Sánchez, Alessandra
Fuller, Mayra Couto
8. Nuestra Historia 3
Production: TV Perú, Sol y Luna
Producciones
Direction: Oscar Carillo, Alberto
Arévalo
Script: Eduardo Adrianzén, María
Luisa Adrianzén
Cast: Giovanni Arce, Francisco
Cabrera, Gabriela Billotti, Oscar Carrillo, Carlos Casella, Tatiana Espinoza, Laly Goyzueta, Leslie Guillén,
Jorge Guzmán, Sylvia Majo, Carlos
Mesta, Oscar Meza, Stephanie Orué,
Mayra Nájar, Grapa Paola, Hernán
Romero, Sonia Seminario, Stefano
Tosso, María del Carmen Sirvas,
Liliana Trujillo, Paloma Yeroví
9. Nunca te Diré Adiós
Production: Venevisión, Iguana
Producciones
Direction: Toño Vega Espejo, Cursi
Barrio, Milusica Rosas
Script: Ángel del Cerro, Doris
Segui
Cast: Luis Caballero, Harry Geith-
ner, Paola Toyos, Wanda D’isidoro
10. Nuestra Historia 2
Production: TV Perú, Sol y Luna
Producciones
Direction: Oscar Carillo, Alberto
Arévalo
Script: Eduardo Adrianzén, María
Luisa Adrianzén
Cast: Giovanni Arce, Francisco
Cabrera, Gabriela Billotti, Oscar Carrillo, Carlos Casella, Tatiana Espinoza, Laly Goyzueta, Leslie Guillén,
Jorge Guzmán, Sylvia Majo, Carlos
Mesta, Oscar Meza, Stephanie Orué,
Mayra Nájar, Grapa Paola, Hernán
Romero, Sonia Seminario, Stefano
Tosso, María del Carmen Sirvas,
Liliana Trujillo, Paloma Yeroví
PORTUGAL
1. Única Mulher II
Production: TVI/Plural Entertainment
Direction: António Borges Correia
Script: Maria João Mira/André
Ramalho
Cast: Lourenço Ortigão, Ana Sofia
Martins, Alexandra Lencastre, José
Wallenstein, Rita Pereira
2. Coração d’Ouro
Production: SIC/SP Televisão
Direction: Sérgio Graciano
Script: Pedro Lopes
Cast: Rita Blanco, Mariana Pacheco, João Reis, Adelaide Sousa,
Mariana Monteiro
3. Amor Maior
Production: SIC/SP Televisão
Direction: Jorge Cardoso
454 | Obitel 2017
Script: Inês Gomes
Cast: Sara Matos, Inês Castel-Branco, José Fidalgo, José Mata, Maria
João Luis
4. A Impostora
Production: TVI/Plural Entertainment
Direction: Jorge Queiroga
Script: António Barreira (Sebastian
Arrau)
Cast: Dalila Carmo, Fernanda Serrano, Diogo Infante, Pedro Lamares,
Diogo Amaral
5. Única Mulher III
Production: TVI/Plural Entertainment
Direction: António Borges Correia
Script: Maria João Mira, André
Ramalho
Cast: Lourenço Ortigão, Ana Sofia
Martins, Alexandra Lencastre, José
Wallenstein, Rita Pereira
6. Santa Bárbara
Production: Plural Entertainment
Direction: Hugo de Sousa
Script: Artur Ribeiro (Victor
Carrasco)
Cast: Benedita Pereira, Albano
Jerónimo, São José Correia, Almeno
Gonçalves, Susana Arrais
7. Rainha das Flores
Production: SIC/SP Televisão
Direction: Hugo Xavier
Script: Alexandre Castro
Cast: Sandra Barata Belo, Pepe
Rapazote, Isabel Abreu, Marco
Delgado, Gonçalo Diniz
8. Poderosas
Production: SP Televisão
Direction: Hugo Xavier
Script: Patrícia Muller, Pedro Lopes
Cast: Rogério Samora, Margarida
Marinho, Joana Ribeiro, Soraia
Chaves, Maria João Luís
9. Massa Fresca
Production: TVI/Plural Entertainment
Direction: Hugo de Sousa
Script: Sara Rodi
Cast: Mafalda Marafusta, Duarte
Gomes, Pedro Carvalho, Dina Felix
da Costa, Catarina Avelar
10. Leão da Estrela
Production: RTP / Sky Dreams
Entertainment, Stopline Films
Direction: Leonel Vieira
Script: Tiago R. Santos
Cast: Miguel Guilherme, Sara
Matos, Dânia Neto, Manuela Couto,
José Raposo
URUGUAY
1. Moisés y los Diez Mandamientos
Production: Record TV
Direction: Daniel Ghivelder,
Alexandre Avancini, Vivianne
Jundi
Michele Lavalle, Armé Mamente,
Hamsa Wood
Script: Vivian de Oliveira
Cast: Guilherme Winter, Sérgio
Marone, Camila Rodrigues, Giselle
Itié, Adriana Garambone, Heitor
Martínez, Zé Carlos Machado,
Vitor Hugo, Dudu Azevedo, Daniel
Alvim, Francisca Queiroz
Top ten TV fiction in Obitel countries | 455
2. Celia
Production: Fox Telecolombia
Direction: Víctor Mallarino, Liliana
Bocanegra
Script: Andrés Salgado, Paul
