MyNetworkTV telenovelas
Encyclopedia
The MyNetworkTV telenovelas were Fox Television's attempt to create a successful low-cost programming franchise by adapting Spanish-language telenovelas for U.S. viewers. While originally planned for syndication, the format became the original lineup of MyNetworkTV
in 2006. Six limited-run serials were produced, each running about 65 episodes, and at least three others were halted in development.
New episodes aired from Monday to Friday – and weekend clip shows recapped the shows' storylines. Producers planned continuous cycles of thirteen-week serials with no repeats. Once one series ended, another unrelated melodrama would begin the following week. In total, MyNetworkTV planned to air 600 hours of original dramatic programming in HDTV every year.
The telenovela
format was unsuccessful and ratings were unexpectedly low. An average of about 781,000 people tuned in to watch the telenovelas, according to Nielsen Media Research. Parent company News Corp. said MyNetworkTV lost two million dollars per week with the all-telenovela lineup.
Under new network president Greg Meidel
, production and development stopped in early 2007. "Trying to get people to watch serialized dramas every night on MyNetworkTV was asking the impossible," he remarked. The novelas premiered on September 5, 2006 and last aired on July 18, 2007.
Before it announced MyNetworkTV, Fox offered the telenovelas in syndication under as an anthology titled Desire, which would one hour each weeknight starting in the fall of 2006. It originally planned to air three serials per season. They were originally intended to air as late night time programming. In December 2005, Bucceri said the company had already bought enough novela formats to air original shows for five years.
Fox then added a second hour and planned to use two umbrella titles: Desire and Secret Obsessions. After receiving lukewarm response from stations not owned by Fox, Twentieth Television decided to pitch the show for June 2006. It argued that teenagers are out of school and planted in front of their TV sets, while reruns dominate network schedules. The telenovelas were also briefly considered for placement on The CW
.
greenlit the format as a contingency plan for Fox-owned UPN
stations. Then MyNetworkTV was introduced to advertisers on February 22, 2006, as a reaction to the demise of UPN and The WB. The telenovelas became the new network's weeknight lineup, along with clip shows on Saturdays.
MyNetworkTV targeted the telenovelas at the "Adults 18-49" demographic, which is a general audience. While the novelas had a few takers for a planned summer syndication run, Twentieth made those stations surrender the shows, thanks to a contract clause that let Fox take away the show if it is carried by a network.
As MyNetworkTV's debut grew closer, Fox dropped the idea of using two umbrella titles for its telenovelas. Desire became the title of the first series aired. The two umbrella titles reappeared in 2007, showing up during opening credits and on the network's Web site.
Unfortunately, ad revenue was not sufficient for the format to succeed. At the 2006 upfront season, MyNetworkTV secured less than $50 million in ad deals, compared to $640 million for the new CW network. National advertising spots sold for between $20,000 and $35,000 for a 30-second spot as of September 2006.
led to higher-than-expected programming costs.
MyNetworkTV’s union deals doubled its programming costs to more than $1 million per week for each series. This significantly affected the telenovelas' bottom line. Before the dispute, News Corp. President-COO Peter Chernin said the format could "be profitable from day one."
in San Diego
. The facility, built by a former porn producer, specializes in low-budget productions. Since Segall rented part of the lot to the U.S. government, the telenovelas were shot near a mock Iraqi village used to train military personnel.
As a cost-saving measure, producers tend to hire performers with limited acting experience. The same sets were reused in multiple shows. Producers built 53 shared living-room sets, which were repurposed by changing colors and camera angles to give the them a different look. Also, scripts were finished before taping started, so that all scenes on the same set were filmed at the same time, out of episode order. Up to three shows were filmed at once.
The production model resembled that of movies more than normal US television series. Each complete series — equivalent to three seasons of conventional dramas — was filmed in about four months, as nine crews worked simultaneously, For example, Desire used three directors, 50 cast members, 200 bit players, 2,000 extras and 2,800 script pages (compared to 120 pages for features and 45 for dramas).
