WorldCity Business Magazine

The Miami Soaps

by Santiago Fittipaldi

Tearjerkers from Latin America no longer cut it with U.S. Hispanic TV audiences. Enter Miami (stage north) and its edgy, modern themes, and a hot new telenovelas industry is born. Let the cameras roll

While TV viewers got glimpses of South Florida through Miami Vice in the ‘80s and with The Jackie Gleason Show from Miami Beach in the ‘60s, the latest batch of Miami based productions sport a decidedly Latino flavor. The city has become a major production hub for Spanish-language soap operas. There was a time when most Spanish language soaps, or telenovelas, were imported from Mexico and South America. But, then, some five years ago, producers began discovering Miami as a production site and the industry has been booming ever since.

“This trend got started with just one or two production companies, but now there are six or seven companies that are almost in constant production, turning out programs one right after the other,” says Jeff Peel, director of the Miami-Dade County Mayor’s Office of Film and Entertainment. By Peel’s estimates, there are as many as five telenovelas in production in Miami on any given day.

“Novela production companies are like little factories; as one show wraps up, writers begin work on the next one, so there’s almost never any down time,” adds Peel. Both Miami and Miami Beach have film offices. They work together to facilitate the production process, obtaining necessary city permits, coordinating security, helping to scout locations, arranging to shut down streets when needed and otherwise helping to cut through red tape.

Between the production companies and their suppliers of film, equipment, catering and other services, Peel estimates Miami’s entertainment production industry generates $2.5 billion in annual revenue. Of this, he says, $1.5 billion comes from Spanish-language entertainment, principally television. And that means mainly telenovelas. “There are some 3,000 businesses in Miami that get a significant portion of their income from TV production,” adds Peel.

Fonovideo is one of the pioneers in the city’s telenovela industry and also one of its most prolific producers. Since setting up shop in Miami in 1996, the company has filmed a dozen Spanish-language soap operas back-to-back. Another four are planned this year.

While the company launched its local operations out of a small office, Fonovideo’s Miami studios now include four sound stages, each measuring 4,000 square feet. It has also created a spin-off, FV Productions, which produces telenovelas in a joint venture with Ultra, a Mexican production firm.

Alfredo Schwarz, Fonovideo’s president and executive producer, says the decision to relocate from his native Venezuela was driven by a mix of Miami’s quality of life and what he viewed as an opportunity to create a local telenovela industry. “It’s more expensive to produce here than in Venezuela, but the lack of personal security there does not allow you to film normally,” he says, recalling how, in Caracas, one of his drivers was held up at gunpoint and his equipment truck stolen.

“When you’re filming a telenovela, there’s no fixed schedule and you could start work at 7:00 a.m. and still be working at 3:00 a.m.,” adds Schwarz. “In Miami, you can film on the streets at 3:00 a.m. with all your cameras and equipment and nothing happens. In Caracas, you go out to film and you may be robbed even in the afternoon.”

Although most of his series are sold to Mexican media giant Televisa itself the world’s largest producer of Spanish-language programming Schwarz says he may soon be selling to other clients, as interest from non-traditional markets grows. “We’re touching base in Spain and other markets which had not been tapped for this type of programming in the past,” he says. He feels the Miami-produced series have a broader appeal.

MIAMI BACKDROP

“The success that we’re having is partly due to good stories and the quality of the scripts and actors, but Miami’s attractive look also contributes,” says Schwarz. Unlike the poverty, street crime, drugs and other social problems that are the backdrop for telenovelas in Latin America, he says Miami exteriors are filled with scenes of mansions, tropical gardens, nightlife and beaches.

Indeed, local producers have created a new style for the genre. “There’s a shift to cater to a demographic that is more Hispanic-American and not just immigrants, and in Miami producers are able to achieve a uniquely Hispanic-American product,” explains Peel, who contends the old-style novelas produced in Mexico no longer speak to this more acculturated group.

Elizabeth Sanjenis, corporate news publicist at Telemundo in Miami, agrees: “We’re committed to portraying the U.S. Hispanic experience and we create programs that appeal to the U.S. Hispanic audience.” Telemundo, owned by NBC, is headquartered in Miami and produces telenovelas through a joint venture with RTI Colombia.

In its quest to present relevant story lines, the network weaved the issue of marriages of convenience for immigration purposes into one of its soap operas in which the main character is an undocumented immigrant. In another, it covered the issue of child kidnappings and the effectiveness of Amber Alerts issued by the U.S. department of Homeland Security. Syrupy love stories, it seems, no longer drive ratings. And broadcasters say that Latin American audiences are also beginning to tune in to the Miami-produced programs with their edgier themes.

Local productions studios mean that Telemundo and competitor Univision partly owned by Televisa and Venezuela’s Venevision media group are now producing far more programming of their own. While just a few years ago Telemundo produced only 25 percent of its programming, says Sanjenis, it has jumped to 100 percent this year. Telemundo Studios in Miami, which opened for business in 2003, has 50,000 square feet of production space.

In order to support the development of Miami’s telenovela industry, Telemundo has teamed up with Miami-Dade College to create a workshop to churn out a new generation of writers. Thirty of the most promising applicants, out of more than 4,300, will begin the year-long course in March. “We received applications from Lithuania to Japan to the Telemundo building itself, as the course was also open to employees,” recalls Sanjenis.

Attracting actors has not been a problem for local studios. While some continue to import Latin American soap opera stars for lead roles, others conduct casting calls and hire local talent. Fonovideo holds casting sessions in Miami each Friday.

But not everyone in the industry is keen on telenovelas. “The Hispanic market is lacking when it comes to programming,” argues Alvaro Garnica, production manager for Miami based Plural Entertainment, part of Spain’s media powerhouse Grupo Prisa which publishes El Pais Spain’s largest newspaper. “Ninety percent of programming is novelas and we feel there’s room for other types of programs.”

Garnica envisions demand for everything from TV series and reality shows to game shows and sitcoms. Plural, which established its Miami base in 2003, already produced a television series for Univision based on legal and police drama. It is currently working on another series for the network. Although he still does not rule out the possibility of Plural producing local soap operas some day, Garnica says that market is already saturated.

Maybe so, but the Miami film office is hoping production companies will continue churning them out at record pace. To make sure that happens, producers receive a series of incentives, including a state sales tax exemption for productions. Another break, approved by the state government last year, provides rebates of up to 15 percent of production costs up to a maximum $2 million for feature films, sliding downward from there for smaller TV programs. Beneficiaries must spend at least $850,000 in the state to qualify.

The city and state, of course, benefit not only from jobs created and money spent by production companies, but from the exposure. When Brazil’s Globo television network was in Miami earlier this year to film scenes for a soap, the city’s convention and visitors’ bureau rolled out the red carpet. Tourism executives hope that Miami scenes on the small screen will send Brazilian viewers rushing to their nearest travel agent. The novellas are fast becoming the city’s most effective tourism promotion tool in Latin America.

Still, Schwarz feels the city could do more to support the industry, complaining that production companies must often go through hurdles to obtain permits. The city of Coral Gables, he says, bans filming altogether, though most of the mansions that he’d like to film are in the area. His biggest peeve is that, while Hollywood studios can shut down streets and get everything they need while filming in Miami, local TV producers are not afforded the same privileges. “The city should remember that Hollywood studios only come here for a few weeks, but we’re here year-round.”