As Mexican soap operas take over Nigerian screens

It was a little past nine pm when the power outage occurred. From the darkness, cries of indignation went up and in a moment, anxious men, women and children – entire families, streamed out of their homes, rushing to neighbouring houses where noisy generators were just starting up. As they settled in before TV screens, […]

It was a little past nine pm when the power outage occurred. From the darkness, cries of indignation went up and in a moment, anxious men, women and children – entire families, streamed out of their homes, rushing to neighbouring houses where noisy generators were just starting up. As they settled in before TV screens, they cursed the power authority and laughed at their own desperate reactions. The brouhaha was all about a Mexican soap opera that had been running on Nigerian television for sometime. It was also the talking point in many discussion circles on streets, markets, saloons, blogs offices and even primary school playgrounds. Many Nigerians were completely addicted to that programme and several others showing daily, sometimes simultaneously, at all hours of the day.

Before then, Nigerian soaps such as “Cockcrow at Dawn”, “Mirror in the Sun” and “Behind the Clouds” enjoyed huge followings across the country. Many Nigerians looked forward to going home and settling down with their families to watch the likes of Sadiq Daba, and Matt Dadzie in their elements. But those days are gone. Now it is all about the ‘Mexican’ soaps.

Evolution of the ‘Mexican’ armada

In the mid 1990s, the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, started broadcasting a Mexican soap titled “The Rich also Cry”. It was already popular in several countries including the United States, Russia and China. It was the first such telenovella that played out to global audiences.

 It enjoyed a massive following and huge corporate backing. But little did Nigerian television know that it was opening its door to a massive invasion that now seems to be overwhelming not only its audience but the medium as well.

Telenovellas started in Brazil in 1950 with “Your Life Belong to Me” almost a full decade before the first Nigerian television was commissioned. The Cubans caught the bug a year later and produced “Paths of Love” the same year Mexico produced “Angels of the Street” which aired twice a week. It was not until 1958 that the Mexicans came up with a telenovela in the modern format that aired the whole week long. The programmes quickly gained a huge following within a localised context but by the end of the 70s that changed with the coming of a certain Veronica Castro. She was the star of the 1979 soap, “The Rich Also Cry” which the Mexicans exported massively. It was welcomed everywhere and projected the actress to international stardom. Almost two decades later, she was unleashed on an all too eager Nigerian audience and like she did elsewhere, she and the rest of the cast won over a huge following, not only of viewers across gender and age groups all over the country, but a huge corporate admiration as well. Many companies saw the popularity of that soap as an avenue to advertise their products. Immediately after the first soap ended, another one, “The Wild Rose” also featuring Castro took to the screen. By the time that ended, several others were being lined up and Nigerian-made soaps were gradually being dropped from the screen.

Mexican telenovelas (some are actually from other South American countries) offered an easy way out for corporate bodies.  The imported varieties were readily available at a cheaper rate and already enjoyed a huge following. This offered them a far cheaper alternative to sponsoring local soaps, which usually entails footing a significant amount of production cost. Many Nigerian companies fell over themselves to advertise products and services on Mexican soaps to a huge audience. Local TV stations were profiting while local content producers suffered.

Some experts think this trend is damaging, not only to local producers but to the moral and cultural values of Nigeria. NTA’s Director of Programmes, Mallam Bello Sule, is one of them. He described it as “the rot under the gloss” alluding to the country’s strides in developing local content before the telenovelas came and the recent development in Nollywood. “This is eating up all we have done, we are now having so much crush on the values that are being imported,” he said.

The Appeal

What is the appeal in telenovelas that has so enthralled Nigerians? Patricio Wills, Head of Development at Telemundo, one of the world’s largest producers of telenovelas, told an American network: “The plots are always the same. In the first three minutes of the first episode the viewer already knows the novella will end with the same couple kissing each other. A telenovela is all about a couple who wants to kiss and a scriptwriter who stands in their way for 150 episodes.” 

Most of the telenovelas are romantic melodramas aboutcharacters entangled in a web of love, hate, vendettas or business rivalries. This is enough enticement for avid viewers of the programmes like Mrs. Philomina Uche, a civil servant. “They have good love stories and I like them. I also enjoy the twists and turns in the stories,” she said smiling.

