Why is telenovela format problematic in US?

[Cat]

Then it's not a telenovela. It's a soap. It's Sunset Beach.

TV execs, when they happen upon a cash-cow, milk it to death. Look at ER. Look at Law & Order. Look at poor Zac Efron who must be almost 30 by now and gearing up for High School Musical 8. Your multi-year "telenovela"would NEVER be allowed to die if it did somewhat well. At least, not by your watch.

[bTW... Nightshift was a telenovela in all but name -- and a pretty good one in Season 2, I would say].

[Sylph]

 Why? I mean, it will be wrapped up, but the way the stories will develop would be telenovela-esque: 13 or 21-week story arcs or something... I think marceline hit the nail on the head: if that ending wasn't really an ending or the volumes-structure... And yeah, if one volume sucked, the other might redeem the show. However, it must redeem it — two dreadful subsequent volumes equal show's death.

I don't know really... About the death thing scaring people away from telenovelas: if you're hooked from moment one, than that's not an issue. Kind of. I don't know why someone would say: Hey, this will end, I don't want to watch. Especially since we know that people often crave for an ending of something, they so desperately need it.

The problem in daytime today is that the pacing is either ludicrously fast or downright lethargic, with nothing in between. The pacing is just terrible. The stories don't have as much impact, either they are too long with so many loose points or they wrap up fast one doesn't get the chance to care. Nancy Curlee said how interesting it is to see "things appear, recede, come back". The problem is — no one now knows how to do that properly.

[Cat]

I honestly think that announcing when the show's going to end before it has even properly begun is an instant Show Killer in the US.

Heck, Lost producers didn't even touch that subject until they were sure that they had a loyal audience (the Long-Time Brand Loyalty Faulkner was talking about) -- three years after its debut. That's when they said "The next two years are for wrapping this show up."

Also, celebrity culture is another issue here. Soap actors have their own little league, as it were, of celebrity and popularity. Networks (notably ABC) take an active role in encouraging that celebrity. The meet-and-greets, the fan clubs, the soap cruises. And if you are really lucky, the cross-promotion. If you are a Lucci or a Monaco or a Mathieson, you may even get a stint on Dancing with the Stars! If you're on CBS Daytime, try your hand at one of the CSIs or Ghost Whisperer.

The networks spend a lot of marketing effort and $$$ to build the brand of that actor -- or, more accurately, the role they are playing. Fans get attached to that character. OMG! Sarah Brown is the only true Carly! When is Vanessa Marcil coming back? Jess walton is getting fired? No way in HELL! You're telling me that after three months or one year or even two years, all that branding effort will be for naught? Back to zero? Execs would laugh you out of the conference room.

BTW, ITA about pacing on Daytime -- absolutely. I don't think a Telenovela format necessarily solves that problem, though. I've seen some TNs where they underestimated the pacing and then rushed the last couple of weeks.

Also, many shows have to rewrite their original premise because another character (or actor) become extremely popular halfway through the screening of the TN and the demand is for more face-time for them. That's why TNs shoot so close to the actual writing -- so that producers can quickly anticipate an audience's reaction.

[Sylph]

OK. Then you don't get to say it right at the beginning when will it end; you just kind of delay stating that. But somewhere in the back of your brain you know it will. One day.

I didn't say that. Who said that?

True. I was thinking they should apply the successful pacing formula. Rushed endings with too much goings on at once should be a no-no.

[Cat]

You did.

and

Imagine you were pitching this to an exec:

We want to do a 21-week show. And that's it. NO new seasons. the story starts and ends permanently in 21 weeks.

Buh-bye!

TV used to have great 5-week mini-series back in the 80s and 90s (Lace, Princess Daisy, some Danielle Steel tripe) but they stopped doing those when the costs outweighed the ratings benefits. Telenovelas would be considered slightly extended miniseries.

If you want to do a SHOW which has a season length like Primetime, then that is just that -- a show. You can plan the SLs for two years or four years or whenever you want to end it, but you must have contingency plans in effect -- both for having the show cancelled early AND for extending it beyond the shelf-life you envisaged for it. Because if it is making the network money and generating ad revenue in as big a market as the US, chances are the network won't want to let it go -- and neither will the fans.

And once you sell a show to a network, it is no longer yours. It is the network's. Ask Joss Whedon. Ask Matthew Weiner.

[Sylph]

No. I did not. You are putting words in my mouth I never uttered.

I said something very different.

You might have thought I did say that, but I didn't. You misinterpreted it. That's OK... I guess.

[brimike]

I think the only way a network would go for it (excluding Harper's Island for a second, which I think everyone is wondering if it'll "succeed" or not), is if there's star power attached to it. If you get someone like Colin Farrell and Lindsey Logan to star in a 13-week miniseries, and you TOTALLY trash it out and make it "must see guilty pleasure" TV, then I think a network would be more likely to give it a shot. Otherwise - I don't see them doing it.

[Cat]

Sylph! I just quoted you!! Your words!! Check again.

My three-word answer to your question Why is telenovela format problematic in US?

Not cost-effective.