Rodríguez
Cast: Jeimy Osorio, Aymee Nuviola, Modesto Lacen, Willy Denton,
Carolina Gaitán, Marcela Gallego,
Aida Bossa, Margoth Velásquez,
Moisés Angulo
3. Mujeres Ambiciosas
Production: Globo
Direction: Dennis Carvalho, María
de Médicis
Script: Gilberto Braga, Ricardo
Linhares, João Ximenes Braga
Cast: Camila Pitanga, Thiago Fragoso, Glória Pires, Adriana Esteves,
Fernanda Montenegro, Nathalia
Timberg, Arlete Salles
4. Imperio
Production: Globo
Script: Aguinaldo Silva
Direction: Rogério Gomes, Pedro
Vasconcelos, André Felipe Binder
Cast: Lília Cabral, Alexandre Nero,
Leandra Leal, Rafael Cardoso, Andréia Horta, Daniel Rocha, Marina
Ruy Barbosa
5. Reglas del Juego
Production: Globo
Direction: Amora Mautner
Script: João Emanuel Carneiro
Cast: Alexandre Nero, Giovanna
Antonelli, Cauã Reymond, Vanessa
Giácomo, Marco Pigossi, Tony
Ramos
6. Verdades Secretas
Production: Globo
Direction: Allan Fiterman, Mariana
Richard, André Barros
Script: Walcyr Carrasco
Cast: Camila Queiroz, Rodrigo
Lombardi, Drica Moraes, Reynaldo
Gianecchini, Grazi Massafera, Marieta Severo, Agatha Moreira, Rainer
Cadete, Guilhermina Guinle
7. La Esclava Blanca
Production: Caracol Televisión
Direction: Liliana Bocanegra
Script: Claudia F. Sánchez, Said
Chamie, Andrés Burgos
Cast: Nerea Camacho, Sara Pinzón,
Orián Súarez, Miguel de Miguel,
Modesto Lacen
8. Esperanza Mía
Production: Pol-Ka
Direction: Sebastián Pivotto, Lucas
Gil
Script: Adrían Suar (idea original),
Marta Betoldi,
Cast: Mariano Martínez, Lali Espósito, Natalie Pérez Tomás Fonzi,
Ángela Torres, Federico D’elia,
Rita Cortese, Carola Reyna, Ana
María Picchio
9. Amores Robados
Production: Globo
Direction: José Luis Villamarin
Script: George Moura, Sergio Goldenberg, Flavio Araujo, Teresa Frota
Cast: Cauã Reymond, Murilo Benício, Ísis Valverde, Patrícia Pillar
456 | Obitel 2017
Cast: Angelique Boyer, Sebastián
Rulli, Aarón Díaz, Cynthia Klitbo,
Ana Brenda Contreras
10. Los Ricos no Piden Permiso
Production: Pol-ka
Direction: Gustavo Luppi, Rodolfo
Antúnez, Alejandro Ibáñez
Script: Adrián Suar, Marcos Carnevale, Willy Van Broock, Jessica
Valls
Cast: Luciano Castro, Araceli
González, Gonzalo Heredia, Agustina Cherri, Luciano Cáceres, Julieta
Cardinali, Juan Darthés, Sabrina
Garciarena, Alberto Ajaka, Leonor
Benedetto, Raúl Taibo
4. Arroz con Leche
Production: Venevisión
Direction: Yuri Delgado
Script: Doris Seguí, Camilo
Hernández, Mariana Reyes, Carlos
Eloy Castro
Cast: Eileen Abad, Marlene de
Andrade, Alba Roversi, Juan Carlos
García, Luis Gerónimo Abreu
VENEZUELA
1. Hasta que te Conocí
Production: Disney Latinoamérica,
Somos Productions
Direction: Álvaro Curiel
Script: Raúl Olivares
Cast: Julián Román, Dolores Heredia, Damayanti Quintanar, Andrés
Palacios, Luis Fernando Ruiz
Capuena
5. Amor Secreto
Production: Venevisión
Direction: Lili Garza, Mauricio
Rodríguez
Script: César Sierra, Ana Teresa
Sosa, Juan Carlos Duque, Mayra
Villavicencio
Cast: Eduardo Santamarina, Mayrín
Villanueva, Alexis Ayala, Silvia
Pasquel, César Évora
2. Amores con Trampa
Production: Televisa
Direction: Javier Yerandi, Salvador
Garcini
Script: Carlos Oporto, David Bustos, Jaime Morales
Cast: Itatí Cantoral, Eduardo Yáñez,
Ernesto Laguardia, África Zavala,
Nora Salinas
6. Lo Imperdonable
Production: Televisa
Direction: Aarón Gutiérrez
Script: Ximena Suárez
Cast: Grettell Valdez, Guillermo
García Cantú, Claudia Ramírez,
Juan Ferrara, Sergio Sendel
3. Teresa
Production: Televisa
Direction: Alejandro Gamboa
Script: Ximena Suárez, Julián Aguilar, Janely Lee, Vanesa Varela
7. Pasión y Poder
Production: Televisa
Direction: José Alberto Castro
Script: Marisa Garrido
Cast: Susana González, Jorge
Salinas, Fernando Colunga, Marlene
Favela, Michelle Renaud
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