Telenovelas Have Lots of Fans at Other Networks

Suddenly, everyone wants to be in the telenovela business.

The first programs for the newly announced My Network TV, the mini-network of News Corp.’s nine former UPN affiliates, will be two prime-time melodramas fashioned after the popular Spanish-language serials. The company is not going out on a limb with the idea. The major networks -- NBC, ABC and CBS -- have similar plans to rework the Latin American format for mainstream U.S. audiences.

Telenovelas (sometimes shortened to novelas) feature over-the-top plotlines similar to those of traditional daytime soap operas, if a little racier. But if daytime soaps can drag story lines out for years, often taking months to resolve the smallest points, telenovelas typically have a clear, predetermined end date, running five nights a week for three to 18 months.

They get in, they get out and they get noticed. Since Nielsen Media Research began including Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo in its prime-time ratings in December, telenovelas have consistently made the top 10. Univision’s “Alborada” (“Dawn”) performs very well among 18-to-49-year-olds and often ranks higher than some of the English-language programming in its time slot.

As networks look for new, innovative programming, they are turning to the Spanish-language sizzlers as a way of reinvigorating their lineups. None has yet been on the air, but many are in the works.

“We’ve been exploring the world of telenovelas for the better part of a year,” said Bob Cook, chief operating officer of Twentieth Television, a division of Fox Entertainment Group, which adapted Spanish-language melodramas to create “Desire” and “Secrets” for English-speaking audiences. “Secrets” will begin shooting next week.

Meanwhile, NBC is working with sister company Telemundo to adapt the popular telenovela “El Cuerpo del Deseo,” which will be titled “Body of Desire” -- a story about a 67-year-old man who inhabits a younger man’s body. CBS is developing five original telenovela-style dramas, one of which will air over 13 weeks this summer.

Producers Reveille and Touchstone are about to start shooting the pilot of “Betty the Ugly,” a version of one of the most popular telenovelas ever to air in Latin America, for ABC. The story, which also airs in Germany and India, follows a young girl (America Ferrera in the U.S. version) as she gains confidence in the workplace.

Twentieth Television has already translated and Americanized the scripts it acquired from Caracol, a Colombian media company. “We’re in negotiations with a half-dozen different companies around the world that produce these and presently have about two years’ worth of scripts,” Cook said.

Cook calls the serials “short series dramas,” not telenovelas. “This is designed at the English-speaking audience,” he said.

But the network also wants to attract younger Latinos who speak more English than Spanish. The new shows will occasionally feature the original telenovela stars who speak English. “We will strike a familiar chord with the second- and third-generation Latin community,” Cook said. “The first generation will probably continue to watch their telenovelas in Spanish.”