“Comrade, I completely understand why you want to do research on Cuban television because we had one of the most developed television systems in Latin America. Unfortunately, you have the wrong visa.”

I am paraphrasing–and translating into English–my reception at Havana’s José Martí International Airport last year. I begin with this anecdote not to point out the difficulties of getting into the country, but instead to highlight that even a Cuban customs official, a daughter of the Revolution, is aware of the primacy of Cuba in the region’s television past. I emphasize the word “even” to draw attention to the knowledge gap between this customs official and US scholars. That is, if one reads the English-language literature on Latin American TV, one would have little awareness of Cuba’s once prominent position in the region’s mediascape.

To be sure, in the last decade numerous articles have focused on Latin American and US Spanish language television/media, most of them dealing with contemporary television exportations, powerful media conglomerates, and the popularity of telenovelas around the world. Yet at the same time that multi-national corporations are gobbling up and transforming the region’s television systems, the narrative about Latin American television has been responding to the market and to the corporations that control that market. As a result, the television systems and countries that are not current global business players are left out of the narrative. This scholarly trend not only presents a fragmented depiction of the region’s television/media present but it also misrepresents the Latin American television/media past. Today’s scholarly dialogues on the geo linguistic TV/media revolve primarily around Mexico, Brazil, and Miami, with much of that discussion relating to telenovelas.

Thus, my introduction to Cuba’s commercial television did not come from the literature. It emerged instead in talking to media professionals. In my conversations with Cuban and Puerto Rican actors, scriptwriters, directors, and technical staff who worked in Puerto Rico’s media before and after the Cuban Revolution, I began to learn about Cuba’s role in the development of television in different parts of Latin America. Through subsequent archival research and conversations with scholars from Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina, I was gradually able to piece together the details of the “Cuban influence” in the region. Cuba’s impact related not only to big shot media moguls such as Diego Cisneros (founder of Venezuela’s network Venevision) and Goar Mestre (who, in conjunction with CBS, launched Channel 13 in Argentina), but also to relatively unknown figures who were instrumental in various aspects of television and advertising in Argentina, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the US Spanish-language media market.

The beginnings of the Cuban media influence across Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean can be traced back to the radio era and, as expected, the US was a key player in Cuba’s regional media role. However, other aspects went beyond the long-established US neo-colonial presence in Cuba. During the 1940s, Cuba enjoyed an economic, intellectual, and cultural effervescence. The Cuban economy expanded during and after World War II, and although this economic prosperity did not benefit equally all sectors of the population, by 1950 Cuba ranked as one of the most economically developed countries in Latin America. In the cultural terrain, a new group of literary figures emerged, the number of formally trained musicians increased, and popular musical groups flourished locally and internationally. Furthermore, in the early 1940s, theatre aficionados had the opportunity to obtain a formal education at the Drama Conservatory and at the University of Havana. Because of newly established educational venues and a variety of professional opportunities in radio, theatre, and night clubs, the city of Havana was the center of popular culture on the island. In the 1940s, to use Michael Curtin’s concept, Havana became a media capital.

In addition to the aforementioned circumstances, particular industrial and commercial factors–directly and indirectly related to the post 1898 US political and economic interventions in Cuba–came together to position Havana as a broadcasting hub. The early investments of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, the Cuban media professionals’ training in and mastership of US advertising techniques, and the appropriation of US radio production practices facilitated the maturity of Cuba’s broadcasting industries. All of these local and US-shaping vectors were instrumental in Havana’s regional impact during the 1940s and 1950s.

The Havana broadcasting influence in Latin America first came into place through the sale of scripts and soon after, in the transferring of advertisers, radio directors, and scriptwriters. Much of this exportation of scripts and people was fueled by US corporate investments in the region. Nonetheless, not all Havana-Latin American connections were a result of US economic interests. In some instances, Cuban advertisers foresaw the emergence of opportunities and expanded their business to other countries. In other instances, Latin American advertising agency owners traveled to Cuba in search of advertising and radio professionals. This movement of Cuban media professionals across the region continued into the 1950s television era. The Cuban television industry grew exponentially in its first three years (1950-1953), and, as a result, its television professionals were able to develop their technical and production skills. Cuban expertise in television, together with the nation-state’s troubling economy after 1954 and a progressively unstable political climate, led to an exodus of television and advertising professionals who migrated to other media centers throughout Latin America.

