Clemenseando

"No Tits, No Glory" - NBC & Telemundo

"Controversial" and "provocatively titled" is how NBC and Telemundo recently described their latest overseas program acquisition, "Sin tetas no hay paraiso". But the press release does not let on just how controversial and provocative.

"No Tits, No Glory" is the most accurate rendition of the Colombian television show's title into English. It encapsulates the literal and figurative meaning. Tetas means tits. No way around it. NBCU opted instead for the awkward, sanitized and inaccurate translation of "Without Breasts There Is No Paradise".

You can see why.  I am sure TV Guide wouldn't list "No Tits, No Glory" on its program schedule. The FCC would be up in arms. And even the anodyne translation prompted a flurry of frat-boy headlines such as the OC Register's "NBC puts 'Breast' Foot Forward", Variety's "'Breasts' Could Be 'Paradise'" and New York Magazine's "Without Breasts There Is No Television". Jossip, though, had the best and most accurate headline "NBC's Ben Silverman's First Buy: Tits".

Turn here for the creepy opening sequence of "No Tits, No Glory", which was produced by Caracol in Colombia.

Univision's Online Video Shortcomings

Two sins of omission cloud the coverage of Univision's expanded online video offerings (here, here and here). No one mentioned what's missing - namely, telenovelas. And no one mentioned Univision is outgunned in terms of online video by competing Spanish-language network Telemundo. (In fairness, you'd have to follow Hispanic media pretty closely to be aware of these two issues.)

Univision cannot post clips online of its popular primetime novelas, which are produced by Mexican broadcaster Televisa. The two networks are embroiled in a legal dispute scheduled to begin trial this Halloween. One of the key issues is whether or not Televisa can transmit its telenovelas online for an audience in the United States. In 1993, the two networks signed a 25 year long program licensing agreement providing Univision with exclusive access to Televisa programming for the U.S. Hispanic audience. Not surprisingly, the agreement doesn't spell out online transmission rights. Unless a settlement is reached beforehand, a federal jury will be deciding who gets to put novelas online in what country later this year.

Televisa also provides a host of other programming to Univision and sister broadcast network Telefutura as well as cable network Galavision. None of that programming is available online at Univision.com. In contrast, Telemundo faces no such restrictions. Telemundo produces the vast majority of its own programming (see here for a notable exception) and puts highlights of its novelas online. Telemundo remains a distant second in terms of broadcast ratings and revenue. But, its online video offerings trump Univision.

Unless, that is, you are looking for bikini-clad Latinas. In that case, the nod goes to Univision.

Telemundo Chicago Budget Cuts

Telemundo's station in Chicago is undergoing a $2 million budget cut according to the Chicago Sun-Times (penultimate item).

"Job cuts are being sought in the areas of news, operations and creative services.

"Ed Fernandez, vice president and general manager of Channel 44, cited this year's overall "soft advertising market" and a desire to maintain local autonomy for the stationwide restructuring.

"No discernible changes are planned in Channel 44's 5 and 10 p.m. local newscasts, he said."

The cuts take place almost eight months after Telemundo eliminated locally-produced newscasts in half a dozen markets. The move drew the protest of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The shows were replaced by regional newscasts uplinked from a production center in Fort Worth.

At the time, network spokesperson Alfredo Richard said no layoffs were planned in the local news operations of Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

Coincidentally, Marketing y Medios just published a market profile of Chicago that quotes  WSNS general manager Ed Fernandez in a more upbeat context

"WSNS' Fernandez said the station overhauled its 10 p.m. newscast earlier this year, adopting a format that originated in L.A., "En Contexto," where in-depth discussions about key news stories have replaced news bites.

"In May, WSNS' 10 p.m. rating among adults 25-54, the news demographic, was up 36 percent from May 2006, to a 3.0. "Since we launched 'En Contexto' in late January, it's been terrifically well received," Fernandez said."

Not terrific enough to avoid newsroom buyouts.

Televisa and TV Azteca Hit Hard By Court Ruling

Mexico´s Supreme Court took a chainsaw to a law providing sweetheart treatment for Televisa and TV Azteca. Both broadcasters, under legislation passed last year, were granted automatic renewals of twenty-year television licenses and digital television rights at no cost. In effect, they were granted de facto ownership of the public airwaves in saecula saeculorum. Under several preliminary rulings last week and this week those prerogatives have been resoundingly overturned. Still pending is a ruling on the provision concerning foreign ownership of Mexican radio and television outlets.

For purposes of this blog, the decision is of great importance because the Mexican and U.S. Hispanic television markets are inextricably linked. Televisa provides programming on an exclusive basis to Univision, which is and will remain the market leader as long it airs Televisa-produced telenovelas.

Telemundo, which is a distant second to Univision in ratings and revenue, believes it must have a broadcast presence in Mexico in order to effectively compete in the U.S. Hispanic market. The belief is

counter-intuitive but perhaps accurate.

