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Great breakthrough in
the production
of telenovelas
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The local version
of Betty la fea doubles ratings.
With budgets that exceed four times the
ones of Latin America, the production
of this successful story causes great
audience peaks in Germany, Hungary and
other countries of Central and Eastern
Europe. |
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Jens
Richter, Managing Director
of SevenOne International. |
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fter the excellent results
achieved with In love in Berlin, the
German adaptation of Betty la fea,
the company SevenOne International
created a new company called Producers
at Work, which will only be focused
on the production of telenovelas in order to
gain control of that market and with the intention
of developing their own ideas in the long term.
This new enterprise is a great advance in Western
Europe since, so far, telenovelas had been very
successful in Central and Eastern Europe, Spain
and Portugal, but never in Germany, Finland
or Scandinavia. In the German case, they doubled
the ratings at the time the telenovela is broadcasted.
In love in Berlin is made by an independent
production company. (The same that will now
work for Producers at Work,
a company that also belongs to the group that
owns the leader channel in Germany and broadcasts
In love in Berlin). By the end of February,
in the 7 p.m. slot, this telenovela had an average
market share between 20 and 24%, where before
it was never higher than 12%. It has also doubled
the ratings, which is a surprising fact in a
market that has historically held much lower
audience peaks.
This leader channel in Germany has already had
its great breakthrough in the business that
was born in the Latin American countries, and
now has the intention of placing telenovelas
in the European market with European artists
and locations but with formats and know how
bought in Latin America. They are already selling
In love in Berlin to the European countries
that have always programmed Latin American telenovelas,
and to other countries where they had previously
found it hard to penetrate. Hungary bought the
German version and dubbed it to their own language
with amazing results.
A
millionaire project
“We know that Betty la fea was
one of the most successful telenovelas of all
times and that is why we decided to write our
own story based on that telenovela,” says
Jens Richter. “We worked
with the basic characters of RCN,
we included a new one and rewrote it completely.
The main character is the same: the girl who
falls in love with her boss. It is also set
in the fashion industry but the plot, the culture
and the aesthetics are completely local. It
is located in Berlin, the fastest and biggest
metropolitan city in Europe. Therefore, it has
a very strong European atmosphere,” he
comments.
In Latin America the production cost per episode
is between 25,000 and 60,000 dollars. Richter
assures that they doubled this figure but that
in some episodes they had a cost three or four
times higher. This fact makes the idea of producing
telenovelas for the leader commercial channel
and for export a millionaire one. “This
can only be accomplished with a local version.
By local I mean European, because there are
some differences between our telenovelas and
the ones from Latin America. It is a different
lifestyle and culture,” remarks the businessman,
who adds that at this moment they need to buy
all kinds of interesting ideas, no matter where
they come from, in order to adapt them to their
countries.
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SevenOne
International is part of a
media group in Germany. Owners of three
entertainment channels, a news channel,
a TV channel for interactive transactions,
and, as if this was not enough, they
have the leader commercial channel in
Germany with the largest market share.
SevenOne International
is also an international distribution
company which sells all the programs
produced for these channels. |
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