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The CONTD Sessions – Contenidos para la Televisión Digital –held on the past 19th and 20th of May, have left us something to talk about. As usual, during these days there was a gathering at the University of Valencia, represented by the main actors of the audiovisual field: professionals, researchers and experts. This time, the main purpose of the sessions was to debate and reflect upon the audiovisual fiction on a setting governed by the fragmentation of the audience and advertising, by the golden age of the Spanish series with a great format, the consolidation of new methods of audiovisual consumption, and the emergence of new productive methods and new forms of exploiting fiction, etc..

The Audiovisual Contents and Formats Master’s Degree considers that, in a moment of profound change within the audiovisual field, fiction continues to enjoy a privileged position in the value chain of the audiovisual production. Following this idea, several matters of unquestionable interest have been raised during the sessions, regarding the importance of fiction for the television channels, the production of television and cinematographic fiction, the new narrative challenges of the audiovisual fiction, the passing of fiction through the Spanish television, or the production of fiction for Internet and mobile devices. The producer Gustavo Ferrada and Miguel Ángel Oliver, a member of the board of directors of the Television Arts and Sciences Academy, who did the opening of the session, said that even though the narrating patterns and manners may change, the need to tell each other stories remains unaltered.

Having seen the results throughout these last days, we can really claim without any risks of being wrong, that the sessions have accomplished and strengthened at great length the expectations that had been formed since the beginning. Consequently, we are fully satisfied both with the level of the meetings, the round table discussions and debates that took place during the encounter, as well as with the presented speeches, the conclusions of which represent a very important encouragement regarding our continuing in the future. Rosa Marín, the Postgraduate Course Vice-Rector of the University of Valencia, spoke about the consolidation of the sessions and about their innovative quality, precisely in the opening of the same sessions, and she did it on behalf of the Rector, Esteban Morcillo. Marín talked about the importance of the public university in the forming of professionals and citizens and also in the transfer of knowledge towards the productive field. Following this idea, she referred to the Audiovisual Contents and Formats Official Master’s Degree as an example of this forming experience and of the appreciating of talent and creativity in a moment of crisis when the audiovisual and television pattern of the future is establishing itself. And once again, the high point of the CONTD Sessions was the students’ defending their dissertations before representatives of the audiovisual industry, like production companies and television channels. All the projects were greatly appreciated and valued but this time, for the first time, Krypton and Va de retro, two of the presented projects, were selected for Canal 9, with the purpose of creating a pilot show, a previous step towards deciding if would become television shows. A new step in gathering television quality and social and industrial quality, which are the main objectives of this Master’s degree.

The golden age of the Spanish fiction of grand format

It was one of the greatest conclusions of the sessions, especially on the account of the television channels and the most experienced production companies in the creation of fiction for the prime time: in Spain the television fiction is in one of its best moments, if not the best, obtaining a privileged place in the schedules of the main general channels. This was assured by Manuel Palacio, the Audiovisual Communication professor of the University of Valencia, who believes we find ourselves in the golden age of the Spanish television fiction, both for the quantity as well as for the quality of the productions, although this may be a very difficult word to define. The reason this happens is the variety, because at the present, on the Spanish schedules we can find different types of fiction, like comedies, thrillers, dramas… lately, with a special inclination towards series based on history, offering a certain vision of the past, like Cuéntame, Águila Roja, La Señora, Bandolera, or Amar en tiempos revueltos. Palacio stated that something new is about to be produced, another type of series, a more adult one, on the line of North American cable channels, of international prestige and unknown till the moment of the Spanish television productions, like ¿Qué fue de Jorge Sanz? or Crematorio. On the same page were Fernando Lebrada, from Media Research & Consultancy, and the television channel representatives, to whom one’s own production of fiction is an element that structures their schedules and adds a channel image and brand, and, generally, good ratings. Fernando López Puig, Manager of Fiction Programs at RTVE, thinks that the public television should continue going with the series of great format, because they have lately given it an outstanding popularity. On this idea, he encouraged different channels to continue producing this type of formats, seeing as it allows a certain competitiveness among channels for the purpose of maintaining their quality standards. In López Puigs’s view, this can be proved with the fact that the Spanish series have a lack of complexes when it comes to competing on the international markets, both in good and bad moments.

