TELENOVELA BLOCK.pages 24 - 30: - Discop

telenovela block
BOY MEETS GIRL, ROMANTICA FALLS
IN LOVE WITH TELENOVELAS, AND
EVERYONE LIVES HAPPILY EVERAFTER
By Bob Jenkins
Kathy Fairbairn, Head of Program -
me Acquisition for Romantica and
Club, is, “thrilled to be sponsoring the
second DISCOP Gala dinner celebrating
the hugely popular genre of the
Telenovela,” adding, “and where better
to celebrate the telenovela than the
romantic city of Budapest.”
The telenovela form is very important
to Romantica, which Fairbairn
describes as a “drama and entertainment
channel for women, in which
telenovelas make up a very significant
part of our schedule.” And DISCOP is,
“a very important market for us
because all the telenovela sellers are
her,” explains Fairbairn. She goes on,
“the other important aspect of DIS-
COP is that it is a market at which you
get time to talk to sellers, which is very
important when buying telenovelas. It
is very important to be able to form a
clear idea of what the highlights of the
story are, where else it has worked
and why it might work for Romantica.
And to do that, you simply have to have
the time to sit and chat with the seller.”
Although Romantica originally only
took their telenovelas from Venezuela,
they now also buy them from Mexico,
Argentina and Columbia, the rest of
their schedule comprising series form
the US, Canada and Australia as well
as movies from Europe and Latin
America in order, as Fairbairn puts it,
“to offer a window on the world.”
She believes that the telenovela
popularity in the CEE is something on
an historical accident. “I think,” she
insists, “that twenty to thirty years
ago, when they were first bought by
stations in the region, they were
bought because they were cheap and
there was a lot of them. They were
used as daytime fillers, but gradually
grew in popularity. Now, of course, “
she adds, “there’s an entire generation
for whom the telenovela has
always been an important part of their
television landscape.”
Aside from their undoubted popularity
with audiences in the region, the
telenovela form offers many attractions
for broadcasters as well. “The
biggest attraction,” admits Fairbairn,
“is that once an audience has hooked
into a telenovela, as a broadcaster you
have created an appointment to view
that will run five days a week for a minimum
of six months, and possibly as
long as twelve or fourteen, depending
on the length of the telenovela.
Whereas in the case of a standard
series of twenty-two episodes, you
essentially have to go out and sell each
episode to your audience all over again
every week.” Although she does admit
that this can also be a disadvantage,
“if your audience just does not buy into
a telenovela, then you are stuck with
poor ratings in that slot for as long as
From ROMANTICA’s offer
- Girls Behaving Badly
it runs.” This is because having a story
with a beginning, middle and end, is, in
Fairbairn’s view, “one of the three key
elements of a telenovela.” The other
two being, “in addition to having a
beginning, middle and end, a true
telenovela also has a finite number of
episodes and a love story as its central
storyline.”
Another of Fairbairn’s theories
concerning telenovelas is that, “there
are essentially three storylines, the
classic Cinderella story, the more
modern story, often involving a career
woman experiencing difficulties at
work, and one with a teenage protagonist,
aimed at a younger audience.”
Scheduling telenovelas is, reveals
Fairbairn, “mostly about getting the
mix right. While it is true that there is
essentially only one telenovela plot,
boy meets girl, they fall in love, have all
sorts of problems, and end up walking
off into the sunset, this story is set
against a number of different back
drops,” she explains, “and so,” she
continues, “it is important to get a balance
between the settings. Also,
there is a core group of actors who
appear in almost all the telenovelas
and so, when scheduling, it is important
to pay attention to the casting of
the telenovelas. If, for example, the
same actor is playing the father of two
different characters in to different
telenovelas, you would not want to play
them one after the other. Finally,” she
concludes, “different countries have
very different looks, different colour
palettes, directorial techniques and
different styles.” }
discop link 03 www.discop.com march 2006 29