To Russia … and Bosnia .. and Latvia, with love: Latin America's quintessential cultural product—the TV melodrama—sees a storyline abroad

Latin Trade, July, 2003 by Greg Brown

A rusty bus rattles down a dirt road on its way to Mexico City. (Or is it Bogota, or Caracas?) Maria, a country girl with flowing dark hair and inexplicably straight, white teeth unfolds a worn letter from her widowed mother. "Be careful, my dearest one, in the big city," the letter reads. "Who knows what misfortune might befall you?"

She steps from the bus, a cardboard suitcase in hand, and into the chaotic city jammed with big cars, glass buildings and well-dressed people. "You look lost. Can I help you?" drawls an unfamiliar voice.

With that simple question, Yuri a handsome Russian oil worker, changes the young woman's life forever.

If Leonard Yanovsky could have his way, the Latin American telenovela of the future might look something like that. Yanovsky, president of Russian television company Intra Communications. sees little demand for weepy Latin American love stories not long ago the heavy-weights of Russian television--unless they are somehow made more Russian. "Latin American telenovelas arrived in Russia at the end of the '80s, when the country was undergoing very tough times," Yanovsky says. "They helped people escape from the hardships in their lives."

Soon, however, U.S. feature films displaced them in prime time, then Russian productions began to kick even Hollywood out of the best slots, knocking the novelas nearly off the air. "High-quality, usually Brazilian, productions enjoy strong ratings, but it's quite clear that Latin American telenovelas are not returning to prime time in the near future," Yanovsky predicts.

So goes the globalization of Latin America's ubiquitous cultural export, a more than US$2 billion industry affecting 100 countries and broadcast in 50 languages and dialects. About $1.6 billion is made inside the region, with $341 million coming from foreign sales, according to Carlos Bardasano, president of Venevision Continental and a vice-president of Venezuela's Cisneros Group. The Venezuelan and the Russian crossed paths not at an off conference, as you might expect, but at the recent First Summit of the Telenovela, held in Miami. A number of topics were planned--writing workshops, product placement deals--but the buzz in the hallways among producers and executives was about how to sell more abroad.

A multitude of countries around the globe are thirsty for new programming and many, often developing countries, buy Latin American soaps to pull in viewers, But keeping pace in this lucrative export market is forcing novela producers to change the way they write and cast their serials. Local tastes eventually mature and viewers begin to demand characters and plots closer to their own experiences.

Even without exports, novelas are good business, says Bardasano. More than 12000 hours of shows are made in the region every year at an average cost of $48,000 an hour, an investment of close to $650 million a year. He figures for every dollar spent producing a show, $2.50 in advertising comes back to the channel behind it. A six-month run of 120 episodes spreads risk better than a single program like a concert or a sports event, the Venezuelan executive says, which might fall flat for any number of reasons.

Gold mine. Spin-off marketing opportunities abound, ranging from simple tourism promotions to pop music sales. Bardasano says he persuaded Enrique Iglesias to croon the theme to a recent Venevision production for nothing. Not only was it great marketing for the show, but the tune turned into a runaway hit for Iglesias in Venezuela. "There's a little gold mine" in tag-along novels marketing, Bardasano says.

The average novels rakes in $28,000 per programming hour when re-broadcast abroad, by Bardasano's calculation, and that's on top of the money it's already made at home. French research company Eurodata TV says 54 soap operas are found in the Top 10 lists of programs in 72 countries it tracks. In 1999, that number was 33. But while the number of hours of novelas being watched outside the region is rising, the money made on such sales has been sliding on weak ad markets, Bardasano says.

Mexican shows have had the most success outside their home market, followed by Brazilian productions and, more recently, by Venezuelan and Colombian hits. Colombia's Yo soy Betty, la fea is considered the most successfully exported novela to date. Its sequel, Eco Moda, took globalization head-on by moving part of the story to Miami.

Getting the product to travel is the job of Helena Bernardi, director of marketing and sales at the international division of Brazilian TV giant Globo. She jets around the world, looking for places she thinks a Brazilian production might find an appreciative audience. "Before, no one liked our novelas, because they were dubbed," says Bernardi. "Then Globo made a huge effort to improve the dubbing in Spanish." In the rest of the world, the Portuguese-language version is subtitled, except in Russia, where characters speak Portuguese at low volume while a Russian voice-over explains what is happening.