After all, Univision succeeds because Mexican immigrants bring with them to the States a taste for Mexican television programming. Telemundo figures it needs to acquaint future Mexican immigrants with its programming before they cross the border. I am sure Telemundo executives would not put it so coldly but that is, in effect, the gist of their argument as to why they want to operate a network in Mexico.

And the Supreme Court rulings enhance the likelihood of a Telemundo bid for a broadcast license in Mexico. Even without a bid, the rulings will definitely create competition for the existing duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca.

Not surprisingly, Televisa and TV Azteca downplayed the Supreme Court rulings in this evening´s newscast. I am sure the story will be top of the fold in all the major Mexican dailies. Televisa, however, didn´t mention the story until twenty minutes into its newscast. Azteca didn´t report the story until almost forty minutes into its newscast.

Both networks have a history of slanting editorial coverage to suit their own institutional interests.

 

Too Many Telenovela Remakes?

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 (I can't pinpoint the exact date.)

Telemundo also has a remake in the mix with the Brazilian telenovela "La Esclava Isaura" (see here for background on Telemundo and Brazilian telenovelas)

"On the business side the same telenovela format can be a hit again and again" says University of Georgia Associate Professor Carolina Acosta-Alzuru who is an academic specialist in telenovelas and newbie blogger. Televisa, which supplies Univision's primetime telenovelas, has been particularly reticent in the past few years to experiment with new storylines preferring to stick with the tried and true.

"I am not against the remake but I am against remakes becoming the only kind of telenovela" says Acosta-Alzuru.

Given the high financial stakes in both Mexico and the United States, creative risk-taking and the production of original telenovelas are not likely in coming years to be high on the agenda of Televisa executives. After all, they might reasonably ask - why take a new risk when you have an old and proven ratings-winner ready to go? (Consider Univision's "expensive lesson" with the original production of "Te  Amaré En Silencio")

Telemundo has taken many more creative risks than Televisa and Univision in the past few years. And at great expense by, for the most part, producing its own novelas. Yet, the NBCU-owned network still remains a distant second in ratings to Univision, which airs a steady supply of Televisa's telenovela remakes.

Go figure.

Telemundo's Miss Universe Ratings

Telemundo did well with Monday night's airing of the Miss Universe competition, which was also simultaneously broadcast in English on NBCU.

For the first half hour, the Hialeah-based network garnered a 1.0 rating as measured by the Nielsen Television Index or an estimated 1,633,000 viewers. By the final half hour of the two-hour program the number of viewers had increased to 2, 270,000 and a 1.2 rating. These are very strong numbers relative to Telemundo's usual performance. On weeknights, Telemundo telenovelas at 8pm, 9pm and 10pm generally bring in around one million viewers apiece. Occasionally, Zorro and La Esclava Isaura (see here for the latest ratings and here for background on Telemundo and Brazilian Telenovelas) bring in upwards of 1.2 million viewers.

Despite Telemundo's strong showing with Miss Universo, the NBCU-owned network still got beat by Univision.  "Destilando Amor" had more than twice as many viewers in the first half-hour of the beauty contest while Cristina had 400,000 more viewers during the last half hour of Miss Universo.

Those numbers point to the uphill battle Telemundo faces against Univision. The Miss Universe competition is intensely popular throughout Latin America and among U.S. Hispanic. Why? Maybe it is the high number of Latin American finalists and winners. Maybe other factors are at play. I don't know. I do know that the show is an enormously popular franchise among Latinos (for better or worse). And if Telemundo can't beat Univision even with Miss Universo, well, I don't know if there is much hope of any real competition between the two networks. Not a surprise but dramatic nonetheless to see the Univision and Telemundo ratings side-by-side.

What is a bit of a surprise is the number of people that opted to see the show in Spanish rather than English (2,270,000 Telemundo viewers versus 8,344,000 NBCU viewers). I'll request historical data and see if I can't get a sense of whether broadcasting the show in Spanish added new viewers or simply cannibalized audience members from the English-language show.

Either way, from an advertiser perspective, splitting up the audience is probably more attractive and more effective.

 

Ratings For "La Esclava Isaura" On Telemundo

The Brazilian telenovela "La Esclava Isaura" is racking up strong ratings for Telemundo. Not a massive audience but the show is being watched by a good-sized and growing number of viewers. Certainly, it is doing far better than the show it replaced "Sin Vergüenza", which lasted only a few weeks in primetime before being bumped to the afternoon (See here for more about Telemundo and Brazilian Telenovelas).

According to Nielsen Media Research, the first half hour of "La Esclava Isaura" on May 23rd was seen by an estimated 1,083,000 viewers. That number is equivalent to a 0.7 rating on the Nielsen Television Index.