Three primary aspects facilitated the relocation of Cubans: first, the emergence of television in numerous countries throughout the region; second, the lack of trained personnel in the countries that set up this complex system; and third, Cubans’ vast experience in multiple aspects of television production. Contrary to the post 1959 migrations, the move of Cuban technical staff, television and advertising executives, and talent was in many cases transitory. However, what is important about these sometimes permanent, other times temporary relocations is that they solidified the Cuban connections in Latin America and served as important links for the post 1959 mass departures.

Bogotá, Caracas, and San Juan were the primary cities Cuban media personnel selected as their new job sites, yet several Cubans also looked for jobs in the Dominican Republic and in Mexico. In the case of Colombia, the Cuban influence was related to the technical aspects of television. In Venezuela and Puerto Rico the Cuban connections encompassed the technical, commercial, and cultural aspects of television.

The pre-revolutionary connections and dispersions of the 1940s radio era and the 1950s television era facilitated the incorporation of Cubans into the Latin American and US Spanish-language media industries after the Cuban Revolution. Certainly, not all Cuban executives, technical staff, and creative personnel went into exile. The television professionals who stayed on the island became key members in the State-controlled broadcasting system and in the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry. Additionally, the highly experienced advertising professionals who remained in Cuba played a fundamental role in crafting propaganda campaigns to form a new socialist state and citizenry. Nonetheless, those who left became important figures in the development of broadcasting and advertising corporations in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Lima, Miami, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, and San Juan. And yes, these Cuban exiles even influenced the telenovelas produced in Mexico, Brazil, and Miami.

Cubarte

Since the mid 1990s, Cuban-based intellectuals have embraced a more flexible interpretation of pre-revolutionary Cuban history, culture, and society. Since early 2000, the Havana-based on-line magazine Cubarte has included a column covering pre-revolution radio and television. Caballero!!! (as the Cubans say), when are we going to catch up to Cuban customs officials?

Image Credits:
1. Private Image
2. Private Image
3. Private Image
4. Cubarte

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Betty la fea is unique and unparalleled.”
“In 1999 no one had a clue about what would become of Yo soy Betty la fea.”
“It is incredible.”

These are some of the phrases that came up in my conversations with several Colombian media professionals this past summer regarding the Yo soy Betty la fea global phenomenon. Nine years after Colombian network RCN began to broadcast Fernándo Gaitán’s telenovela about an ugly, highly intelligent, competent, and decent woman who worked in a fashion industry, Colombian television professionals and scholars who specialize in the telenovela genre continue to be mesmerized by a format that has been sold to more than thirty countries and that has originated new formats.

Their amazement is understandable. At least up to this point in television history, the adaptation of one particular fictionalized television product across the world is, indeed, exceptional. However, even though these media professionals did not anticipate the tremendous global success of Betty, they—as well as others familiar with the flow of programming in Latin America—were not surprised by the Colombian origins of this media-changing cultural product. To be sure, unlike Mexico and Brazil, Colombia is not a major producer and exporter of telenovelas. That said, in the telenovela and television series hierarchical structure (primarily developed by academics and industry people), the Colombian product has prestige. As an interviewee observed regarding what are considered the “best” Latin American telenovelas and series, “the Brazilians’ [productions] are aesthetically and dramatically superior. Then we have the Argentineans’ which are psychoanalytical, urban, and fast. Then we have the Colombians’.”

According to media scholar Omar Rincón, the Colombian telenovela model has four primary characteristics that differentiate it from other Latin American products. An urban context, strong and forceful women who “control their destiny,” a mixture of comedy and drama, and a “playful take on melodrama’s values,” define the Colombian telenovela as well as the series style.1 Of these elements, the representation of strong female characters and the incorporation of comedy, according to some interviewees, have been most responsible for the buying of Colombian scripts across Latin America, a process initiated in the early 1990s.

Colombia’s strongest television influence in the region before the Yo soy Betty la fea boom was in Mexico. In the mid 1990s the newly instituted Mexican network TV Azteca bought the rights to Bernardo Romero Pereiro and Mónica Agudelo’s Colombian hit Señora Isabel. The story of a love affair between a middle aged woman and a younger man was adapted to the Mexican context and produced by the Mexican Production Company Argos for TV Azteca. The Colombian Señora Isabel became the highly successful Mexican telenovela Mirada de mujer. After capturing audiences in Mexico and across the region and becoming a legitimate competitor of Mexico’s powerful network Televisa, Argos/TV Azteca bought the rights to other Colombian titles (for example, La otra mitad del sol and Pecado santo). Whereas the subsequent adaptations of Colombian scripts were not as successful as Mirada de mujer, TV Azteca, according to one interviewee, “initially competed with Televisa by appropriating the Colombian telenovela model.” Today, Mexican networks Televisa and TV Azteca have Colombian telenovela and series formats in their libraries and have adapted and produced Colombian concepts, including most recently, Yo amo a Juan querendón, from the Colombian Pedro, el escamoso, and Destilando amor, from Colombia’s Café con aroma de mujer.