Two main groups worked on the novelas, one for the Desire brand and one for Secret Obsessions serials. The Desire shows, such as Watch Over Me
, were more action-oriented to attract more male viewers. All of the telenovelas used the same narrators, actor Ray Van Ness III
for the Secret Obsessions, and an uncredited female actor for the Desire brand.
The telenovelas are broadcast in high definition
where available – and in letterbox format on standard definition broadcasts. During the all-novela period, MyNetworkTV promoted itself as "the first all HDTV network." In addition, early shows carried a SAP
signal carrying a Spanish audio track, but an alternate closed captioning
channel with Spanish translation was not used.
In familiar telenovela
form, shows often began with the tag “MyNetworkTV Presents.” Yet the beginnings of shows featured long flashbacks intended to refresh viewers. The first two rotations also added titles to each episode.
The daily format also featured the “Story” episode. These were clip shows that outlined the development of a major character. They were used in lieu of reruns. In addition, MyNetworkTV's shows featured white, black and Hispanic actors in prominent roles and often showed interracial couples, along with gay subplots. These English novelas also toned down the high pitched emotionalism of conventional telenovelas.
The producers said they needed to account for the cultural differences with Latin countries. So while these serials were said to add campiness, cat-fights and gay sensibility, they also lacked the cultural depth and raw passion of the Spanish originals.
Camilo Cano, the VP of Caracol Television International
, which sold two telenovela formats to MyNetworkTV, said he was satisfied with the English versions. “The basic elements of the novela were respected,” he said, “which is what concerns us the most.” He said Caracol worked to ensure the adaptations were faithful to the original serials.
and Pacific
(subtract one hour for Central
and Mountain
time)
Had the daily format continued, Friends with Benefits
and Rules of Deception
would have debuted on June 5, 2007. Crossed Loves
would likely have begun the second season in early September. It could have been joined in the Fall lineup by Friends & Enemies
, which was announced in the 2006 pre-season upfront presentation (in the third-quarter slot taken by Friends with Benefits
).
The MyNetworkTV serial lineup was broadcast in Australia as FOXTELENOVELA on the W. Channel
.
CKXT-TV, an independent station in Toronto
, Ontario
, Canada
showed Desire and Fashion House, airing them in the afternoon time slot traditionally held by daytime soap operas. However, the station elected not to air any of the other telenovelas after the first cycle.
soap operas like Dallas
and Dynasty
. Paul Buccieri called them "guilty pleasures" and compared them to beach novels. While these shows attempted to adhere to the telenovela
format and tone, the network's executives and producers developed their own campy interpretation of the genre. They added characters and situations that differed from the Latin American originals. As telenovelas are inherently implausible and cartoonish, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences scorned the new adaptations.
Reviewers were resoundingly negative. For example, TV Guide' s Matt Roush called one "something worse than nothing." Robert P. Laurence of the San Diego Union-Tribune complained of "amateurish acting, cheap sets and tedious scripts." Robert Bianco of USA Today remarked, "Think of the most incompetent soap opera you've ever seen, imagine something even worse, and there you have MyNetworkTV."
Paul Buccieri said that English-speaking audiences needed time to understand the genre. "We're sticking with it—we believe in this product," he said. Roger Ailes brought up MyNetworkTV in a Financial Times
interview. "You should have seen us at Fox News Channel
one year into it," he said. "I've had this job for a year and it takes a little time to get these things off the runway." Also, an executive of another television network told TV Week magazine that the existence of MNTV was "a miracle" because it went from concept to reality in only six months' time.
Fox had sold about half of its projections of $50 million in advance commercial sales.
The first two telenovelas averaged a 0.5 rating and a 2 share in the key 18-49 demographic. It averaged just over one million total viewers. The numbers dropped each night, according to Nielsen Media Research. These numbers were significantly lower than he programming that aired a year before, mostly UPN and WB programming. The telenovelas showed more hopeful ratings in markets like Miami, with large Hispanic populations.