By way of comparison, "Don Francisco Presenta" had more than 3.2 million viewers and a 1.8 NTI rating on Univision during the same time slot. 

"La Esclava Isaura" ratings tend to fall during the second half hour. On Wednesday night, the number fell modestly to 1,049,000 viewers. On previous nights, the drop has been quite sharp. I don't know why.

I also don't know why Telemundo's online forum for "La Esclava" is so thinly populated given the large number of viewers. By the way, this novela is a remake of the original and hugely successful Globo production from 1976. Ironically, I found this synopsis of the original at rival network Univision's Web site.

The remake of "La Esclava" pulled in huge ratings in Chile. There must be something viscerally attractive about the storyline. Or maybe it is the coffee plantation setting, which also worked for the Fernando Gaitán novela "Café, con aroma de mujer".

You can see some clips from the show here and decide for yourself.

Spanish-language Digital TV (Multicasting)

Spanish-language broadcast television networks have been slow to capitalize on the multicasting (digital television) opportunities provided by their ownership of full-power stations. I know of no TeleFutura, Telemundo or Univision owned-and-operated station that is currently airing a digital signal in addition to their analog channel. (Please correct me if you know otherwise.) This will change by February, 2009 when the digitalization of the broadcast spectrum, by law, must take effect. Meanwhile, though, Univision and Telemundo seem to be focusing their energies elsewhere

Not to say there hasn't likely been internal discussions about what to put on those digital channels but Univision and Telemundo have yet to signal their future multicasting plans, much less announced anything. In SEC filings and in interviews, Univision executives and investors have made clear their intention to charge big bucks for retransmission fees. No mention anywhere, though, of multicasting. Last year Telemundo executive Steve Mandala told me in an interview for a Multichannel News article that a multicasting strategy was being formulated. Nothing yet, though. Telemundo seems much more focused on its broadcast, cable, interactive and even wireless efforts than multicast.

The absence of a current multicasting effort by Telemundo and Univision is understandable but short-sighted. Both networks could cheaply and quickly opt to launch a 24/7 telenovela digital channel. They could run a Spanish-language kids network such as Discovery Kids en Español or Sorpresa! on a barter basis and bring in some additional revenue. And help build a future audience (for more about Spanish-language children´s programming see here or here to learn about Univision´s fine for violations of the Children´s Television Act).  Launching a dedicated sports and/or news digital channel is also an option but would require a significant investment without an immediate payout.

And there is no immediate payout because no one is yet sure about the economics of Latino multicasting. No one knows how many Hispanics already own digital television sets. Telemundo and Univision are busy trying to interest advertisers in reaching large and measurable numbers of Latino viewers. There are set rate cards and lots of money to be made selling thirty second spots and product placement on analog but what the heck do you charge an advertiser for a commercial on a multicast channel.  Admittedly, the low-hanging fruit consists of closing the gap between what advertisers spend on English-language television and what they spend on Spanish-language. But, Telemundo and Univision expend plenty of effort selling interactive advertising for what remains a modest revenue stream.

Besides February, 2009 is not that far off, which explains why other Hispanic networks are pushing into multicast. The pioneer was Trinity Broadcasting Network's TBN en Español service. TBN was aggressive from the get-go about making all their networks available as multicast channels. They wanted to increase distribution and have employed individual church-based marketing to win new viewers for the Spanish-language service. Granted, TBN is viewer-supported and doesn´t have to worry about selling ads on multicast. Still, theirs was an impressive and early effort.

Next in line came Latino youth network LATV, which inked a multicast carriage deal with the Post-Newsweek Station Group a few months ago. The deal was, in part, the result of frustration after years of not securing wider cable and satellite distribution. Dealing with television station groups and even individual station owners is far quicker and less laborious than dealing with MSOs as a group and with their individual systems. And it also helps when the owner of the multicast network also happens to head a television station group, which is the case with LATV majority shareholder Walter Ulloa who is also the Entravision CEO and board chairman. Entravision just announced it will carry LATV as a multicast network in ten markets.

The last of the Hispanic multicast networks for now is V-me TV, which is a Spanish-language digital broadcaster majority-owned by a group of private investors with a minority investment by the Educational Broadcasting Corp. that is the licensee for New York City PBS affiliate WNET. V-me TV serves as a multicast channel for PBS stations throughout the U.S. (its imminent launch prompted some controversy in Maryland). Wherever a PBS affiliate decides to carry V-me TV as a multicast channel, the network then becomes automatically available on cable thanks to a standing arrangement with the NCTA.

And that´s all, no one else in the Hispanic television market has really done much with multicasting.

Univision and the other Spanish-language broadcast networks are rightly organizing citizenship and voter education campaigns. As a matter of self-interest, they might want to consider a campaign to educate viewers about the upcoming switch to digital television. For that matter, the Consumer Electronics Association might want to translate their recycling Web site (see here for a good LAT article on the topic).

