Water Cooler

By Leah Hochbaum

While the introduction of English-language telenovelas on the new MyNetworkTV hasn’t exactly been a resounding success in the U.S., the soapy series continue to dominate the ratings among Spanish-speaking viewers around the world. But Latin American TV companies aren’t resting on their laurels. With new technologies being discovered each day and overlooked audiences finally being recognized, things are getting muy caliente.

“Telenovelas are a way of life,” said Jose Escalante, vice president and general manager of Miami, Florida-based RCTV International. “They are part of our Latin culture.” But despite the fact that many novela watchers have been tuning in since birth, RCTV is looking for new avenues to reach those people who simply cannot make it a priority to watch the shows on traditional televisions each day. The company is in the process of making telenovela Betrayed available for mobile. “Digital TV, satellite and mobile TV are what the future holds,” said Escalante.

Escalante also believes that the popularity of telenovela format Betty La Fea, which spawned ABC hit Ugly Betty this season in the U.S., will mean great things for Latins. “More companies [around the world] will want a piece of the pie,” said Escalante. “They are beginning to realize that telenovelas are a profitable business. We’ve already sold the format for My Sweet Fat Valentina and Juana’s Miracle to India, and are currently negotiating other telenovela formats, as well.”

Claudia Silva, director of marketing for Miami-based Televisa, agrees with Escalante that it’s time for Latin TV companies to look into the future. “Televisa has always tried to adopt new technologies as early as we can.” She points to the fact that the company was the first to introduce a high definition novela, Ruby, in 2002. “Now, 70 percent of our programming is in HD,” she said. “And our objective for this year is to produce even more novelas in HD.”

While most TV companies targeting Latinos know that they have a built-in audience for novelas, others choose to focus upon viewers who have long been ignored. California-based Laguna Productions is currently at work on two new Latin films: Mexican American, the tale of a former boxer who must rescue his daughter from kidnappers, and El Chicano, about a man forced to take the law into his own hands after his wife is murdered, both of which target second-generation Latinos in the U.S. who speak English and have a different set of values than their telenovela-loving (and some might say, more emotional) forebears.

“It is a market that is untapped,” said Laguna’s president, Elart Coello. “But we know the market. We understand it. For once, the industry as a whole is paying increasingly more attention to the Latino market — the Latin DVD market has been exploding with a growth rate of 35 to 45 percent — and this is just the beginning!”

And Laguna isn’t the only company noticing that lately all things Latin turn to gold. Discovery en Español, a channel that offers a look at the world from a Hispanic perspective, recently achieved the highest primetime ratings growth of any publicly reported Hispanic broadcaster or pay-TV network in the U.S. The channel increased 78 percent among men 18-49, 50 percent among adults 18-49, and 54 percent among total households.

Luis Silberwasser, senior vice president and general manager, Discovery Networks U.S. Hispanic Group, credits this growth to “our strategy of providing Spanish-speaking audiences in the U.S. with culturally relevant and thought-provoking programming.”

But telenovelas are still the bread and butter of any Latino’s TV diet. Perhaps RCTV’s Escalante summed it up best: “The telenovela genre will continue to reign in the Latin television scene for a long time to come.”

Posted by watercooler at 04:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By Leah Hochbaum

Is NATPE still the place to be in January? VideoAge visited several exhibitors to find out if NATPE is indeed the weakest of the three major TV trade shows.

“It’s been busy,” said Kevin Byles, vice president and general manager of Canada’s Chum International. “I had three breakfast meetings and two lunches [on Wednesday]. But the meetings I’ve had here have been important and meaningful. There even seems to be good representation from the Middle East.”

Byles contends that NATPE is an important market for Chum, calling it “among the top three behind MIP-TV and MIPCOM,” but believes that it could be made better with a few relatively minor adjustments. “It’d be great if the convention was longer — a full week. You could deal with seminars and sessions on some days and meetings on other days.” But if Byles truly had his way, “I’d get everyone to return to the convention floor. Nothing’s better than being on the floor. You get a better sense of what’s going on. Plus,” he added, “why frustrate the buyers” and make them go to the convention center and the suites?