The second set of telenovelas premiered to even lower numbers than the first pair. Wicked Wicked Games
premiered to a 0.8 rating/1 share overnight rating during its first three nights, while Watch Over Me
pulled a 0.7 rating/1 share. Both shows dropped by a 0.1 rating during the Monday-Wednesday period of their second week. The network sought better debuts for the shows since they premiered in December, while the major networks usually air reruns and the viewer presumably would sample programming on other networks.
MyNetworkTV's 200 affiliates struggled to promote the new format—and ratings dropped in some markets as much as 90 percent. Even Los Angeles was an under-performing market. One success story was Miami, where ratings more than doubled MyNetwork's national average.
On February 3, 2007, the Saturday night clip shows vanished and were replaced by feature films. Then on March 1, MyNetworkTV announced that it quit developing scripted content altogether, putting an end to its slate of telenovelas. The network had at least three more serials in development, Friends with Benefits, Rules of Deception
, and Crossed Loves
. It tentatively planned to cut their schedule to one night a week by fall before announcing that all such projects were scrapped.
Under the revised schedule, two hour installments of American Heiress and Saints & Sinners
aired on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings through March and April. MyNetworkTV switched to one hour of each on Wednesdays for sweeps and never switched back. Meidel, the new network president, decided that the mixed martial arts IFC Battleground broadcasts on Monday would not deliver an audience to telenovelas the next night. In addition, the last set of telenovelas were preempted several times for reality specials and other programming before being dropped altogether.
MyNetworkTV previously announced plans to run the shows until October. After that, the remaining episodes were to appear online. Meidel previously said the network would air the complete runs of both shows. However, the telenovelas vanished without fanfare after their July 18, 2007 broadcast; only 26 out of each show's 65 hours were broadcast. (In addition, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
has not announced plans to release any of these serials on DVD
.)
MyNetworkTV's new fall 2007 lineup did not fare substantially better than the cancelled telenovelas, however. The mix of reality shows and movies averaged a .7 household rating during September. In addition, Paul Buccieri, the executive who championed the all-telenovela format, left Fox and became president and chief executive of Granada America
in December, 2007.
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
in 2006. Six limited-run serials were produced, each running about 65 episodes, and at least three others were halted in development.
New episodes aired from Monday to Friday – and weekend clip shows recapped the shows' storylines. Producers planned continuous cycles of thirteen-week serials with no repeats. Once one series ended, another unrelated melodrama would begin the following week. In total, MyNetworkTV planned to air 600 hours of original dramatic programming in HDTV every year.
The telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
format was unsuccessful and ratings were unexpectedly low. An average of about 781,000 people tuned in to watch the telenovelas, according to Nielsen Media Research. Parent company News Corp. said MyNetworkTV lost two million dollars per week with the all-telenovela lineup.
Under new network president Greg Meidel
Greg Meidel
Greg Meidel is the president of Twentieth Television , and president of MyNetworkTV, a former television network in the United States, which is owned by News Corporation.-References:...
, production and development stopped in early 2007. "Trying to get people to watch serialized dramas every night on MyNetworkTV was asking the impossible," he remarked. The novelas premiered on September 5, 2006 and last aired on July 18, 2007.
Syndication plans
Paul Buccieri, Twentieth Television's programming chief, became fascinated by telenovelas in the 1990s, inspired by his Latina mother-in-law's devotion to such shows. He said that the nightly soap concept would work in the U.S. if given sufficient time. Along with colleagues Stephen Brown and Jack Abernathy, he started discussing the telenovela format in 2005.Before it announced MyNetworkTV, Fox offered the telenovelas in syndication under as an anthology titled Desire, which would one hour each weeknight starting in the fall of 2006. It originally planned to air three serials per season. They were originally intended to air as late night time programming. In December 2005, Bucceri said the company had already bought enough novela formats to air original shows for five years.
