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For decades, over-the-top, soapy telenovelas have been the bread and butter of Spanish-language television.
Multiple generations of a family would watch year after year of a storyline akin to long-running soap operas. Univision is in the top 10 in Nielsen ratings charts week after week because of them.
However, those telenovelas are declining with the millennial demographic for one important reason. They now have far more options in the Spanish and English language content arenas, and more households are not limiting their choices to Spanish-language TV.
This distinction puts these millennials in a new group Univision is calling billennials – bilingual millennials who are seeking out more entertainment in English than in Spanish.
According to the Los Angeles Times, billennials are slowly outgrowing immigrants, who were previously the target audience of networks like Univision and Telemundo. Both networks are learning to adapt now in order to keep up with their growing demographic.
“U.S. Hispanic millennials really have the best of both worlds right now,” Telemundo President Luis Silberwasser told the LA Times. “They have their choice of the best programming, regardless of language. What that requires for us in finding success is innovation — the kind of innovation that the Spanish-language marketplace has never seen before. It’s been a market that for decades has programmed the same way that it always has been, in a very traditional way.”
Programming around this new group has so far meant more reality formats, with Spanish versions of Big Brother and Telemundo’s hit series La Voz Kids. The network also took a note from Fox’s hit Empire to launch two new musical dramas based on singers Celia Cruz and Juan Gabriel. Univision partnered with Simon Cowell on La Banda with judge Ricky Martin.
Networks such as Univision and Telemundo now also have to program and strategize around competing formats on English-language networks, such as The CW’s Jane the Virgin and NBC’s upcoming Hot and Bothered from Eva Longoria.
One solution has been to attract billennials to series both on air and on the Web – creating virtual worlds for each storyline. Univision has Novelas Xpress where fans can watch abridged versions of their favorite telenovelas, as well as a Web extension of its upcoming Antes Muerta que Lichita. Telemundo also launched Double Acción, a scripted series that also includes two screens of added content during the show’s airing.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.
Brief Take: For many, the larger dilemma that looms is how long networks can remain Spanish-only when their target households are becoming more of a mix of English and Spanish.
[Image courtesy of The CW]
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