Fernándo Gaitán’s Café con aroma de mujer was the most famous Colombian telenovela export in the early 1990s. Other 1990s Colombian regional successes include La otra mitad del sol, Las Juanas, and Perro amor. But none of these earlier products compare with the trans-Latin American craze of Yo soy Betty la fea, an enthusiasm that eventually became global. And it is precisely this global aspect of Yo soy Betty la fea, which included the selling of the lata [canned programs] and of the format, that has begun to transform the Colombian television industry. As an executive who specializes in international television trades for the Colombian network Caracol observed, “Betty provided us the access to present other types of products on the market. […] The market now demands the Colombian product.” Even though Argentina is still considered the main seller of formats in Latin America for the regional and global markets, Colombia has become a player in the format exporting global game. The most recent format export success emerging from Bogota is the series Sin tetas no hay paraíso. Authored by Gustavo Bolivar and produced by the Caracol network, the Sin tetas format has been sold to the US (for English- and Spanish-language versions), Spain, Italy, Russia, and Mexico.

But the growing exportation of Colombian television formats is not the only industrial change in the post Yo soy Betty la fea era. Bogota is also becoming an important television production center in Latin America.

Although still considered by many to be a country at war, a sense of socio-political stability and security has apparently eased the concerns of foreign television investors. The new Fox TeleColombia studios, which will be the home of Fox productions for the US, European, and Asian markets, and the Telemundo-RTI Bogota facilities where the filming of telenovelas for the US and global markets takes place, are two examples of Colombia’s broadening participation in the web of global television production.2 The Colombian creative and technical staff ‘know how,’ the commercial success of local productions, and a large, cheap, talented, non-unionized labor force are major factors in these recent transformations. Of these factors, the “no one will ever stop a filming” mantra associated with the absence of unions has been quite appealing for transnational media corporations. As one interviewee observed, “we are a maquila,” hinting at a form of labor exploitation defined by border-crossing corporations and center-periphery relations of power. While aware of the television industries’ labor disparities between Colombia and, for example, regional countries such as Argentina and Mexico, media professionals in Bogota are mostly energized by the increasing number of job opportunities. They are also trying to understand and work through a rapidly changing television environment.

As a television system that from its origins in 1954 to 1997 was controlled by the state and that previously auctioned programming time-slots and genres to independent production companies, the commercial networks RCN and Caracol and the creative and technical staff are still in the process of learning about the business of global television. For example, through my conversations I gathered that because of inexperience, RCN executives lost an opportunity to maximize their profits with the global distribution and selling of the Yo soy Betty la fea format. Additionally, the absence of a Colombian scriptwriters’ union is directly related to author and show runner Fernando Gaitán receiving no royalties for the various global Betty versions. As Silvio Waisbord contends in relation to format exporting, the “global television industry is becoming a giant cultural vacuum cleaner that constantly sucks in ideas from around the world and turns them into commodities.”3 And I should add that in a system void of labor unions, the suction of profits, talent, and creativity is more forceful.

The key question then is how the government, commercial networks, and media professionals will negotiate Colombia’s new position in the global television environment. What will it mean for Colombian media creators when the next Fea or Señora finds a new Paraíso in Miami, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, or Beijing? Time will tell.

Image Credits:
1.) Yo Soy Betty, la fea
2.) Café con aroma de mujer
3.) Caracol and RCN

Please feel free to comment.

1. Omar Rincón. “Colombia: Cuando la ficción cuenta más que los informativos,” Culturas y mercados de la ficción
   en Iberoamérica, Anuario OBITEL 2007. Ed., Lorenzo Vilches (Barcelona: Gedisa, 2007), 133-58.
2. “‘Made in’ Colombia.” Semana May 19-26, 2008: 91.
3. Silvio Waisbord, “McTV: Understanding the Global Popularity of Television Formats,” Television and New Media 5, no. 4 (2004), 378.