Without RCTV: Venezuelan TV is deformed

Today, two years ago Venezuelan network RCTV was closed. An arbitrary measure that was very telling of the government's character. 

Beyond the terrible loss of a key part of our freedom of expression, the absence of RCTV from the open airwaves has produced an immense deformation in Venezuela's television industry:

• Because RCTV is now only on cable, its revenues have dropped dramatically and so has its level of production.  Furthermore, the network is now almost exclusively devoted to producing remakes and adaptations of literary novels. These telenovela are of uneven quality regarding their scripts, casts and production values.  This has the detrimental effect of  impoverishing the Venezuelan telenovela industry.
• Obiously, both Televén and Venevisión now get higher shares. However, Televén doesn't really compete with Venevisión's high numbers. Hence, the latter wins almost every time slot in the programming grid.
• Without competition in the domestic market, Venevisión aims towards the international market.
• Regarding telenovelas, this means a new "norm" of 120 episodes, regardless of the storylines and their success (or lack thereof). (This is a bit of  a dumb "norm" when we consider the high international sales of Doña Bárbara, which boasts 190 episodes). In this sense, there is no respect for the story, nor for the audience. Because, even though extending a telenovela can be disrespectful to the viewers, not giving it enough episodes to develop correctly also denotes lack of respect.
• The lack of competition in the domestic market ensues a lackadaisical attitude regarding the network's promotion and presentation of its products. I don't see nearly the same energy regarding press releases and  interview opportunities that Venevisión used to show when competition with RCTV kept Venezuelan TV alive.  Also, the network's public relations efforts have ceased to be proactive, for the most part. 
• Regarding programming, it seems that it doesn't really matter if a telenovela is premiered at the wrong time of the year, as it happened with La Vida Entera, whose premiere coincided with regional elections and the professional baseball season. Nor does it seem to matter if transmission is irregular. After all, the local market is secured. (For 8 consecutive weeks, La Vida Entera did not air every day, as it should have).
• Because RCTV produces less and  Venevisión has the local market won, the quality of the work goes down. So do the salaries of those who work in telenovelas and television. 
• In this sense, it's actors who are the most affected. Their job sources are seriously diminished (the problem is even worse when we consider how the government is asphyxiating  both the theater scene and the film industry) and the two networks offer salaries that, in general, do not reflect the experience, talent and dedication of most Venezuelan actors.
• Political polarization, which has invaded almost every aspect of Venezuelan life, also affects the viewing habits of some audience sectors that refuse to watch Venevisión because they believe the network "sold out" to the government when it decided to eliminate political discourse from its programming. This is as sad as those members of the public, who are pro-government, and who've decided not to watch RCTV on cable. These decisions give political ideology the reign over media consumption, when each individual should be completely free to decide what they like or not, and what they will consume. Without realizing it, they're playing the President's game of "divide and conquer." 
• It doesn't help our television that we lose our critical skills because of our political position. As Venezuelans, we must require RCTV, Venevisión and Televén to give us the best possible television. We should not routinely excuse some media outlets because they've been shunned of the open airwaves and blindly indict others for still being there. 
• Maybe the worst problem is the immense fear to be closed by the government that exists in the media outlets that are still on the air. This fear has been transformed into the worst and saddest kind of censorship: self-censorship.  And even though the government has a media law to control media content, it's self-censorship which invasively and excessively regulates the content of a majority of private media outlets in Venezuela. Fear is never a good motivator.

After two years of the closing of RCTV, the panorama doesn't look good. Venezuelan TV is seriously deformed. And, so is our telenovela industry. However, I must say that censorship is always superficial and is never smart. Neither is self-censorship. We can always "turn it around" with intelligence. The ball, then, is in the audience's court. We read what we want and decode as we wish:

LOOKING FOR THE "INTERNATIONAL" TELENOVELA IN MIAMI

I haven't been able to write in my blog in many days. The reasons are mainly two: 

1. The semester presses on with classes to be prepared, exams to be graded, etc.
   
2. I went to Miami on a short, but fruitful research trip.

Miami is now a key destination in the telenovela world. This is where most Latin American production companies have their "international" branch. It's also the place where decision making occurs for the two largest Spanish-speaking networks in the U.S.:  Telemundo and  Univisión. I went to Miami in search for answers to the main question:

What are the requirements for a telenovela to be successful in the international market?

To explore this and other related questions, I chose key people who have worked successfully both inside and outside Venezuela. My gratitude goes to all of them for the time they spent with me. I want to thank particularly Mr.  Arquímedes Rivero and writers Perla Farías, Alberto Gómez, Vivel Nouel and Valentina Párraga for their generosity as they answered my many questions.