Jim Kraus, president of Carsey-Werner Domestic Television Distribution, said that NATPE was a successful few days for the independent distributor. The company sealed 16 deals to extend the end date of its Comedy Block — which includes The Cosby Show, Roseanne and Cosby spin-off A Different World — from 2008 to 2010 for stations in Chicago, Detroit, Knoxville, Albuquerque and Dayton.

And Kraus wasn’t the only one praising NATPE’s very existence. Cookie Jar Entertainment inked a deal with Cartoon Network Latin America for three of the company’s series, including Gerald McBoing Boing, Postcards From Buster and Johnny Test. The shows will debut later this year. “NATPE is great for Latin American buyers who can’t go to MIP or MIPCOM because of their finances,” said Olga Romero, who handles Cookie Jar’s Latin American broadcast sales. “NATPE helps us bring them up to speed.”

Romero spent most of her time in meetings, but said that if there had been time, she would have loved to attend the panels on new media. “That’s where things are going,” she said. “And Cookie Jar aims to reach kids in whatever environment they’re in — whether in front of a television or in front of a computer.”

Distraction president Michel Rodrigue concurred. “I would have liked to have attended the mobile panels because it’s interesting to me to see how it develops here in the United States, as compared to Europe. We’ve done a lot of mobile sales in Europe for the past few years. Here, people talk about it, but I haven’t yet seen a business model that makes sense.”

In addition to advancements in mobile television, Rodrigue would also like to see “more discussion of formats” — Distraction’s specialty — at NATPE. “People in the U.S. try to hide the fact that Deal or No Deal and American Idol are formats. I’d like to see more sessions on formats. I’d like for them to be promoted more.”

A more comprehensive survey of the value of seminars will be published in VideoAge’s MIP-TV editions (Issue and Dailies). Preliminary research indicates that overall, most of the conferences weren’t considered useful or enlightening. However, this is not only a problem that’s affecting NATPE, but most TV trade shows, all of which struggle to come up with meaningful line-ups of topics that are relevant to today’s TV challenges.

In addition, recent changes such as NATPE becoming a one-day market (when traditionally it was two days with exhibitors packing up on the third day) — as well as the fact that NATPE was pushed ahead by a week — caused some problems for exhibitors, notably those coming from territories where Christmas holiday celebrations don’t conclude until January 7.

Next Year, NATPE will be held on January 28 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

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By Leah Hochbaum

Although TV executives have complained that most of the markets that were once considered can’t-miss events are now just relics of the industry’s forgotten past, most contend that NATPE, which will have its 44th edition next week in Las Vegas, is still vital to attend.

“I love it,” said Greg Phillips, president, Fireworks International. “It’s the first of the year. Everyone’s enthused to see what’s new after the long holiday season.” But while he’s looking forward to spending some time in Sin City, he does believe that NATPE’s “a week or two too early this year, especially with MIP later than usual.”

Phillips is especially excited about exploring new digital media opportunities at the market. “We just announced a new department to be run by Jonathan Ford,” he said. Ford will be responsible for the licensing of all of Fireworks International’s new and library properties to digital media channels throughout the world, including on-demand, broadband and mobile platforms.

Classic Media is also viewing NATPE as a forum to up its digital ante, having just hired Andrew Perlman as vice president, Digital. According to Doug Schwalbe, executive vice president, Worldwide Distribution at Classic, “We already have channels with MobiTV [a service that essentially turns your phone into a mobile television], which is available on Sprint. We’re now trying to launch a block called Saturday Morning TV, which evokes memories of Saturday morning cartoons for people in their 30s and 40s.” The block will include such animated classics as Mr. Magoo and Rocky and Bullwinkle. “We’re trying to get more into the mobile and broadband world,” said Schwalbe.

Another company coming to NATPE in the hopes of breaking into new platforms is Argentina’s Telefilms. “We consider it very important to learn more about the possible market around VoD and all Internet rights for films,” said Telefilms marketing executive Thelma Pussetto before adding that she hopes her busy schedule will allow her to attend conferences and panels related to those topics during the market. “We don’t want to neglect any area, so in case we expand our interests, we need to start learning about these new ideas.”

E! Networks vp, International Sales, Duccio Donati, is also looking to expand his company’s interests. “Mobile, broadband and VoD are becoming increasingly important both as complimentary and stand-alone businesses,” he said. “We are pursuing these areas aggressively in the United States and therefore have a considerable amount of product that we can make available to those platforms, so I expect we will be closing a considerable number of new deals this year.”