Fox then added a second hour and planned to use two umbrella titles: Desire and Secret Obsessions. After receiving lukewarm response from stations not owned by Fox, Twentieth Television decided to pitch the show for June 2006. It argued that teenagers are out of school and planted in front of their TV sets, while reruns dominate network schedules. The telenovelas were also briefly considered for placement on The CW
The CW Television Network
The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
.
MyNetworkTV
Fox Television Stations chairman Roger AilesRoger Ailes
Roger Eugene Ailes is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W...
greenlit the format as a contingency plan for Fox-owned UPN
UPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
stations. Then MyNetworkTV was introduced to advertisers on February 22, 2006, as a reaction to the demise of UPN and The WB. The telenovelas became the new network's weeknight lineup, along with clip shows on Saturdays.
MyNetworkTV targeted the telenovelas at the "Adults 18-49" demographic, which is a general audience. While the novelas had a few takers for a planned summer syndication run, Twentieth made those stations surrender the shows, thanks to a contract clause that let Fox take away the show if it is carried by a network.
As MyNetworkTV's debut grew closer, Fox dropped the idea of using two umbrella titles for its telenovelas. Desire became the title of the first series aired. The two umbrella titles reappeared in 2007, showing up during opening credits and on the network's Web site.
Budgets
Jack Abernethy, chief executive of Fox Television Stations, said before launch that MyNetworkTV's six-day-per-week format was the wave of the future because a traditional schedule costs too much. Each episode was said to cost about one-tenth the budget of traditional prime-time shows, and even less than the typical daytime soap. Another estimate said the serials cost $200,000 to $500,000, compared to the $2 million to $3 million cost of a mainstream primetime drama.Unfortunately, ad revenue was not sufficient for the format to succeed. At the 2006 upfront season, MyNetworkTV secured less than $50 million in ad deals, compared to $640 million for the new CW network. National advertising spots sold for between $20,000 and $35,000 for a 30-second spot as of September 2006.
Writers’ dispute
At first, MyNetworkTV called its soap writers "translators" since the projects were adaptations of existing Spanish telenovelas. These people were also non-union, which soon led to a labor dispute. The eventual settlement with the Writers Guild of AmericaWriters Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
led to higher-than-expected programming costs.
MyNetworkTV’s union deals doubled its programming costs to more than $1 million per week for each series. This significantly affected the telenovelas' bottom line. Before the dispute, News Corp. President-COO Peter Chernin said the format could "be profitable from day one."
Filming
The shows were shot at Stu Segall StudiosStu Segall Productions
Stu Segall Productions is a studio facility located in San Diego, California.-Filmings:The studio is used primarily for filming television series and movies in the San Diego area...
in San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
. The facility, built by a former porn producer, specializes in low-budget productions. Since Segall rented part of the lot to the U.S. government, the telenovelas were shot near a mock Iraqi village used to train military personnel.
As a cost-saving measure, producers tend to hire performers with limited acting experience. The same sets were reused in multiple shows. Producers built 53 shared living-room sets, which were repurposed by changing colors and camera angles to give the them a different look. Also, scripts were finished before taping started, so that all scenes on the same set were filmed at the same time, out of episode order. Up to three shows were filmed at once.
The production model resembled that of movies more than normal US television series. Each complete series — equivalent to three seasons of conventional dramas — was filmed in about four months, as nine crews worked simultaneously, For example, Desire used three directors, 50 cast members, 200 bit players, 2,000 extras and 2,800 script pages (compared to 120 pages for features and 45 for dramas).
Two main groups worked on the novelas, one for the Desire brand and one for Secret Obsessions serials. The Desire shows, such as Watch Over Me
Watch Over Me
Watch Over Me is an American Television series that debuted on December 6, 2006 on the television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced 66 episodes to air weekdays. The limited-run serial is an adaptation of Argentine series Resistiré....