However, he considered that the development of the Spanish fiction is inevitably going through a major internationalization process and a clear and confident choice process on the part of co-production, which generates industry and market. This argument was also offered by Xosé Manuel Barreira, Manager of Telecinco Fiction Field, knowing that the Spanish series have a noticeable specificity, both regarding duration (the episodes are longer than usual) as well as in the main subject (an abuse of local subjects). Anyhow, the television representatives showed a set of numbers that supports the choice for self- made fiction, especially because of the TV movies and mini-series, that were very important these last years, and which are in the process of achieving the dynamics of the Spanish audiovisual industry in a positive way, as was shown by Frances Picó, Head of Fiction at TVV.

On their part, the producers specialized in fiction, supported the pattern of big format fiction, especially because it allows both the channels and the production companies the chance to make the most of them. Just like Vicente Muñoz, President of Clúster Audiovisual Valenciano said, nowadays the idea of business stands in the creation of television fiction. The channels want the results to be as certain as possible, while the audiovisual companies want assignments that would allow them to generate and maintain industry. It was one of the main ideas given by Ximo Pérez, Manager of Productors Audiovisuals Valencians (PAV), and who was also pleased about the level of the Spanish series, especially about the ones on the autonomous channels, and about other genres, like the TV movies and mini-series, that have got great ratings and which should continue being subsidized from the public administrations. Following this idea, like Jesús Rodrigo from Globomedia said, the most profitable thing for channels and production companies, at present, is represented by fiction formats that would allow exploitation strategies by means of all possible ways, not only television, but also the possibility of creating related projects, like videogames. The same thing was pointed out by Antonio Mansilla, from the Asociación Valenciana de Productores Independientes (AVAPI), who encouraged the producers to look for those profits beyond the TV screen.

For the channels, the matter regarding profitability is a key element and they have already started looking for new methods, like the Internet preview of some episodes from the series they own, which has brought them a big success. Barreira claimed that in making fiction, one has to maintain a budgetary balance which has to be shared with the entertainment programs and the sports events. Somehow, he placed creativity at the service of production costs. Everybody stated that without that financial boost, it will be more and more difficult to promote big format fictions like the ones today. Alejandro Flórez, Manager of Acquisitions and Foreign Production Programming of La Sexta, said that, in fact, channels may be even more tempted to buy foreign production, especially North-American, because it is 85% cheaper than their own production. Evidently, using foreign production, allows no control whatsoever regarding production rhythm and there is no success in getting high proximity shares, but foreign fiction, both North-American as well as Latin, allows the audience to identify the channel and maintain very stable programming slots within an acceptable price range.

Without any doubt, if there is one field where the search for profitability becomes compulsory is the cinematography field, just as it was demonstrated by producer Gustavo Ferrada at the opening ceremony. Ferrada explained how the cinematographic business pattern maintained itself stable from its beginning until the present, when the free Internet access and viewing on the Internet is a priority, a circumstance that makes it very difficult for the producer to recover the investment and continue making movies. For Ferrada, the Internet is not a new type of media, because of the fact that it hasn’t succeeded in becoming a new exploitation opportunity, but it did succeed in being the main element of the new digital world, that transformed relative values according to movie consumption and distribution. So, the new objective would be the articulation of the new exploitation patterns that could allow the recovering of investments and not let the user down. Ferrada talked about the publicity raid, viewing taxes, and flat rates offering additional value, etc., methods that could adapt themselves to the new pattern. If things don’rsquo;t go this way, the Internet will continue being an amateur social entertainment or a parasite that takes advantage of other people’s work, Meanwhile, cinematography is in danger of becoming an old dinosaur. However, in spite of the fact that profitability has to be found by all means, one of the producers and representatives of the TV channels, admitted that the Spanish fiction needs risks and ambition. For example, Barreira and López Puig claimed that channels had to be brave and look for new ways for the Spanish series to adapt themselves both to the fragmentation of the offer and audience and to change in fiction consumption. This way, besides producing great series or event-series, the channels (not so much the producers) understood that they had to make projects of less magnitude, less importance, and with a small budget (the word low cost generated a certain debate about the convenience of its use), so they could be able to make the second and third place channels of the DTTV function. And so, a combination between series with risks and other, much stronger, would be possible, without the resistance of the industrial machine.

