Over the years, television series have had a very large percentage of airing on Russian TV. Since the early 90s – when foreign program scheduling began to dominate TV channel slots – Mexican, Brazilian, Venezuelan, Colombian and Argentinean telenovelas, as well as United States’ soap operas, have been watched by multi-million audiences across Russia. Some titles achieved a cult status in the country. Such famous telenovelas like Simplemente María, Los ricos también lloran, El clon and Terra Nostra are known by everybody in Russia. The most successful telenovelas brought a wide demographic audience; exotic locations created strong audiovisual effects and romantic accesses became favorites among teenagers. The strong traditions of Latin American telenovelas and United States’ soap operas, which are pioneers in the Russian market, made an influence on the audience and inspired television networks and production companies to make long-running series and adapt foreign formats and scripts, producing Russian clones of Western series. What are the development routes of contemporary Russian series and miniseries? How were the first Russian soap operas born and what is the future of TV fiction in Russian market? The series production went from old Soviet series like 17 Moments of Spring, which was run in the mid-90s, to local soap opera productions, new criminal dramas, gangster sagas, police investigations, contemporary melodramas and historical dramas. For the last five years, long-running local series and miniseries began to dominate prime time on Russian networks. Brigade series produced by Avatar Film in 2002, started a wave of successful criminal dramas. From 2003 to 2006, the production of mini-series and series had a dramatic increase in the diversity of thematic content and opened a new era of high budget local series in the market.

Local productions

As to the latest report of the European Audiovisual Observatory, “television series’ budgets have never been officially disclosed, but the cost of an episode rose from US$50,000 in 1997 to US$200,000 in 2005, coming up to US$ 650,000 in some special cases (that was the cost announced for the production of one episode of Master and Margarita, for instance).” Russian TV series are produced by production companies closely affiliated with broadcasters, by modern independent production studios and by TV channels on their own production basis. Streets of Broken Lights; The National Security Agent; Secrets of Investigations; The Adventure; Children of Arbat (produced by Novy Russky Serial); Always and Forever; Prima Donna; Goldmine and My General (produced by Phoenix Film) are among the best criminal drama series on Russian TV. Series based on classics made a huge success. After TV Channel Russia showed the screen version of Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece Idiot, bookshops all over the country were crowded with people willing to buy a copy of the novel. Idiot averaged an unprecedented 25-point audience share. This high budget series reconstructed the atmosphere of 19th century St. Petersburg. Producers used only genuine 19th century props – they searched antique shops and museums for chairs, bookshelves, O Master and Margarita My Beautiful Nanny Special report by Elena Sunbeam for TVMAS Magazine and ONLY TELENOVELAS, Fiction & Formats ONLY TELENOVELAS 39 carpets and even small ornamentation. On the other hand, NTV Channel produces series on its own basis. Among the just released series, The Nickname Albanian (action, 8x45’) is worth mentioning. This series was first shown at the end of April and gained good rating results, averaging 8% rating and 20.4 % share in the territory of Russia, and 7.6% rating and 20.8% share in Moscow. It was watched both by male and female audiences. In the near future NTV is planning to broadcast the new series Secret Tasks – a film version of a novel by a prominent master of action literature Daniil Koretsky. Central Partnership, the company founded primarily for television and movie distribution of imported films, turned into one of the major producers of series, mini-series and feature films. In 2005, Master and Margarita (produced by Central Partnership and TV Channel Russia) hit prime time slots in Russia and Ukraine and became an absolute leader among top performing programs. This brilliant and controversial adaptation of Bulgakov’s famous novel captured a wide audience. Hero of Our Time, Doctor Zhivago, For Tsar and Country and Golden Calf are other successful Central Partnership’s series. The arrival of modern production companies like AMEDIA brought new opportunities in terms of television series production. The growth in the number of series produced and production budgets has been accomplished by a rapid growth of production facilities. AMEDIA introduced large production facilities and 17 modern sound stages. In 2005, its yearly output exceeded 800 hours. Poor Nastya, its first Russian high budget soap opera was sold to broadcasters in more than 30 countries. Also produced by AMEDIA, Children, Lyuba and Pretty, Don’t Be Born Pretty and My Beautiful Nanny are very successful long-running sitcoms. AMEDIA works closely with Hollywood majors Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, Warner Bros. and Russian broadcasters Channel One, CTC, etc.