, were more action-oriented to attract more male viewers. All of the telenovelas used the same narrators, actor Ray Van Ness III
Ray Van Ness
Ray Van Ness III is an American actor, radio announcer and voiceover performer. He is the narrator on the MyNetworkTV telenovelas. His voice has appeared on VH1, Comedy Central and other TV and radio outlets.-External links:*...
for the Secret Obsessions, and an uncredited female actor for the Desire brand.
The telenovelas are broadcast in high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
where available – and in letterbox format on standard definition broadcasts. During the all-novela period, MyNetworkTV promoted itself as "the first all HDTV network." In addition, early shows carried a SAP
Second audio program
Second audio program , also known as secondary audio programming, is an auxiliary audio channel for analog television that can be broadcast or transmitted both over the air and by cable TV.-Usage:...
signal carrying a Spanish audio track, but an alternate closed captioning
Closed captioning
Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information to individuals who wish to access it...
channel with Spanish translation was not used.
Comparison with Spanish telenovelas
MyNetworkTV’s telenovelas were much shorter than the originals: about 65 episodes, rather than 120 to 180 hours. Each show was scripted, filmed and completed as a whole. The network could not shorten or lengthen shows.In familiar telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
form, shows often began with the tag “MyNetworkTV Presents.” Yet the beginnings of shows featured long flashbacks intended to refresh viewers. The first two rotations also added titles to each episode.
The daily format also featured the “Story” episode. These were clip shows that outlined the development of a major character. They were used in lieu of reruns. In addition, MyNetworkTV's shows featured white, black and Hispanic actors in prominent roles and often showed interracial couples, along with gay subplots. These English novelas also toned down the high pitched emotionalism of conventional telenovelas.
The producers said they needed to account for the cultural differences with Latin countries. So while these serials were said to add campiness, cat-fights and gay sensibility, they also lacked the cultural depth and raw passion of the Spanish originals.
Camilo Cano, the VP of Caracol Television International
Caracol TV
Caracol Televisión is a Colombian private national television network, owned by Julio Mario Santo Domingo.- History :Caracol Televisión started in 1954 when Organización de Radiodifusora Caracol offered to afford national television costs, then state-run, through commercial spots...
, which sold two telenovela formats to MyNetworkTV, said he was satisfied with the English versions. “The basic elements of the novela were respected,” he said, “which is what concerns us the most.” He said Caracol worked to ensure the adaptations were faithful to the original serials.
Broadcast rotations
All times are EasternNorth American Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
and Pacific
Pacific Time Zone
The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...
(subtract one hour for Central
Central Time zone
In North America, the Central Time Zone refers to national time zones which observe standard time by subtracting six hours from UTC , and daylight saving, or summer time by subtracting five hours...
and Mountain
Mountain Time Zone
The Mountain Time Zone of North America keeps time by subtracting seven hours from Coordinated Universal Time, also known as Greenwich Mean Time, during the shortest days of autumn and winter , and by subtracting six hours during daylight saving time in the spring, summer, and early autumn...
