DISCOP Preview: Novelas Flying High

Despite stiff competition, Latin American distributors are still finding avid interest in telenovelas across Central and Eastern Europe.

Since first taking hold in Central and Eastern Europe’s early days of commercial broadcasting, when new channels were anxious for cost-effective content, the Latin American telenovela has remained on local buyers’ wish lists, both as completed programming and as formats.

“Last year we saw huge growth in [our business in] Europe,” reports Claudia Sahab, the director for Europe at Televisa Internacional. Stressing the production values of Televisa novelas, Sahab notes, “In some cases there were two or three clients competing for the same title.”

Having secured first-option output deals in virtually every market in CEE, Televisa has recently inked second-option pacts with networks in Croatia and Hungary, a trend Sahab is optimistic will continue. “There are more channels now; almost all the main channels have smaller DTT channels. They will need more content. For us, that’s good news.”

Adela Velasco, who handles sales to Europe and Africa at Comarex, is similarly upbeat. “These regions are all moving back again to acquiring and broadcasting telenovelas, which of course is our ‘star’ product,” she says. “We are fortunate to have [had] a constant presence in this region.”

Nevertheless, it’s been a challenging few years for content sellers of all stripes in CEE, with the downturn in ad budgets having put the squeeze on broadcasters’ programming spending.

Michelle Wasserman, the head of international sales, programming, formats and international production services at Telefe International, concedes that there has been a slowdown in the acquisition of completed telenovelas in some Eastern European markets. “They are still buying from us, but not as much as they were in the past,” she says.

Televisa’s Sahab says that the genre has been absent from the Czech Republic for several years, and she’s eager to crack the market again. History has shown, Sahab says, that the novela is more than capable of making a comeback.

“Hungary has been incredible. The telenovela genre was out of the market for about four years. For the last two years, you can’t imagine how [much] we have been growing there. We started with pay TV, from there on other [broadcasters] started to see that the telenovela was successful. So they started to demand our products, and now we’re all over Hungary.”

Hungary is also on Caracol Television’s hit list of growth opportunities in the region, says Camila Reyes, sales executive for CEE at the company. Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic are also territories she’s targeting, while building on a strong business in Serbia and Bulgaria.

“We have seen a considerable increase in demand for our products,” Reyes says. “We believe this is based on Caracol’s constant growth and success throughout the last few years, both in the Latin market as well as in the international arena. Also, the high quality of our productions, our world-renowned cast and the high profile production partners with which we collaborate, such as Sony Pictures [Television], are just some of the factors that have contributed to this increase.”

While celebrating CEE’s renewed verve for novelas, Latin American content sellers are keeping a keen eye focused on the new competition—notably daily dramas from Turkey and, to a lesser extent, at least for now, Korean soaps.

“There is a high demand for Turkish series, which are very successful, especially in Kazakhstan, Bulgaria and Macedonia,” says Melissa Pillow, the sales director for CEE at Telemundo Internacional. “These series are not labeled as telenovelas; however, the broadcasters consider them similar to the traditional Spanish-language counterpart. These series are not new and have been on the market for more than two years. However, in the past year, broadcasters in more countries, such as Hungary and Croatia, have begun experimenting with them. These series do not seem to be replacing the slots of the Spanish-language titles. However, we are seeing that the time slots have been moved in some cases to make room for the Turkish series as well.”

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Faced with new competition, Latin American distributors are employing a variety of methods to keep their CEE business on track. Comarex’s Velasco stresses the need to deliver “quality content with new and innovative themes that engage audiences.”

"We try to identify in each of those countries the needs that can be satisfied by our content and position telenovelas prominently," says María Lucía Hernández, international sales director at RCN. "We’re looking for partners and strategic alliances just like we have in Latin America."

Bandeirantes Communication Group sees its hook as being able to reflect Brazil’s “exotic and cool look” to the world, says Elisa Ayub, the director of international content at Band TV International. “In some ways, our culture, our landscapes are so different from Central and Eastern Europe, and that makes our productions so much [more] interesting. Our telenovelas and other TV shows offer a [distinctive] kind of innovation.”

Across the board, distributors appear upbeat about their outing to DISCOP this year. “For us, it has always been a great market,” says Televisa’s Sahab. “Even though in some years there were fewer people, the quality of the meetings [has always been] really good. We have time to be with clients, to get to know what their needs are. It’s really useful for us. And for them, too.”

A longer version of this article appeared in the DISCOP 2011 edition of TV Europe.