Unlike Mexico where the digital switch won´t take place until 2023, in the States the clock is ticking.

 

 

Spanish-language Local Television Newscasts Said To Increase Voter Turnout

The mere presence of Spanish-language local television news significantly boosts Hispanic voter turnout, according to a year-old working paper co-authored by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Joel Waldfogel. (Posts from last year by other bloggers can be read here and here) 

The study finds Hispanic voter turnout is "about 41 percent" in non-presidential elections in areas with Spanish-language local television news compared to Hispanic voter turnout of "about 30 percent" where there is no local newscast en español. The results for presidential elections is less significant but still large at 54 percent compared to "about 46 percent".

This is a working paper not a published article in a peer-reviewed academic journal but the findings are statistically robust. And they make sense, too.

Local newscasts on Telemundo and Univision typically dedicate more time to local election coverage than their English-language counterparts, in my experience. In addition, local Spanish-language stations have been running voter registration and citizenship drives for decades. The combination of heavy local election coverage combined with station-organized civics campaigns was bound to make a difference. This is the first time, though, I have read of anyone quantifying just how much of a difference. And it sure represents a big jump in Hispanic voter turnout of more than a third in non-presidential elections and a sixth in presidential elections.

That said, as the authors acknowledge, there may be other reasons which help explain the variation in voter turnout (See here for other possible explanations). They use a figure of 350,000 Hispanics as the minimum population size necessary to sustain a local Spanish-language newscast.

Definitely worth a read even if the regression analysis is heavy-going for the uninitiated. Particularly interesting in light of the discussion over Univision's citizenship drive.

 

Telemundo and Brazilian Telenovelas

Telemundo's decision to replace "Sin Vergüenza" with "La Esclava Isaura" is interesting because the network has a decidedly mixed record with Brazilian telenovelas. "Xica" and "El Clon" were both very successful for Telemundo. However, the Brazilian novelas that Telemundo was airing shortly after the network was purchased by NBC, well, those didn't do so hot.

In July, 2004 the NYT reported the following:

"Because Univision has a stranglehold on the main pipeline of telenovelas, from Mexico, the search for programming took Telemundo to Brazil. Mr. Wright noted ruefully that the idea of trying to build a Spanish-language network on programs dubbed from Portuguese was not a winning strategy. "It just didn't work," Mr. Wright said. "We were really nervous. As good as our sales guys are, you can't sell a zero rating."

The next month the Washington Post reported:

"Telemundo Communications Group Inc. suspected the problem was its telenovelas, the prime-time soap operas that form the economic backbone of Spanish broadcasters. Telemundo had imported some from Brazil that ended up being "devastatingly bad," Telemundo President James M. McNamara said. Dubbed from Portuguese into Spanish, the dialogue didn't match the movement of people's mouths and there was "lots of lip-flapping going on," he said."

This time around the 'lip-flapping' novela is doing better than Telemundo's in-house production. Its early performance is much stronger than the show it replaced. That said, the numbers are not huge. Last week's average of 919,000 viewers was good enough for for a number 16 ranking on the top 25 list.  The other Telemundo novelas fared better ("Marina" - 1,175,000 viewers, "Zorro" - 1,138,000 viewers and "Dame Chocolate"  - 1,073,000 viewers) but "Esclava" is clearly off to a good start.

The May 7th issue of Hispanic Market Weekly reported that Telemundo executive vice president of entertainment Carlos Bardasano gamely "insist[ed] that airing a non Telemundo-produced telenovela does not break from the network's strategy. "What we're doing is bringing our audience the best content," ... He adds that airing a telenovela that is not produced by Telemundo gives the network more time to develop other telenovela projects."

After GE's purchase of Telemundo five years ago, network executives talked up the in-house production strategy and the importance of producing "culturally relevant" novelas in the US for a US Hispanic market. After that strategy didn't work out as planned, Telemundo shifted resources and message to say they were producing telenovelas in Mexico and Colombia with the US Hispanic market in mind. Bardasano's predecessor, Ramón Escobar, told me for this Multichannel News article:

“We are still able to address issues of interest to the U.S. Hispanic. That's our view of it. We don't want to overplay or exaggerate the U.S. domestic issue of location. To us, it is more what are the issues that interest the U.S. Hispanic,” said Telemundo senior executive president of network entertainment Ramón Escobar. “The novelas are originally made for the U.S. Hispanic. We are not making them in Mexico for anyone other than U.S. Hispanics.”

(Actually, Telemundo's telenovelas are sold worldwide and perform quite well in the Spanish market and in a number of Latin American markets.)

Now with "La Esclava Isaura", Telemundo is back to importing a Brazilian telenovela. And the decision is paying off, at least for now. If "Esclava" works out for the full run of the program, then perhaps we'll see a few more telenovelas on Telemundo from way, way south of the border.