time)
| Telenovela | Time | Premiere Date | Finale Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2006 | Desire Desire (TV series) Desire is an American telenovela which debuted at 8:00PM Eastern/7:00PM Central on September 5, 2006, on the American network MyNetworkTV, and ended on December 5. It was produced by Twentieth Television... |
8:00 P.M. | September 5, 2006 | December 5, 2006 |
| Fall 2006 | Fashion House Fashion House Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006... |
9:00 P.M. | September 5, 2006 | December 5, 2006 |
| Winter 2006 | Wicked Wicked Games Wicked Wicked Games Wicked Wicked Games is a telenovela that debuted on December 6, 2006 on the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced 63 episodes to air weekdays. The limited-run serial was directed by Terry Cunningham, Dennis Dimster, P. David Ebersole, Jeff Hare and Jeremy Stanford. ... |
8:00 P.M. | December 6, 2006 | March 6, 2007 |
| Winter 2006 | Watch Over Me Watch Over Me Watch Over Me is an American Television series that debuted on December 6, 2006 on the television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced 66 episodes to air weekdays. The limited-run serial is an adaptation of Argentine series Resistiré.... |
9:00 P.M. | December 6, 2006 | March 6, 2007 |
| Spring 2007 | American Heiress | Weekly | March 13, 2007 | July 18, 2007 |
| Spring 2007 | Saints & Sinners Saints & Sinners (2007 TV series) Saints & Sinners is a telenovela which premiered on March 14, 2007 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced this limited-run serial, based on the a 2000 TV Azteca telenovela titled La Calle de las Novias... |
Weekly | March 14, 2007 | July 18, 2007 |
Had the daily format continued, Friends with Benefits
Friends with Benefits
Friends with Benefits was a telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial. It was based on a popular Latin American series.- Story :...
and Rules of Deception
Rules of Deception
American Heiress is a telenovela which debuted on March 13, 2007 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on the American television network MyNetworkTV. This romantic melodrama tells the story of a roughneck pilot and a pampered heiress who survive a plane crash...
would have debuted on June 5, 2007. Crossed Loves
Crossed Loves
Crossed Loves was the working title of an English-language telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV during the 2007-2008 season. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial...
would likely have begun the second season in early September. It could have been joined in the Fall lineup by Friends & Enemies
Friends & Enemies
Friends & Enemies was a telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial. It was based on the 2001 TV Azteca series Como En El Cine .- Story :...
, which was announced in the 2006 pre-season upfront presentation (in the third-quarter slot taken by Friends with Benefits
Friends with Benefits
Friends with Benefits was a telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial. It was based on a popular Latin American series.- Story :...
).
International broadcasts
W. Channel
W is an Australian cable and satellite channel available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television's subscription platforms. Originally a retro channel, it moved into Women's interest programming around the late 1990s...
.
CKXT-TV, an independent station in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
showed Desire and Fashion House, airing them in the afternoon time slot traditionally held by daytime soap operas. However, the station elected not to air any of the other telenovelas after the first cycle.
Campy melodramas
MyNetwork promoted its telenovelas as trashy melodramas, resembling prime timePrime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
soap operas like Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
and Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
. Paul Buccieri called them "guilty pleasures" and compared them to beach novels. While these shows attempted to adhere to the telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
format and tone, the network's executives and producers developed their own campy interpretation of the genre. They added characters and situations that differed from the Latin American originals. As telenovelas are inherently implausible and cartoonish, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences scorned the new adaptations.
Reviewers were resoundingly negative. For example, TV Guide
Paul Buccieri said that English-speaking audiences needed time to understand the genre. "We're sticking with it—we believe in this product," he said. Roger Ailes brought up MyNetworkTV in a Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
interview. "You should have seen us at Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
one year into it," he said. "I've had this job for a year and it takes a little time to get these things off the runway." Also, an executive of another television network told TV Week magazine that the existence of MNTV was "a miracle" because it went from concept to reality in only six months' time.
Ratings
MyNetworkTV's debut was far from successful. Desire scored a 1.1 household rating/2 share; Fashion House went up to 1.3/2.Fox had sold about half of its projections of $50 million in advance commercial sales.
The first two telenovelas averaged a 0.5 rating and a 2 share in the key 18-49 demographic. It averaged just over one million total viewers. The numbers dropped each night, according to Nielsen Media Research. These numbers were significantly lower than he programming that aired a year before, mostly UPN and WB programming. The telenovelas showed more hopeful ratings in markets like Miami, with large Hispanic populations.
