When the character Julia in Telemundo’s hit telenovela “Dame Chocolate,” needs to buy baby supplies, she will head out — without missing a beat — to her nearest Wal-Mart store.
It’s a case of “reel life” imitating real life. But it is also part of a partnership between Clorox and Wal-Mart giving the world’s largest retailer a featured role in “Dame Chocolate,” the first venture by The Clorox Company into branded entertainment in the Hispanic market.
Most articles I read about the television business, if not all, prognosticate about the demise of the 30-second commercial: viewers hate commercials; given the opportunity/technology, all viewers would fast-forward through commercials; people use going to the bathroom and seeking out food during commercial breaks as a desperate excuse to legitimize their avoidance of TV commercials; commercials are too long; and generally, as reported by industry pundits, the creative sucks. OK. I’ve been listening to this looping litany since I began in the industry in the mid-’70s.
NBC Universal, the newly named Universal Media Studios will produce the U.S English-language version of the hit Colombian telenovela “Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso/Without Breasts There Is No Paradise” (working title) for NBC while a Spanish edition will be produced and broadcast independently with a different cast, script and production team by NBC Universal’s Telemundo Network.
Pappas Telecasting Companies announced that effective midnight, July 1, its television stations that were formerly affiliated with the Azteca America Network will commence broadcasting a new brand of Spanish-language programming to serve America‚s Spanish-speaking population.
