Summer surrender

The week of Aug. 6 to 12 might have been all about the London Olympics, with NBC amassing some hefty audience numbers, including a historic 31 million viewers tuning in for the closing ceremony that Sunday night. In the living rooms of the nation’s nearly 14 million Hispanic households, another network was making history of sorts: Univision, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster, was the top-rated prime-time alternative to NBC among key demographics, reaching historic highs during the last week of its popular telenovela, “La Que No Podía Amar (The One Who Couldn’t Love).” The novela, which consistently beat one or several of the top four networks during its eight-month run on Univision, climaxed Aug. 10 with a total audience of 8 million.

The finale pulled out all the stops. There was a raging fire, a showdown between the two studs and an impossibly romantic wedding. The two-hour broadcast positioned Univision as the No. 2 network for the night, outperforming ABC, CBS, Fox and the CW.

Critics have long predicted the demise of telenovelas, arguing that as Latinos acculturate they would move away from their clichéd formulas. But the numbers tell a different story. The success of “La Que No Podía Amar,” produced in Mexico by Univision programming partner and part owner Grupo Televisa, was only the latest in a decades-long string of hits by Univision, which has succeeded by filling its prime-time schedule with daily dramas (known as telenovelas), most of which it imports directly from Mexico.

“Telenovelas are the reason we beat NBC 195 nights last year,” Univision Network’s president, César Conde, told reporters in May, just before its upfront presentation event in New York City.

Citing Nielsen figures, Univision gloated that it beat NBC in prime-time among adults 18 to 49 in 2011. That year, Univision also became the No. 1 network on Friday nights among adults.

“Telenovelas are crack. They are highly addictive,” says advertising veteran Ken Muench, senior vice president and director of strategic planning at marketing firm Draftfcb.

Telenovelas employ very strong and clearly defined archetypes, making them very easy for the audiences to get engrossed.

“The evil person is utterly and completely evil. The good person is very good; beyond good. The conniving sneaky guy is a conniving sneaky guy,” says Muench, a native of Mexico who has closely followed cultural trends among US Hispanics and writes the blog crossculturalism.com

Unlike American soaps in which one story can drag on for years, a telenovela rarely runs more than nine months and features a cliffhanger at the end of each episode, making them, as Univision’s Conde says, “DVR-proof.”

On Aug. 13 Univision premiered “Amor Bravío (Valiant Love),” yet another Televisa production, starring “Dancing With the Stars” heartthrob Cristián de la Fuente and Mexican actress Silvia Navarro. Like many other novelas, it’s a story of “resentment and revenge.” In this one, the heroine — Camila — loses her fiancé in a terrible accident, and seeks solace at her uncle’s farm, only to get caught in a web of lies by the people who run it. Ultimately, she finds love and lives happily ever after.

“Amor Bravío” was not as warmly received as other Univision telenovelas. Its premiere attracted 1.8 million adults 18 to 49 and less than 1 million adults 18 to 34. (This compares to the 2.4 million adults 18 to 49 and 1.4 million adults 18 to 34 that watched “La Que No Podía Amar” in its first week.)

Still, the “Amor Bravio” debut averaged more viewers in both adult 18 to 34 and adult 18 to 49 than first-run episodes of ABC’s “Bachelor Pad” and “The Glass House,” and the second-season finale of MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” according to Univision, citing Nielsen figures.

Carlos Sotomayor, general director of drama productions at Univision, says record-breaking numbers are nothing new.

“This has been going on for years. Many years,” he says. “Telenovelas are not there to teach, but to merely entertain audiences. They touch on the most basic — and perennial — theme of all: love.”

Taking a cue from Univision, News Corp.’s Fox International Channels and Colombian media powerhouse RCN on Aug. 13 launched MundoFox, a new Spanish-language TV network promising Hispanics a programming alternative to Univision and Telemundo.

But MundoFox still programs three telenovelas, starting at 6:30 p.m. with a rerun of “Yo Soy Betty la Fea” (the original Colombian story that spun off dozens of remakes around the world, including ABC’s “Ugly Betty”), “Los Exitosos Pérez,” a comedic drama that first aired in Mexico in 2007 and “El Capo,” an RCN-produced action series airing Monday through Friday at 9 p.m.

Executives at the new network, however, strive to set their dramas apart.

“We’re talking about the next generation of telenovelas,” says Emiliano Saccone, the Argentina-born president of MundoFox. “El Capo,” for example, “is not your typical telenovela, but an action-packed drama filmed on location and with very high production values,” he says, adding that while MundoFox will continue to program them, telenovelas are not intended to become the network’s “bread and butter.”

MundoFox is not yet Nielsen- rated, though it is expect to do so by October.

So far, MundoFox seems to rely on scripted dramas coming from RCN, a media powerhouse in Colombia. However, executives have hinted that the network will be producing a scripted drama set in the US, written and targeting US Hispanic audiences, but has offered little to no details as to when production will kickstart.

In addition to scripted dramas, MundoFox also airs shows produced by the American Fox Network dubbed into Spanish, including reruns of the animated “American Dad.”