amanda@tvmasmagazine.com

In the whole of Latin America there is no show more popular or successful than telenovelas.
Its history goes back to the 50s in the last century when Venezuela and Mexico became the cradle of the best melo-dramas of the world, wrapped in a strange kind of series called “telenovela”. Those steps were quickly followed by Argentina and Brazil who established their own standards and characteris-tics that differentiated them from Venezuela and Mexico with a telenovela that included a language and treatment similar to those of the cinema. In the frame of these references and Mecca of the genre, Colombia, already in the 70s, started to produce a telenovela in which it also made contributions experimenting with comedy, literature and magic realism. In this way, in the 80s, the genre was in its period of pre splendor: Televisa, who has more product and more experience in labor hand and marketing opened the gap and followed by Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia, they exported a successful Latin American TV product.
Telenovelas had conquered a TV time that was born in hands of American industry and took over the prime time. The famous American series were pushed out of the program planning because the public reacted in different ways, in masses and euphorically at Los Ricos También Lloran, Esmeralda and Cristal.
The decade of the 90s represented the globalization of a successful Latin American TV product and Europe and Asia have bought it for this reason. Kasandra, Esmeralda, Celeste, Betty la Fea and others have made audiences of all kinds vibrate ecstatically.
Today telenovelas factories in Latin America have a 50-year experience producing thousands of episodes of telenovelas of all kinds and shapes. An experience that in other countries is just improvisation. That is the difference. Styles and ways of producing that have been learnt along 50 years, are the cause of these telenovelas, which have become massive shows, tools for the channels to create faithful TV audience, marketing, advertisement and communication products.
This decade of the new century will be its splendor decade… a splendor that will glitter for 50 years or more worldwide. Only if the industry works in favor of the multiple possibilities that telenovelas have to exploit and offer.