SE P T E M B E R/ OC T O B E R 2 0 1 2 V I D E O • A G E 46 At this year’s past NAB conference and market event, Marcel Vinay Sr., of Mexico’s TV Azteca, made a 10-minute presentation exploring telenovelas through the decades (the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s), while various clips of popular telenovelas were projected on a large screen. The well-attended presentation, part of an official NAB panel titled “TV Trends: New Telenovelas,” took place at the Content Theater of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Of the panelists, Ricardo Scalamandré of Brazil’s TV Globo presented a threeminute video and made an additional fiveminute presentation on how telenovelas are evolving. Jessica Rodríguez of U.S. Hispanic TV network Univision presented a one-minute video and discussed the importance of telenovelas to her network. Cesar Diaz of Venezuela’s Venevision talked about the social media strategy associated with telenovelas. The panel was moderated by VideoAge’s Dom Serafini. Here’s an abridged version of Vinay’s historical recollections: The novella was first developed in the 18th century through books like Pamela written by Samuel Richardson in England in 1740, France’s Eloisa by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1761), Sentinel Journey by Irish author Laurence Stern (1768) and Paul et Caroline by Bernardin de Saint Pierre (1788). In the 19th century, countries such as the U.S., France and England started publishingserializednovellasinmagazines and newspapers, which increased the demand of those publications. At the beginning of the 20th century, as the radio was emerging as a new medium, the radionovela started to be transmitted, as early as 1920. But it wasn’t until the first part of the 1950s that Latin American countries such as Mexico, Cuba and Argentina were able to adapt the genre for television and began broadcasting them live. They quickly became very popular. Unfortunately, given the fact that no video recording technology was available at the time, these telenovelas were lost forever. At the beginning of the 1960s, telenovelas were ready to be exported. In 1962, the Mexican government decreed that, if the country’s three television networks comprising Telesistema Mexicano (an alliance among Canal 2, Canal 4 and Canal 5) wished to continue to import television programs from America, they would also have to export their Mexican telenovelas to the U.S. In order for Mexican telenovelas to be transported north to air on American television, the live broadcast of each episode was filmed with a 16mm camera directly off a black-andwhite television monitor. Copies were then made for export — not only to the U.S. but also to Central America. These filmed copies were known as kinescopes. The sound and visual quality of these films left a great deal to be desired, to the point that audiences frequently could only imagine what was happening on the screen. However, the telenovelas made such an impact on viewers that in spite of the poor quality, the genre was a great success in every country where they were broadcasted. The only problem was that Englishspeaking televisionstations in theU.S.were not particularly interested in broadcasting Mexican telenovelas in the Spanish language, and were even less thrilled with the quality of the kinescopes. In order to solve that problem, Canal 2 (owned by Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta a.k.a. Emilio Azcárraga Sr.), first co-acquired television stations in San Antonio, Texas and, later, Los Angeles. These stations became the foundation for theAmericannationwide Spanish-language network, Univision. When the two-inch videotape first appeared in 1965, it immediately enabled Mexican telenovelas to be sold to all countries in the Americas. An example of the impact telenovelas had at that time is illustrated by the military dictatorship governing Peru in the ’70s, which initially considered telenovelas harmful to their people and prohibited Peruvian television companies from broadcasting them. However, Peruvian women — no longer able to discuss the latest plot twists of their favorite telenovelas — started to chat instead about the high cost of living. This grumbling escalated into such anger that they took to the streets with their pots and pans to demonstrate against the scarcity and very high cost of food. Under pressure, the military government asked Mexico’s Televisa for help to stop the rioting, which was spreading rapidly across the country. It was suggested that they resume the broadcast of telenovelas, which they promptly did, and the demonstrations came to an abrupt halt. In 1976, Ampex and Sony launched the one-inch videotape that also included several separate audiochannels formusic, voices and sound effects. This made it possible for Mexican telenovelas to be dubbed into local languages and sold in countries outside the Americas. By the mid-’80s, countries such as Germany, France, Turkey, Greece and Italy were broadcasting Mexican telenovelas. There are many stories about the success of telenovelas in those countries, most of which at that time only had state-run television stations. One story comes from Russia, when in 1985, the main state television network agreed to air Televisa’s telenovela, The Rich Also Cry. As Televisa’s executives were eager for the broadcast to be successful, instead of placing the Russian translation over the Spanish voices (as was customary at the time), they decided to dub it into Russian by using lip-synchronization, which was a first for that country. This was the first fully dubbed telenovela to be shown in Russia, and it was fiercely attacked by the political adversaries of then-president Boris Yeltsin. The opposition alleged that the popular telenovela had been broadcast for the sole purpose of distracting public opinion from domestic conflicts — an accusation Yeltsin’s government denied. A year later, Yeltsin awarded the main actress of that telenovela, Veronica Castro, the highest Russian honor for her contribution to ending the political conflicts. The Rich Also Cry was also blamed for causing Moscow’s water pipes to burst. The show aired on television for 45 minutes every weekday without commercial breaks. During that time, the large number of viewers who were glued to their TV screens did not use their kitchens and bathrooms. This caused the water pressure in the city pipes to increase, eventually leading them to burst. The same telenovela was also shown in Vietnam, as part of Russia’s involvement in that country. As Russian was not spoken in Vietnam, the telenovela was aired in five-minute blocks, after which two Vietnamese announcers appeared on-screen to explain what had happened in the previous clip. Even so, the show was the most-watched television program in Vietnam. In Spain, television licenses were first awarded to the private sector in the mid-’80s, which put pressure on the state channels to broadcast telenovelas rather than allow the private stations to run them. State broadcaster TVE did not support the genre, so Televisa gave them the first 70 episodes of a telenovela for free, hoping it would be a success and they would not only buy the rest of the series, but also give other telenovelas regular time slots. When that telenovela was aired at 10 a.m., it became such a hit that business owners had to place television sets in their stores, since employees and customers alike did not arrive until after the show had ended. According to a Newsweek article published during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, American soldiers were shocked by how the telenovela Mirada De Mujer — produced by TV Azteca and starring Angelica Aragon—kept women glued to their TV sets, regardless of the Taliban’s strict and repressive rules. The telenovela centered on a woman who finds love with a young man after her husband abandons her for a young lover. Today, television networks in more than 130 countries regularly broadcast telenovelas produced in Mexico. The successoftelenovelasliesinemotions,not intellect, making the genre universal and widely accepted, regardless of customs, religion and race. Over time, telenovelas have achievedwhat in advertising lingo is known as “positioning.” In other words, audiences who tune in to telenovelas are confident they will see a romance unfold, in which the leading lady will suffer until her dream of love comes true. Female audiences live and breathe the character’s struggles, empathizing with the leading lady’s hardships, which seem insurmountable. In the end, they rejoice along with the characters that find love. Telenovelas Take Center Stage at Las Vegas Mart N A B C o n t e n t M a r k e t The NAB panel titled “TV Trends: New Telenovelas” TV Azteca’s Marcel Vinay Sr.
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