Now, it's time to analyze and deepen what I learned in Miami...and to prepare my next research trip to Caracas, where I'll go back to the set and locations of telenovela La Vida Entera.

TORRENTE: THE EVOLUTION OF PRODUCTION AND THE INVOLUTION OF THE TEXT

On April 2,  Venevisión premiered its new telenovela, Torrente, written by Benilde Alvarez and Neida Padilla. The press wrote extensively about the first episode (El Universal, El Nacional, Ultimas Noticias, El Mundo), highlighting the beauty and proliferation of exterior shots in Venezuela's Gran Sabana region, and the central plot of surrogate motherhood.

Torrente is a change from the style of telenovelas broadcast in Venevisión. Some press reports have defined it as a return to the rosa style (see, for example,  El Nacional). Personally, I believe that we're facing an involution of the text (script+incidental music), that contrasts with the undeniable technical and directorial advances that allow the extraordinary display of natural beauty that we see in Torrente:



and the mise-en-scene of sequences like the airplane accident depicted in the following videos (10:30 in the first video and the beginning seconds of the second video):

To be specific, when I say there's an involution of the text, I'm not talking about the theme that underpins the central conflict: surrogate motherhood. This is a contemporary and controversial topic that is perfect for a telenovela. (The topic is so current that Newsweek recently dedicated  its cover story  to the topic. When I say involution, I refer to:

• The flat depiction of important characters (and their stereotypical interpretation). For instance, villain Cayo Gabaldón, interpreted by actor Félix Loreto.
  
• The inclusion of predictable and trite dialogues.
  
• The backwardness of certain dialogues:  "I'm an incomplete woman who was born with a useless womb", "We, women, need to have children. We were born for that", says the protagonist,  Ana Julia. Those words construct a woman that, even though she has a stable and loving relationship, professional success and beauty, has a microscopic self-esteem exclusively based on her ability to bear children.  It's an outdated depiction of women that denies our struggle for an identity that goes beyond being "so and so's mom" or "the wife of..."
  
• There are problems in the connection among scenes and in the handling of the mini-time elipses. The consequence is an irregular rhythm in the storytelling, and sequences that don't make sense. The source of the problem could be in the edition process. But, I think it's in the script's outline. Both the director and editor are trying to minimize this issue, without much success so far.
  
• The incidental music consists of excessively dramatic scores, utilized only to exaggerate the melodrama. The result reeks of telenovelas from decades past. 
  

All of these, coupled with the almost total absence of humor (the only semi-humorous element is the tone of the character Juancho Gabaldón, played by Eduardo Orozco), underpin my perception of  Torrente as an involution.

Having said this, it's still early in the game. The telenovela has the potential of building on many interesting dramatic knots.

I must say, however, that this isn't a good moment for the Venezuelan telenovela industry. With the forced transformation of RCTV into RCTV Internacional, and the changes in priorities of  Venevisión's top management (priority to the international market over the local one), we're beginning to see telenovelas whose best attributes lie on the technical aspects of production (much like the telenovelas produced in Miami). I think this is a loss for the genre because telenovelas are losing their ability to connect with the public not only through the love story, but also through well designed characters and situations that we both recognize and recognize ourselves in since they're ingredients or our dreams and realities. 

BACK WITH A NEW LOOK

When this blog turned six months old, I made the resolution to change its visual look. It's taken me almost six more months to do it since it isn't easy for me to find time for such a task. Finally, it's done! (Hence my wide smile as I look at my computer's screen). And it was possible thanks to the amazing help of my friend dRAGOONS. If you can read Spanish, I recommend you visit his blog, Utópico Real, where you will get to know this bioanalysis student, who moderates the Internet message board TVVI, and who has a real talent for visual communication.

The change in the blog's look comes at the same time as I arrive back to Athens after two intense weeks of research in Caracas, where I documented the current state of the telenovela industry, ten months after the closing of RCTV and its transformation into RCTV Internacional. I still have much analysis to do, but the panorama isn't particularly sunny for actors, writers and the Venezuelan public. Both RCTV Internacional and Venevisión have shifted gears and now privilege the international market over the local one. This will probably mean more remakes of old telenovelas and more telenovelas that follow the traditional model of the telenovela rosa. It isn't a good time for creativity and talent. In addition, the work sources for actors have significantly dried up.

This trip also included several media interviews about my book Venezuela es una Telenovela. It's always both surreal and fascinating for me to talk about my book. Interviews usually center in either or both aspects of my research: telenovelas and Venezuela.

