BRIC POP: The Blog

Globo has been going global.  The Brazilian TV network has always has a streak of wanderlust when exporting its novelas to other markets.   Lucélia Santos became this huge star in China when Escrava Isaura was one of the first Western programs to be shown in the 1970s PRC.

Globo’s international distribution machine for novelas has since evolved quite considerably from back then.  But up until recently, the content was pretty familiar.  For my non-Brazilian friends, here is a bit of a primer.  The formats correspond to time slot (more or less, I was still confused sometimes).  The six is usually a historical drama, like Isaura above.  The seven might be comedic (Pé Na Jaca was the one when I was there).  Then the eight is contemporary, usually set in Rio.  But I haven’t checked the programming grid at Globo lately and I think there’s a news segment in there and the 7 might be 8 and the 8 might be 9.  Somehow, I never worried about this in Brazil.  Whenever.

There seems to be a new genre opening up: pre-globalized.  Brazilian telenovelas, like Bollywood films, are increasingly appealing to the international audience by going, well, international.  To this point, Rede Globo has been making the 8 novela a little more globalized, first with Caminho das Indías (Way to India – more on that in a minute) and now with Viver a Vida (To Live Life), which is being filmed in Jerusalem, Jordan, and Paris, and not just Ipanema like most.  Globo has a nice intro page about the new novela here.

I was disappointed to have missed Caminho, given that between the 300 hours of Brazilian TV and 75 Indian films I’ve researched, it would have been great to have seen in total what happens when the first and third letters of the BRICs come together.  I looked at a few clips on YouTube, and while I was somewhat horrified by Juliana Paes’s attempt at Indian dance, I’ve also never seen a love scene like that in any Bollywood number.

Nice masala, I guess.  And pretty progressive of Globo nonetheless.  Do you think any British or American network executive would greenlight Coronation Marg or CSI: Kolkata?  Please.  We put subtitles on English-speaking Dutch people.

Once again, Globo is proving the point that in this brave new creative world, you don’t always have to go through the US or Europe to make a cross-cultural connection.  Only four years ago, Globo’s 8 novela was América, which was about Brazilians and you-know-where.  Here’s a clip from that finale:

I’ve asked around at Globo in the past whether they had a new formula for addressing the global market, maybe with formats instead of actual programming.  They always denied having any kind of new globalization strategy other than selling more of their core programming.  But I’m starting to get a sense that they’re figuring out a way to make globalized content out of that core that still can get 80% of Brazilians watching every night, while selling a product overseas with more direct appeal.  I still want to see the West African version of Fantastico or the Danish version of Mais Você, but I’ll take these new “globonovelas” for now.  They continue to prove themselves as one of the smartest media companies in the world, and that’s a show worth watching.

(By the way, here’s the original chapter from BRIC Pop I wrote about Globo, back in 2007.)