Scientific bases for telenovelas and fiction programs

The dramatic narrative consisting in linked episodes interrupted with suspense actions or great drawing power has been the key for the editing and mounting of programming slots in almost every Latin American network.
A company without strong scientific bases regarding this genre runs the risk of getting lost in the telenovelas production.
In Brazil we have a major company: Red Globo, but we don’t have a real industry like Hollywood yet. Over a total of 6 telenovelas, SBT is producing just one, and based on a Mexican script. The rest are imported from Televisa. Red Record is still trying to find its way.
Before thinking about hiring authors, directors and actors, it is essential that we look for market and communication strategies that support the production core. Otherwise, everything would be just sort of scattered, independent and having no connections with what is called “mass communication system.”
In this sense, nothing has been better than the First World Summit of the Telenovela Industry held in Miami in the year 2003, which gave us the possibility of knowing each country’s production better, and joining together as a business in order to strengthen this genre and find new ways for the telenovela to be the basis of the development of a greater number of networks in this mythical narrative.
The Second World Summit held in Barcelona the last October is without question the consolidation of an essential meeting for the process of the telenovela and fiction industry, not only in Latin America but all over the world. Once more we could get together, identify each other and appreciate how these contents promote the sense of family, the information on health, cultural messages, and above all, love.
In fact, the Summit showed us the current problems in this business and the different ways towards the future of the telenovelas, and also the possibility of exploiting these products in multiple ways. Since the opening of such a productive space for questions on a wide variety of subjects from social merchandising to sound tracks, I’ve chose to believe that this activity can and must still go on developing.

Mauro Alencar A Telenovela and Fiction degree at the University of San Pablo (USP). Author of the book "La Hollywood Brasileña – Panorama de la Telenovela en Brasil” Telenovelas consultant and researcher at TV Globo from Brazil. Professor of Teledramaturgia (Television Drama).