While some see the characters as doctored and in some cases unreal: they tend to be very beautiful or very handsome, and almost too perfect as to look like dolls rolled out from factories. Some viewers find this another source of attraction. The characters temperament is also worthy of note as they appear very unpredictable and make decisions that are quite stunning and sometimes bizarre. They also seem European like, a controversial point in their countries of origin that have mixed races. Where ethnic-looking people do get a role, it is usually as lower class citizens such as cleaners, gardeners, maids or cooks. This has raised racial concerns in those countries, but in Nigeria, not many people seem to have given this any thought.

“Some of the men are so handsome. I love to watch the programmes because of guys like Don Pedro in Second Chance,” said Tosin Abiodun, a student.

Dominance on the airwaves

With the growth in Nigerian broadcast which has seen many private broadcast stations coming on stream, telenovelas have continued to spread their tentacles. No day goes by without one or many showing on different TV stations, sometimes simultaneously. A major TV station recently cut the time for a popular political talk show and created more time to accommodate yet another telenovela. Nigerian soaps have been shelved in favour of the imported brands which are increasingly amassing more airtime. Between nine and ten am, several stations run different telenovelas, apparently targeted at housewives. But their influence does not stop there as meaningfully employed men have taken to the programmes as well. Mathew Solomon, a businessman is one of them. “My interest in the soaps gingered other members of my family including my wife, to become avid watchers of the soap. I switch off my phone to avoid distractions when watching When You are Mine,” he said.

Their dominance of the screens is disturbing to Nigeria’s broadcast regulating body, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). Its spokesman, Alh. Auwalu Salihu, told Sunday Trust that the body has taken steps to curb the trend. “What we have done is to make sure they don’t show on the family belt, which is between seven and ten pm. We have also insisted on enforcing the 20% foreign content limit on all stations in Nigeria,” he said.

This is meant to give locally produced programmes 80% of all airtime on local stations. Yet, despite these measures, some stations still broadcast these telenovelas within the prohibited period. The NBC spokesman insists they have been clamping down on such errant stations.

“We have been monitoring these stations and violators have been warned or fined. Apart from monitoring their programmes we do go there for quarterly inspections to inspect all their programmes for the quarter,” Alh. Salihu said.

Attempts have been made by some local content producers to replicate the success of the telenovelas by filling up the allotted 80% airtime with local soaps. But not one has enjoyed the success of the famed “Cockcrow at Dawn” and “Behind the Clouds”. This recent attempts have tried to emulate the telenovelas by projecting implausible characters in implausible romantic entanglements. The outcome is that they hardly look, sound or feel Nigerian and the average Nigerian hardly relates to them. And because of the poor viewership, whatever sponsors they might have from the unset eventually withdraw.

Why the brouhaha?

Why is there so much concern over the dominance of the telenovelas, one wonders. Evoh Augustine, a commentator, says they are invading Nigeria in a negative way. “It is an invasion of sorts because it invades Nigerian television’s airtime as well as the culture of the Nigerian people,” he said.

That is the NBC’s major objection to the telenovelas. “They have negative effects culturally speaking, and they affect local producers. They teach not so good morals to impressionable youths,” the NBC spokesman said.

The producers of these telenovelas are aggressively marketing their products. They move from country to country trying to entice TV stations to procure them at very cheap rates. Bello Sule of the NTA confirms this, saying, “I have been NTA’s director of programmes for less than a year and the first thing that came in was these Mexicans trying to get me to buy their telenovelas at cheap rates. They persisted until it became annoying.”

This aggressive marketing has garnered success for the producers who have made their products household names across the globe, managing to step on some toes along the way.

Way forward

In 1988, the first Mexican telenovela hit Russian screens, led by Veronica Castro and her crew in “The Rich also Cry.” It was such a huge success as it was in Nigeria. From then telenovelas found an eager market in Russia. That was before the turn of the millennium. Today, imported telenovelas have been replaced by Russian made ones, sometimes adaptations of foreign ones. But Russians pride themselves in the knowledge that they are made in Russia with Russian characters projecting Russian values. Could the same apply to Nigeria?

Malam Sule is thinking in that line. Inundated by bids from foreign producers, he decided to enter into partnership with them to train Nigerian producers in the arts. He has invited them to bring their script writers and producers to Nigeria in order to train indigenous screenwriters and producers. The Mexicans have agreed to this.

“We should have our own,” he said. “We are counted as the most religious people in the world, we are counted as the happiest people yet we don’t articulate these. There is a problem somewhere. We should return to the basics.”

If this agreement eventually materialises and corporate bodies support local producers, there might be a reversal of fortunes and this cultural invasion might eventually be checked.