There was an element of serendipity in my visit to my birth city. Two events coincided with my stay. I've commented already about the first one: the premiere of Caramelo e Chocolate, the first telenovela broadcast by government network TVES.

The second event was the end of the production of Arroz Con Leche, a telenovela that's entering its final broadcast week. In all the years I've been studying telenovelas, I'd never been able to witness that moment in a telenovela's biography. Once again I was reminded of the importance of vantage point for the construction of our perceptions, and the immense distance that exists between what people "know" about a telenovela's production and what actually happens behind the heavy doors of every television studio and inside the network's boardrooms.


While I was in Caracas there was an episode of Arroz Con Leche that garnered 15 points of rating, a true feat...even in the current no-internal-competition environment. In this particular episode the character Tomás Chacón beats his wife Amanda. (We don't see him actually hitting her because such scenes are prohibited by the Venezuelan Ley de Contenidos). What does this peak in the ratings mean under these circumstances? Is it because there's a fascination with violence and/or drama? Or is it that Venezuelans can identify with and/or recognize this issue as one of the country's most pressing sociocultural problems? It's worth analyzing since those numbers and the content of that episode provide us with a trap door through which we can examine the social formation.

TELENOVELAS: WHEN THERE IS NO COMPETITION II

Recently, I wrote a post about my concern regarding the loss of local color and flavor in Venezuelan telenovelas due to the lack of competition, now that RCTV is out of the open airwaves.

An important aspect of this no-competition phenomenon is the definition of local "success" or "failure" of a telenovela under this particular conditions.

Traditionally, ratings and shares have been the currency of the television system. Of course, good ratings aren't always accompanied by quality television. But, these numbers are considered by the industry and by advertisers as the measure of tv consumption.

But, what happens with the perception of these numbers when there isn't competition, as in the Venezuelan television case?

I don't think there's a change in the advertisers' perceptions. They know well that now that RCTV is only on cable, Venevisión is the colossus and the most watched tv network in Venezuela. For them, ratings have the same meaning they've always had. It's business as usual.

This is possibly true also for the majority of people who watch telenovelas in Venezuela. Those who don't care about ratings, or who wins, but who just want to be entertained by their telenovela of choice. Their decision-making process every evening is still pretty much the same. They just have fewer options, courtesy of the Venezuelan government.

I note a change in perception, though, in those members of the audience that are most committed to the telenovela genre: bloggers and message board participants. In those spaces politics frequently color the perception of whatever is on the tv screen. Ratings, which are seldom made public, are interpreted, even when there hasn't been access to them. Opinions are created about this or that telenovela, and spirals of silence (Noelle-Neuman, 1974) appear among those who disagree, but who perceive themselves as being in the minority, even if they aren't.

Given Venezuela's intense political polarization and the soon-to-happen important constitutional reform referendum, I'm not surprised by most of what I read in blogs and boards. However, there are some arguments that intrigue me. For instance, there is the generalized assumption that if RCTV wasn't only on cable, that its telenovelas would win on primetime. This, of course, is impossible to know for sure. The most important thing I've learned in all these years studying telenovelas is that the audience is unpredictable. Therefore, RCTV could well win or lose.

There is an interesting paradox that has caught my attention. The most visited post in the Spanish version of my blog is the only one that mentions Venevisión's telenovela Arroz con Leche. (Here the post's version in English). However, participants in message boards frequently say that this telenovela is a failure. Some argue that its share is lower than Venevisión's average share...an intriguing and fascinating argument...That is, that since the telenovela has no competition, then it competes against the network that produces it.

This disparity between the number of hits to that particular post and the opinions expressed on the Internet made me look carefully at recent shares and ratings for the 9 p.m .slot.

Below, a graphic I prepared with the shares of the first two weeks of November. I didn't include Sundays (no telenovelas air on Sundays), or the days where baseball games preempted the telenovela's broadcast.

(Please click on the graphic so you can see it bigger):



A few reflections:

* Because RCTV isn't on the open airwaves anymore, the distance between Venevisión and the rest is immense, in terms of share.
* At 9 p.m., Televén and the Cable (aggregate share of all cable outlets) fight tooth and nail for second place.
* On most days, telenovela Arroz con Leche has a better share that its network average (green line).
* It's still impossible to predict who would win at 9 p.m. if RCTV was still on the commercial airwaves.

So, what can we say about the success or failure of Venevisión's telenovelas, now that there is no competition?

I don't believe we can clasify them as a failure, given the distance between them and the other options offered by Televén and the other commercial TV outlets.

