Soap operas open a gap in a new television

In 1990,

was a phenomenon in Spain.

More than eight million viewers on average followed the comings and goings of the relationship between the protagonist and Luis Alfredo.

Very far from what is still the most watched telenovela on Spanish television, the genre has experienced a resurgence in recent times, but with new components at stake.

Gone are the times in which Doña Adelaida (Chari Gómez Miranda) commented before each chapter on the plot of the soap opera on duty on TVE.

Now telenovelas are devoured on platforms, fight in prime time, have rejuvenated their audience and diversified their origins.

Although the 1990s was the decade in which the telenovela made a name for itself on Spanish channels, these melodramatic productions have managed to stretch their presence over time, with great phenomena that emerged from time to time.

In 2001,

The chapter in which the change in appearance of the protagonist was shown was broadcast during prime time and was seen by 8,226,000 viewers (42.1% share).

They were other winners of the two thousand, with Latin productions dominating the genre.

For a couple of years, the trend has changed nationality.

More information

Turkey: the unexpected global factory of soap operas

“Actually, the soap opera has always been there, but there have been little fads over the years.

In Spain, in the nineties, Latin soap operas were consumed, especially Venezuelan, Mexican and Colombian.

Then we started producing and then Turkish fashion has come, a lot of which is not really original from Turkey, because they are adaptations of Korean series.

It's a global phenomenon,” says Luis Santamaría, executive producer of Boomerang TV.

Santamaría has worked on daily series such as

and

and produces

, the series that Antena 3 premiered open-air on Wednesday 9 (it is available in its entirety on Atresplayer Premium) and which is inspired by the Turkish

, the title that in 2018 kicked off Turkish passion on television Spanish.

Laura Londoño and William Levy, in 'Coffee with the aroma of a woman'.

Next

boom of the series of Turkish origin, which has led to

dominating its broadcast slot in the afternoons or titles like

and

hooking the public in the highly competitive prime time slot, the phenomenon extends to the platforms.

It has been in the top positions of the most watched productions on Netflix in Spain for 10 weeks.

In the week of February 21 to 27, it added more than 32 million minutes watched by platform users around the world, and the series is among the most watched in 18 countries.

It is a contemporary version of a Colombian soap opera broadcast in 1994. This adaptation, which follows the impossible love between Gaviota and Sebastián, was broadcast in Colombia between May and September 2021 on Canal RCN.

young viewers

In its success on Netflix, it is accompanied by

also of Colombian origin, in this case produced for Caracol Televisión and with two seasons in 2018 and 2021. This musical telenovela stars a woman whose life changes when her parents are murdered. by members of a cartel and she ends up in prison.

It has been in the top 10 of the most watched in Spain on Netflix for 16 weeks.

Santamaría highlights that, compared to the majority female audience and those over 45 years of age that make up the average audience of the series that free-to-air networks broadcast after meals, the viewers of these telenovelas on platforms are much younger.

“The form of consumption is different, because on open television you give one episode a day and on Netflix you have 80 episodes.

If a girl leaves college and that day she doesn't have much to study or it rains and she's bored, she can watch four or five episodes in a row, it's a different kind of consumption”, says the producer.

The platform has also opted for productions with marked

, such as

or upcoming releases, such as

or

.

Carolina Ramírez starring in 'The Queen of Flow'.

Passion of Hawks

shares Colombian origin with the previous two.

His return, almost 20 years later, with new chapters has led the old ones to be among the top positions in the list of the most watched on Netflix in Spain and 15 other countries.

The new season of the series, with the adventures of the descendants of the Reyes Elizondo dynasty, landed in Spain through Mediaset, which acquired the broadcasting rights thanks to an agreement with NBCUniversal that also includes other fiction productions, such as

or

However, the series that arrived as the great hope to revive Telecinco's audiences is still trying to find, without much success, its place on the grid.

Its premiere, in prime time, was a success, with 2.3 and 1.8 million viewers in its first two episodes and an average audience share of 17.2%.

Fiction, which was a triumph on Antena 3 (it said goodbye in 2006 before 5.2 million viewers), has not managed to lead again since then.

The following week, Antena 3 put

to compete with

and the Turkish one took the cat to the water: the three chapters of the Colombian telenovela stayed at 1,441,000, 1,217,000 and 966,000 viewers, respectively.

The next move was to recover episodes already broadcast on Telecinco's after-dinner slot, a regular slot for the genre, but the audience was even worse, without reaching 800,000 viewers.

It only lasted three days.

The new plan is to keep broadcasts in

on Wednesdays and daily on Divinity after-dinner.

The difficulties of

in attracting live audiences also occur on Telemundo in the United States, where its main rival,

on Univisión, wins easily.

For Santamaría, the complications of

to function on traditional television are related to the public it is directed at.

“I think the platform would work better.

It is designed for a young audience, and their way of consuming fiction has changed a lot in the last eight or 10 years”, says the producer.

Elena Rivera, star of 'Alba', the Spanish series inspired by the Turkish soap opera 'Fatmagül'.

And next to the foreign production, the national one.

Spanish daily series, many of them with touches of soap operas, have been losing presence on the grid in recent months after the end of titles such as

or

.

Santamaría highlights the difficulty of carrying out the production of daily fictions, which are recorded at a devilish pace that exceeds the daily episode and in which the teamwork of some 120 people is essential.

“Our daily series are romantic melodramas.

In Spain we drink a lot from the romantic literature of the 19th century, from Emilia Pardo Bazán and a very literary component, and although apparently it is something very local, in reality the conflicts are universal”.

This may explain the success of many of them in foreign markets, as happened with

or

in Italy which, under the title of

attract almost three million daily viewers.

Now, the Turkish influence is also noticeable in the Spanish production, and the premiere of

will soon be joined by

, a version of the Korean fiction on which the Turkish

is based .

In addition, Santamaría himself works as a producer on

, a Netflix series by screenwriter Ece Yörenç (

), which the platform was unable to launch in Turkey due to the government's order to eliminate the homosexuality of a character.

The script has been adapted to set the story in Seville, with Megan Montaner as the protagonist.

You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVISIÓN on