The boom of telenovelas in Spain took place over ten years ago with Cristal and La Dama de Rosa – both a huge success since by then they succeeded in every channel where they were broadcasted. But all this reached an end and the interest started declining – only Television Española (TVE) eventually took hold of the genre to the point of almost becoming a monopolist channel as far as these contents were concerned. Today, tables have turned and the situation
is different: “Something very funny has happened,” says Maite Torrente, Editorial Head of the Spanish magazine Telenovelas, “and it’s that a private network has taken the public TV’s lead on telenovelas.” Traditionally, in Spain people were used to watching these culebrones in the public network. “In the last years, the private channels wanted to compete but it was impossible. However, Pasión de gavilanes managed to make people switch from public to private TV in order to watch it. And the most outstanding fact is that it also achieved what no other telenovela had so far: it attracted young people to the genre,” explains the reporter, and she adds, “when it finished they started broadcasting El Cuerpo del deseo, then Rubi and, since then, the audience has followed them.”

The thing is Antena 3 managed to take over from TVE as regards telenovelas, getting most of their rating. So much so that the public network had to remove Los plateados from the air and replace them with La tormenta in order to increase the rating.

Scheduling strategies
“Pasión de gavilanes was a revolution, not only because it reopened the market, but also because it attracted a kind of audience that didn’t use to watch telenovelas and managed to break down prejudices,” explains Torrente. “We also have to bear in mind that a lot of Latin Americans live here and logically this has been a determining factor for increasing the audience,” he states. The scheduling difference between Spain and Latin America is that in the latter telenovelas are programmed at midday, never at night: “They wouldn’t work in that slot because we have many locally produced serials like Hospital central or El comisario, which have amazing audience levels. On the other hand, the audience is very specific and is mostly made of low and middle class middle -aged women.”
Regarding measuring, the specialist points out that very seldom does a telenovela reach over 24 or 27% share, which is
translated into 2 or 3 million spectators. “Except in particular cases like Betty la
fea, which topped 30%. A prime time serial has 9 million spectators, and telenovelas, only 2. If we distribute this audience among all the networks broadcasting telenovelas, share goes down to absurd rates,” she explains.

New channels complete the offer
New channels are entering the business, like El cuatro (Grupo Prisa) or La sexta, which have the intention of scheduling telenovelas. “At the moment, La sexta is not yet broadcasting them but it is all a matter of time since Televisa has shares in it,” reasons Torrente.

What is the role of Tele Cinco taking these moves into consideration?
Their bets have not fulfilled their expectations and that is why they do not have telenovelas at the moment. They started broadcasting Amor en custodia from Argentina and they only aired it for two weeks. Then they tried with a local production, Pasado es mañana, but the rating did not go up either.

Local productions
Recently they made the local format El auténtico Rodrigo Leal, getting moderate results. “Locally produced telenovelas don’t usually succeed,” and she explains that “only those made by TVE, like El Greco, Geminis, La verdad de Laura, Luna negra, and now Amar en tiempos revueltos, have a good reception and are followed by the audience."