At the same time, their success will always be tarnished by the absence of its traditional competitor, RCTV. It's like those baseball records with an asterisk.

On the other hand, what can we say about the success or failure of RCTV's telenovelas, now that they air only via cable?

We can't say they are successful or failures. We can only compare their numbers with the other options available by cable. Again, in baseball terms, this is like speculating whether an African American player who was never allowed to play in the Major Leagues would have been a record holder. Unfortunately, we can only speculate...

The most important thing is that by being assured (Venevisión) or incapacitated (RCTV) to hold the local market's supremacy, the focus of network executives and owners will shift to the international market. In this way, the terms of the game change. And, maybe, the way Venezuelan telenovelas will be written and produced from now on will change too.

Original Stories or Remakes?

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Luis Clemens, a freelance reporter who covers Hispanic marketing and media for trade publications such as Multichannel News.

In his blog, Clemenseando, Clemens wrote a post titled Too Many Telenovela Remakes? in which he describes the current telenovela landscape in U.S. Spanish speaking networks:

All three of Univision's primetime telenovelas are remakes. "La Fea Más Bella" is a Televisa remake of Fernando Gaitán's "Yo soy Betty, la fea." "Destilando Amor" is the Mexicanization of another Gaitán novela "Café, con aroma de mujer". In the new Televisa-produced version, Colombian coffee has been replaced with Mexican tequila. (The original setting of a coffee plantation has been replaced with an agave plantation and agave is the basic ingredient of tequila). "Duelo de Pasiones" is yet another Televisa remake. This novela is a remake of "Flor de las Nieves", which first aired in Cuba in the late 1950s.

To be sure, remakes aren't exclusive to the U.S. telenovela landscape. Remakes ("refritos", as they are commonly called in Venezuela) are present in many television stations across the world which, like Univisión, purchase their telenovelas from Mexican giant Televisa.

In Venezuela, remakes also have a place in television production. In the last few years, RCTV re-made as single shows some of its most successful telenovelas like La Señora de Cárdenas, Natalia de 8 a 9 and Silvia Rivas, Divorciada, all originally written by José Ignacio Cabrujas. In 2006, RCTV broadcast to low ratings a remake of Julio César Mármol's El Desprecio. And before being taken off the air by the government's cancellation of its license, RCTV was airing Mi Prima Ciela, written by Pilar Romero as a remake of her two successful telenovelas Elizabeth and Maite. Venevisión has also produced remakes of variable quality and degrees of success. (By the way, the question why remakes aren't always successful in Venezuela merits a separate post).

As I told Clemens, when he interviewed me, I'm not against remakes. But, I am against producing an excessive number of them. I also disagree with those who see the remake as the only production option, or as their preferred production choice. I firmly believe that it isn't healthy for the telenovela industry that one of its crucial players--Televisa--produces almost exclusively remakes. This focus on remake production will gradually asphyxiate creativity, diminish the generation of new plots and the possibilities of Latin Americans telling the stories of who we are and how we love. In the long term, remakes may produce fatigue in the audience as the genre will lose its freshness.


Last summer Produ.com published on its website a collection of videotaped interviews with key producers and writers discussing the issue of remakes. In his interview, Colombian writer Fernando Gaitán, whose marvellous Yo soy Betty, la Fea has been successfully remade in many countries, and is the inspiration for ABC's Ugly Betty, states that "television can't continue repeating itself, they're going to kill the genre", and adds "the remake is eating up the telenovela".


Award-winning Venezuelan author Alberto Barrera Tyszka hits the nail on the head when he states that the current emphasis on remakes "is related to one of the telenovela industry's strongest anxieties: how to guarantee success".
Certainly, the percepction among many networks executives is that remakes are sure successes. This is particularly true in Mexico.


And, even though Mexican producers like Salvador Mejías argue that they are the ones taking risks "because the issue is that people don't feel it's a remake", it seems obvious to me that the preference for remakes is a telltale sign that the "business" aspect of the telenovela is paramount and more important than any of the other facets of this media/cultural product that so defines Latin Americans.

I alway say that telenovelas have a little (or a lot) of Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Montecristo, The Prince and the Pauper, The Man in the Iron Mask and Ugly Duckling, among other classic plots. Notwithstanding this common ground, Latin American creativity has produced wonderfully diverse love stories with characters we know and recognize. These are stories about ourselves, and as such they must evolve with the social formation and not get stuck in a vicious cycle of repetition.

(Note: Here you can find several video interviews with Fernando Gaitán in Spanish, including the one in which he discusses remakes. Also, through the link Ver más opiniones del Remake, you can access other interviews on this same topic).