/ARTS WEEKLY/TELEVISION-CHILE: Battle of Prime Time Soaps Heats Up

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Jul 19 2005 (IPS) - Chile has not joined the ranks of Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela – Latin America’s big producers of soap operas that are sold around the region and the world.

But the number of Chilean TV stations involved in the increasingly lucrative local market for nationally produced prime time telenovelas is about to expand from two to four.

Megavisión, the country’s biggest private station, announced in early July that it would launch a new serial "Doble opuesto" in September, to compete with the state-run Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) and Channel 13, which belongs to the Catholic University.

Since 1998, TVN and Channel 13 have monopolised the local production of soap operas or culebrones.

Another private station, Chilevisión, plans to begin broadcasting its first culebron in March 2006 – just one of a string of new projects undertaken by the station that changed hands last May when businessman Sebastián Piñera,one of two right-wing candidates running in the December presidential elections, purchased it from Venezuelan media magnate Gustavo Cisneros.

The big Latin American producers of telenovelas are Cisneros’ Venevisión in Venezuela, Televisa in Mexico, and TV Globo in Brazil. Between 70 and 80 percent of the export revenues of these giant networks comes from selling serials to the rest of Latin America and to many other regions of the world.

Each of these three giant networks produces an average of 10 prime time soap operas a year, while in Chile TVN and Channel 13 produce a total of four a year.

The first phase of the war of the culebrones in Chile begins in March, when the two stations simultaneously start to broadcast their soap operas at the beginning of the southern hemisphere fall season, in the midst of a flurry of artistic and social gatherings preceded by intense publicity campaigns aimed at capturing the biggest possible audience.

The serials are broadcast from Monday to Friday in the same prime time slot – 20:00 to 21:00 – and they both end on the same day in late August. In September, the springtime soaps begin, with the winner of the first round of the war attempting to solidify its hold while the loser tries to turn the stakes around.

"Experience in Chile shows that producing a serial can be a lucrative enterprise or an utter disaster, especially since the costs amount to around four million dollars per culebron," noted journalist Francisca Chávez, who conducted a study on telenovelas.

"When a station is successful, it can earn big profits, like the seven million dollars that Channel 13 took in back in 2003 through advertising and sales of retail products associated with the ‘Machos’ telenovela," explained Chávez, whose study takes a close look at the economics of the soap opera market.

The success of ‘Machos’, which was broadcast in Spain and a number of countries of Latin America, allowed Channel 13’s fictional programming department to get back on its feet after several consecutive defeats in its competition with TVN threw it into a profound crisis that brought it to the verge of shutting down.

‘Machos’ was not only popular, but included – for the first time in a Chilean serial – a gay character who was not stereotyped or effeminate.

Chávez and other researchers agree that the plots and the sets of Chilean telenovelas have brought visibility to certain groups that have been marginalised, like gypsies (Roma), the Rapanui people of Easter Island, and circus performers, thus helping to combat prejudice and discrimination.

Alongside these cultural effects, the ratings war between the culebrones forms part of a broader competition to make TV stations profitable business ventures.

Although it belongs to the state, TVN does not receive funding from the state coffers and must finance itself.

Channel 13 is also administered according to commercial criteria, and the influence of the Catholic University and the Catholic Church is expressed mainly through editorial policy.

The telenovelas are aired just before the main newscast, which is broadcast at 21:00 by TVN and Channel 13 as well as Megavisión and Chilevisión.

This time slot is key, as the stations attempt to draw in viewers with their culebrones in order to boost the ratings of their nightly newscast and the variety programmes broadcast after 22:00.

The economic aspects of the war of the culebrones reach far beyond the TV screens to the retail products associated with the popular programmes.

CD and DVD versions of the soundtracks, day planners, calendars, food products and notebooks "are no longer mere marketing elements for a series,but have become a lucrative business in their own right," said Chávez.

The revenue earning opportunities include large-scale sales of recordings of telenovela soundtracks, clothing, candy, chocolate, ice cream or collectors items.

Megavisión had already made an attempt to become a third actor in the market for nationally produced telenovelas in 1997, when its owner, conservative businessman Ricardo Claro, invested 10 million dollars to create a fictional programming department.

However, the department was a resounding failure and closed just two years later.

In its new attempt, the station will begin in September to air "Doble opuesto", a series based on a tried but true plot line: twins separated at birth who meet by chance years later and decide to switch places.

Prestigious Chilean actress Andrea Freund will star in the series, whose screenplay, written by actor Mateo Iribarren, was inspired by "The Parent Trap", a 1998 remake by Walt Disney Productions.

Megavisión will thus attempt to join – and win – the telenovelas battle between TVN and Channel 13, expanding into the only area in which the other two stations enjoy an advantage: locally produced prime time soap operas.