Yet, while many companies are coming out to learn about the roads they haven’t yet taken, some are coming to make sure that the business they’ve always known gets done. “Traditional television is still my main focus because it is still the best medium to reach young viewers en masse,” said Olga Romero, who handles Latin American broadcast sales for Canada-based Cookie Jar Entertainment. Romero and her colleagues will concentrate their efforts on “seeking free-television partners for our newest crop of series,” including Johnny Test, The Doodlebops and Gerald McBoing Boing.

Romero feels that NATPE is still an immensely important market for Cookie Jar. “It remains a great opportunity for us to connect with our clients in Latin America,” she said. “It is also a great bridge between MIPCOM Jr. and MIP-TV that allows business to flourish.”

Classic’s Schwalbe concurred. “For the past 18 months, every market has gotten better and better,” he said. “There’s been real buying activity on the floor and I’m confident that the upsurge will continue at NATPE.”

NATPE is expected to be a good market, even though attendance is expected to be down, and many distributors view the event as “the weakest among the key markets.” But this is another story that VideoAge must verify and, if accurate, report on.

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By Leah Hochbaum

At the start of the 2006-2007 U.S. TV season, the popularity of serialized shows like Lost, 24 and Grey’s Anatomy led to glut of copycats — series that required viewers to make huge time commitments, dedicating themselves to watching every minute of every episode of the season, possibly for years to come. Broadcasters were hopeful, but what they forgot was that viewers were already committed to Lost, 24, and Grey’s Anatomy and didn’t have a whole lot of time left for new shows. One by one the new series were cancelled. Kidnapped, Vanished, Smith, Runaway and The Nine all got the ax before long. So for midseason, the nets realized that when it came to dramas, less, in most cases, was probably more.

“There is an overpopulation of series and serialized shows, and the audience can only devote their time to watching an average of two series a week,” said Fernando Barbosa, senior vice president, Buena Vista International Television Latin America. “People have other things to do. And nowadays, new media pipelines [such as the Internet] are a clear option as well. Therefore only two or three content winners will emerge. Those winners can benefit exponentially, while the rest lose exponentially.”

BVITV launched just one midseason drama — the Groudhog Day-like Day Break — in Lost’s coveted time slot when the island mystery series went on hiatus. The show, which starred Taye Diggs, looked promising at first, but nonetheless, was quickly cancelled. While most would be quick to blame the surplus of serialized series, Barbosa wasn’t sure. “I tend to agree,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s always like that. If the trend is not serialized shows, it’s another category of content.”

CBS also went the less-is-more route, debuting just one midseason drama, medical show 3 Lbs., which is internationally distributed by CBS Paramount International Television. But while the eye network has yet to officially pull the plug on the series, it put the show on hiatus after just a handful of airings. It seem that viewers just don’t have any more time on their hands to get involved with another show.

Keith LeGoy, executive vice president, Distribution for Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI), which only debuted comedies in the midseason, opined that in addition to audiences’ lack of time “the interesting factor has been the strength of many of the returning shows, and frankly the overall unbelievably high level of quality for new TV series. Shows like Kidnapped, Smith or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip are outstanding creative television, but so are returning shows like Grey’s Anatomy and ER. So the competition is intense and the quality level you need to win has been cranked way up.”

LeGoy continued: “The beauty of our business is its unpredictability. No one really knows why X or Y shows didn’t catch fire with the audience. So much of this business is the stars aligning for a great show which catches the zeitgeist, connects with its marketing campaign and is on at a time, and with a lead-in, that prompts people to try it and come back the next week.”

Meanwhile, The CW, the newest U.S. network, which blended programming from The WB and UPN, also opted to play it safe, launching just one new drama — Hidden Palms from Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson and distributed by Lionsgate. And despite the failure of Runaway, the net’s only new series this past fall, Dawn Ostroff, president, Entertainment, The CW, has high hopes for the new show and the net. “With so many great shows on these days, viewers do have a lot on their plates. But the fact is, if you love a show, you’re going to tune in each week — whether it’s serialized or not. I don’t think the fact that a show is serialized prevents people from checking it out. If a great show grabs viewers’ attention, they’ll make the effort to keep coming back.”

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