[Sylph]

That's far from the truth. There are various kinds of show. You certainly wouldn't come to a pitch meeting for a primetime show with a show that has an ending. No one is talking about that here. Nor would you come to pitch a miniseries. You come to pitch a miniseries when they tell you to come and pitch — a miniseries.

That's kind of... Discussible. I mean, no contingency plan will help you if something happened all of a sudden. An unexpected cancellation or something. E.g. they told you 4 episode before the ending you aren't coming back, but you planned out everything and you absolutely didn't think of a contingency plan. Not with this kind of scenario anyway. Then you have to re-write it all and no previous plan would be of help.

What you need is the ability to come up with something in a very, very short time. Contingency plans — scratch them.

That's rubbish and a cop out. Those people knew they would be selling them, they didn't come to LA yesterday. They know how the business works. So when you sell it, you sell it with a very precise knowledge of how things will function from then on.

And no... Matthew Weiner's second season sucked because Matthew Weiner can't write. The show became enamoured of itself. Another matter being that it sucked from the beginning.  Production values, clearly, aside.

[Cat]

I liked the second season of Mad Men.

And don't tell me I have no taste. I like what I like.

[Sylph]

You have exquisite taste. There you go again! Where did I say you had no taste?

Anyway, it sucked.  From the beginning. He can't write.

[Cat]

Flattery will get you everywhere.

DSFDF. I have a "thing" for the 1960s and that exciting, turbulent period of history, though. It seems like it was a more glamourous time, or at least the first half! So maybe that is clouding my judgment.

Anyway, we are going off-topic again, Sylph! I stand by what I said. I love telenovelas in a Brazilian/VeneVision context. But US TV... US mainstream TV is different. People watch TV differently here than they do in LatAm or parts of Europe.

Flattery will get you everywhere.

DSFDF. I have a real "thing" for the 1960s and that exciting, turbulent period of history, though. It seems like it was a more glamourous time, at least the first half was! So maybe that is clouding my judgment.

Anyway, we are going off-topic again, Sylph! I stand by what I said. I love telenovelas in a Brazilian/VeneVision context. But US TV... US mainstream TV is different. People watch TV here differently than they do in, say, LatAm. There, it is something to while away the time, not to be taken seriously. Here, TV can be considered a church, a genre, an artform. A drug.

Maybe when the Big 4 networks finally give up the ghost, TNs may be more prevalent as the audiuence becomes more pro-active about picking and choosing -- and maybe even commissioning -- what they want to watch, where and when they want to watch it.

[ReddFoxx]

That too, in this case something that isn't open ended has a lot less earning potential.

[Sylph]

I know that, I live here, too. Anyway, I wasn't thinking about the telenovelas in primetime, more like daytime or some other timeslot close to it.

Perhaps I kind of didn't state it clearly enough: something like a telenovela, but not a telenovela. I repeat: I like marceline's idea where endings aren't really endings... Or chapter-style storytelling...

I also didn't mean telenovela in terms of the content of stories, that whole poor girl/rich guy. More like the — pace. Pace was the keyword. And for fast pace to be effective, to be able to last and have impact, it must have an end. Or else it's crash and burn.

Ka-Boom!

[MarkH]

Port Charles failed, but I really think this could work, and be cost effective, if the telenovela is situated in a continuing universe with non-continuing elements.

So, take the post-GL Springfield.

Say Springfield is the platform from which stories are told. And say, for a given 13 week cycle (which, IMO, should be 13 1x-week episodes, not 13 5x-week episodes) you tell a story in Springfield. Maybe the story uses some characters/actors from GL, but it can also use new characters/actors that are thematically linked to your "spinoff" group.

Very concretely, say for 13 weeks your "A" story relates to Otalia, and some drama they are experiencing. Your B and C stories could involve, say, Natalia's son and Doris/Ashlee. Those would all be linked.

You ground your story in Springfield by using the same sets, the same backstory. You also throw bones to the long-term viewers by having "special guest appearances" by folks from the past-and-present of Springfield who make sense. So, maybe Olivia needs money, so that week, she makes a special guest visit to Phillip or Alan.

At the end of the 13-week cycle, maybe you start another "A, B, C" set of stories with another part of Springfield. The story is self-contained over the 13-week period. Maybe, if the first 13-week Otalia cycle was successful, you might carry over a part of that as "B" or "C" in the current cycle.

It is cost effective for two reasons. First, it repurposes sets, etc. that are already built. Second, your contracts are for 13-week cycles and THAT IS IT.

If you do the show as a once-weekly, your contracts with cast and crew are like any primetime series...reducing your costs significantly further. But it is sustainable, because much of your infrastructure (the Peapack showhouse, the NYC sets) is built.

The trick would be to rely less on RETURNING fans, but to make these self-contained 13-week chapters sufficiently compelling that people tune in in their own right.

I'm not sure it could work, but I'd love to see it tried.

I think a beautiful model was the GH:Night Shift model...a new story set in the Port Charles universe. I think what I am proposing differs because there is no "mothership" (so you don't have to worry about continuity between shows, etc.). The new telenovela format replaces the mothership.

Ratings for GH:NSII were not good, but I think the network, the promotion, and the weakness of the "mothership" all conspired to derail the show's viewership.