Global markets, national stories

Lorenzo Vilches
Edited by Gedisa / 205 pages
PVP. aprox.: 20 euros

In the scarce landscape of international research on television, Global Markets, National Stories represents one of the most complete and rigorous studies on the production, market and content of Ibero-American television fiction (Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the Spanish-speaking United States). In the field of television fiction, the globalizing philosophy is uneven and dispersed and has one of the most powerful engines in the international market in Ibero-America. From Miami – and in co-production with other countries in the region – there is a fiction that sells for its neutrality and “whitening” of the typical themes of the Ibero-American soap opera, while, on the other hand, from each of the countries in the area, there is an indigenous production that accentuates national particularities and that is globalized from a certain cultural difference. At the same time, business movements in Spain and Ibero-American countries have multiplied with technological convergence and the new redistribution of open and pay television signals. In this way, soap opera and series producers are preparing to establish high definition in their technological renewal plans. Thus, the HDT premieres already participate in audience success in some Ibero-American countries. In most of these countries, the “windows” of the Internet and mobile telephony connected to the Internet are already in place, demonstrating that the premieres of television fiction on new media not only do not take away viewers from the traditional screen, but rather serve as a sounding board to increase the audience and create critical mass in forum discussions and blogs about their characters and their stories. Global markets, national stories is the second study on fiction in Ibero-America after Markets and cultures of Ibero-American television fiction, also published in the collection “Television Studies” by Editorial Gedisa. Lorenzo Vilches has scientifically coordinated a network of researchers – all of them specialists in the television environments of their respective countries – whose objective is to monitor the annual fiction programs of Ibero-American television stations. Information on the fiction industry in each country is collected in a unified data bank and made available to professionals, television companies and producers, as well as regional and national political institutions that operate in the sector.