Caracol Courts Europe with Dramas

Paloma García, international sales executive for Caracol Internacional, talks to TV Drama about the company’s success with scripted programming in Europe.

For a little over a decade, Caracol Internacional has placed novelas from the Colombian broadcaster and producer Caracol Televisión across European markets, finding success with its steamy romances and family comedies. But as audience habits change and demand for short-run dramas increases, the distributor has lately seen its strategy pivot toward high-quality scripted series in an effort to maintain its Old World foothold.

“Caracol has a good number of productions filmed in the telenovela style, but since around 2008, it’s certainly true that series have gradually been making a big impact,” says Paloma García, international sales executive for Caracol Internacional. “We’re always on the cutting edge of what international audiences are asking for, and this year we’ve introduced new titles that will undoubtedly help us reach new viewers.”

Among the company’s most recent drama highlights is the period piece The White Slave, about a young woman raised by slaves who seeks to avenge her parents’ murder. The 62×1-hour title, which debuted to global buyers earlier ***Image***this year, has already been picked up in Poland and former Yugoslav countries such as Slovenia.

The White Slave has been sold into Western Europe, but it’s found a bigger footing in territories throughout Eastern Europe,” García says. “Historically, that region is where we’ve seen the most sales and where our productions have found the most success.”

According to García, the introduction of Latin series into this region has helped boost the distributor’s business, especially with buyers seeking genres other than telenovelas.

“After a period of diminished activity [in Eastern Europe], audiences there are just beginning to refresh their taste for Latin content,” she says. “This is true of telenovelas, but also, in particular, of our series. We want to innovate the stories we tell, and we’ve done this through our ‘narco’ productions [about the drug trade] and now with dramas based on real-life people.”

Another new highlight for Caracol Internacional is The Girl, an 82-episode series based on real events that follows a former child soldier as she attempts to reintegrate into society. Introduced to European buyers at last month’s NATPE Budapest, the scripted title is listed by García as the kind of production that will guarantee buzz among the continent’s broadcasters.

“Our series continue to be in demand across various markets, and I think this is in part due to the many dramatic twists and turns they offer, which is an important element when looking to keep audiences interested,” she says.

And while telenovelas have remained a hallmark of the Caracol catalog, García states that the company will continue to innovate with genres and running lengths in order to remain a viable player in the continent.

“Europe will always be a strategic [region] for us,” García says. “A hit [production] there really impacts the company’s brand. And as we’re always looking to surprise audiences through innovations in storytelling, we will continue to find success throughout those countries.”