Like their soap opera counterparts in the US and Europe, telenovelas provide an irresistible blend of sex, drama and strong emotions to attract their growing international following. While hardly culture, they do possess special attributes that explain their ability to compete. Latin American TV companies have also succeeded in broadening the middle-class target audience aimed at by the original soap operas . Telenovelas reach all classes, including the urban poor, men as well as women. Plots, characters, settings and themes are fine-tuned to attract the largest audience.
Testing is continuous, sometimes daily and door to door.
You don t know what s going to happen tomorrow. Even the actors are surprised. A popular character s role may be expanded, an unpopular one s changed or reduced, and so on according to the survey results. It s an idealized daily life, for sure, where amazing coincidence is almost routine and justice always triumphs. When military dictatorships reigned in much of Latin America, scripts emphasizing political freedom and resistance against oppression were not let into Argentina, Chile and other military-dominated countries.