Telenovela
[c] Similar drama genres around the world include dizi (Turkey), serial (India), teleserye (Philippines), lakorn (Thailand), teleromanzo (Italy), téléroman (Canada, specifically Quebec), K-drama (South Korea), J-drama (Japan), C-drama (China) and sinetron (Indonesia).
Between 1957 and 1958 Mexico produced its first drama serial in the modern telenovela format of Monday to Friday slots, Senda prohibida ("Forbidden Path"), written by Fernanda Villeli.
The first global telenovela was Los ricos también lloran ("The Rich Also Cry", Mexico, 1979), which was exported to Russia, China, the United States and other countries.
Oriented mostly to female viewers in the 1960s, their scope moved to more wide audiencies by the early 1990s, and "youth telenovelas", aimed primarily at children and teenagers, are produced since then.
There is no clear-cut line between "good" and "evil" characters, with protagonists often displaying weaknesses such as promiscuity, drinking, drug abuse, stupidity and excessive ambition, among others.
For instance, in the novela Belíssima ("Most Beautiful") in 2006, villainess Bia Falcão (played by Fernanda Montenegro) escaped a police siege and fled to France, where she settled with a boyfriend, living using a secret bank account in Switzerland that she had maintained prior.
Other countries then localize them by creating novelas based on the same story, barely changing names, settings and, more often than not, mixing the cast with Colombian actors to respect ownership/property agreements and copyright laws.
Ring Multimedia production made Sve će biti dobro (2008–2009), Dolina sunca (2009–2010) and Pod sretnom zvijezdom (2011) for Nova TV.
Comedy-drama series such as Catalino el Dichoso and sequel En La Boca de los Tiburones were also considered telenovelas during the early 1990s.
While most English-language soap operas can continue indefinitely, almost all Sinetrons have a predetermined duration, usually running for only five-, six- or seven days a week and in total for more than five months.
The Mexican model of telenovelas – quick to be replicated by other telenovela-producing countries in Latin America and Asia for most of the 1990s – usually involves a romantic couple that encounters many problems throughout the show's run including a villain.
Previously, telenovelas were often thought to be used as a government tool to distract citizens from national issues, a reason cited for temporary decrease in their credibility and popular appeal.
In particular, around 1990, Televisa found an enormous market for its telenovelas in regions such as Brazil and parts of Latin America, post-Cold War Eastern Europe and Asia.
Credited by media experts to Televisa's move in the early 1990s of exporting its telenovelas, it rivalled the wave of American sitcoms that were broadcast worldwide in the same period.
For example, Verónica Castro's international fame grew when the novela she had starred in many years earlier, Los Ricos Tambien Lloran in 1979, became a major hit in Russia.
Telenovelas, primarily those produced by Argos Comunicación, consequently addressed new themes, including poverty, political corruption, immigration and drug smuggling.
[citation needed] Domestically produced telenovelas first appeared on Philippine television in the 1960s, beginning with the ABS-CBN program Hiwaga sa Bahay na Bato.
The late 1980s and 1990s coincided with the end of martial law and the resulting expansion of commercial television networks as the Philippine government loosened controls over the press and media.
[citation needed] Telenovelas were first introduced to Soviet viewers in 1988, when a stripped-down version of Escrava Isaura (running only 15 episodes) was shown on central television channel.
[citation needed] Turkish telenovelas have gained wide popularity and appeal among viewers especially in the Arab world as well as the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central-South Asia due in part to the picturesque cinematography.
Some of the most internationally prominent Turkish television dramas include Muhteşem Yüzyıl, Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne?, Aşk-ı Memnu, Binbir Gece, Dolunay, and Erkenci Kuş.
By the time the third batch of serials, American Heiress and Saints and Sinners debuted, ratings had declined significantly to where the network scaled back and eventually dropped the novela format by the fall of 2007. in favor of one based on non-scripted and acquired programming.
[citation needed] During the 1980s, Sully Diaz, Ivonne Goderich, Millie Aviles, Giselle Blondet and Von Marie Mendez were generally considered as "the five queens" of Puerto Rican telenovelas.
NBC piloted an adaptation of the racy Colombian telenovela Sin tetas no hay paraíso called Without Breasts There Is No Paradise, however, it was never picked up to series.
The network collaborated with RTI Colombia and Argos Comunicación to co-produce its telenovelas, which follow the Mexican model, though Telemundo is a Puerto Rican firm.
In 2006, Telemundo broadcast two telenovelas not created by the network or its partners, Amor Mío (co-produced by Televisa and Telefe) and La Esclava Isaura (produced by Rede Record).
Although a Venezuelan-owned company, Cisneros Media not only hired established telenovela actors from Venezuela, but also from other Latin American countries like Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico, etc.
In addition, telenovelas break the traditional production format in the United States, in which a television program runs for 20–25 episodes a season, on a once-weekly basis.
[37] At first, short run length productions were made that focused on melodramatic twists of traditional middle class life and were broadcast mainly on Channel 4, such as, Mañana será otro día, Constructores and Charly en el aire.
La Fuerza del Corazón was Channel 10's first major production, being syndicated in several countries in Latin America and Europe, and dubbed into Portuguese and Italian.