The second set of telenovelas premiered to even lower numbers than the first pair. Wicked Wicked Games
Wicked Wicked Games
Wicked Wicked Games is a telenovela that debuted on December 6, 2006 on the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced 63 episodes to air weekdays. The limited-run serial was directed by Terry Cunningham, Dennis Dimster, P. David Ebersole, Jeff Hare and Jeremy Stanford. ...
premiered to a 0.8 rating/1 share overnight rating during its first three nights, while Watch Over Me
Watch Over Me
Watch Over Me is an American Television series that debuted on December 6, 2006 on the television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced 66 episodes to air weekdays. The limited-run serial is an adaptation of Argentine series Resistiré....
pulled a 0.7 rating/1 share. Both shows dropped by a 0.1 rating during the Monday-Wednesday period of their second week. The network sought better debuts for the shows since they premiered in December, while the major networks usually air reruns and the viewer presumably would sample programming on other networks.
MyNetworkTV's 200 affiliates struggled to promote the new format—and ratings dropped in some markets as much as 90 percent. Even Los Angeles was an under-performing market. One success story was Miami, where ratings more than doubled MyNetwork's national average.
Cancellation
Reports surfaced in December 2006, about a coming shift in MyNetworkTV's programming strategy. Greg Meidel became the network's first president in January;http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=53940 he explained the low ratings as a result of viewers' difficulty to commit to the same program every night, especially with higher-rated serialized programming on other networks. Another issue was that the typical MyNetworkTV telenovela viewer was 44 years old.On February 3, 2007, the Saturday night clip shows vanished and were replaced by feature films. Then on March 1, MyNetworkTV announced that it quit developing scripted content altogether, putting an end to its slate of telenovelas. The network had at least three more serials in development, Friends with Benefits, Rules of Deception
Rules of Deception
American Heiress is a telenovela which debuted on March 13, 2007 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on the American television network MyNetworkTV. This romantic melodrama tells the story of a roughneck pilot and a pampered heiress who survive a plane crash...
, and Crossed Loves
Crossed Loves
Crossed Loves was the working title of an English-language telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV during the 2007-2008 season. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial...
. It tentatively planned to cut their schedule to one night a week by fall before announcing that all such projects were scrapped.
Under the revised schedule, two hour installments of American Heiress and Saints & Sinners
Saints & Sinners (2007 TV series)
Saints & Sinners is a telenovela which premiered on March 14, 2007 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television produced this limited-run serial, based on the a 2000 TV Azteca telenovela titled La Calle de las Novias...
aired on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings through March and April. MyNetworkTV switched to one hour of each on Wednesdays for sweeps and never switched back. Meidel, the new network president, decided that the mixed martial arts IFC Battleground broadcasts on Monday would not deliver an audience to telenovelas the next night. In addition, the last set of telenovelas were preempted several times for reality specials and other programming before being dropped altogether.
MyNetworkTV previously announced plans to run the shows until October. After that, the remaining episodes were to appear online. Meidel previously said the network would air the complete runs of both shows. However, the telenovelas vanished without fanfare after their July 18, 2007 broadcast; only 26 out of each show's 65 hours were broadcast. (In addition, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of the 20th Century Fox film studio. It was established in 1976 as Magnetic Video Corporation, and later as 20th Century Fox Video, CBS/Fox Video and FoxVideo, Inc....
has not announced plans to release any of these serials on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
.)
MyNetworkTV's new fall 2007 lineup did not fare substantially better than the cancelled telenovelas, however. The mix of reality shows and movies averaged a .7 household rating during September. In addition, Paul Buccieri, the executive who championed the all-telenovela format, left Fox and became president and chief executive of Granada America
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
in December, 2007.
See also
- The Jay Leno ShowThe Jay Leno ShowThe Jay Leno Show is an American comedy show created by and starring Jay Leno, that aired from September 14, 2009 to February 9, 2010 on NBC following the May 29, 2009 conclusion of Leno's first tenure as host of The Tonight Show...
, a later attempt to strip the same show in prime time five nights a week