Evidently, like Muñoz said, the economic crisis represents a very important impediment for the producers and channels when it comes to invest in new ideas and formats. That is why, both ones and the other opted for observing the tendencies, necessities and existing trends, and risk as little as possible. According to some predictions, as Santiago Brey of Bambú Productions said, it seems like the situational comedies, the professional series and the series that emerged on the autonomous channels, can become very popular in the next seasons. On the other hand, as Joan Bas from Diagonal TV said, now more than ever, creativity must be looked for in the scripts, but also in the production that could allow maintain the quality standards at a low price. Reviewing this set of difficulties, Bas and others stressed the necessity of investing in scripts, project and pilot development, and seeing the Internet as a source of great ideas.

Fiction for the new media: advantages and uncertainties

On the other hand, the ones who create fiction on the Internet, give another aspect of the audiovisual field, particularly the fiction one. But like Rafael Navarro, from Beniwood Productions said everything is just starting, but there are new ways that are being searched for, so as to make the most of the projects that are being distributed and consumed through channels that are different from the traditional ones, meaning different from the movie theatre screen and from the TV screen. As Fernando Carrión, from Black Maria pointed out, the way technology is usually used is beginning to change, making way for a new participation method. Now, the spectators want to have a much more active role when dealing with the contents: they want to be able to choose what to see end when to see it, and even to be able to see it as many times as they wish. This will create a transformation process that will also concern the way of producing the contents, the way to distribute them and also the way to count them.

Regarding production, Internet fiction in Spain has begun introducing new strategies which come from the Anglo-Saxon countries, like the one named crowd-funding, a possibility of financing the projects thanks to the citizens’ voluntary donations, who, by doing this, immediately become co-producers. As we were told by Alberto López from Riot Cinema Collective, and Robert Figueras from Filmutea, respectively, this strategy is one of the most used by projects as El Cosmonauta or Panzar Chocolate. In specific terms, López assured that the model called El Cosmonauta, is mainly based on building an interested audience and only then find ways of financing. However, both admitted that the crowd-funding process is simply another method of financing a project and that it was very likely that they needed the income which sales could bring the channels for their TV conventional broadcasting. The people from Beniwood Productions are going through the same thing with some of their web series, like LHC Agujeros Negros or Camera Condón, for which negotiations have been held with other televisions. For now, they are trying to find links between what commercial means and what alternative means using One Mojito, a company that is trying to concentrate all the efforts made and serves as a platform for the distribution of a great number of web series made in Spain using the website remojito.tv. In fact, the celebration of the 2nd Web Series Festival is predicted to happen this year, seeing that its 1st edition resulted in a great number of participants and sponsors.

The changes also concern the distribution, basically seeing as most of these projects can be seen on the Internet, free. Moreover, there is a special detail, seeing as, for example, El Cosmonauta will be premiered at the same time in different ways, like at the movie theatre, on TV, on DVD and on the Internet. An aspect that we have to bear in mind is that many of these projects are made with Creative Common technology, a fact that threatens the intellectual property law. A pattern which has a strong link to the free cultural movement generated on the Internet. On the other hand, as Figueras pointed out, the conventional distribution blows up when many of these projects are viewed as trans-media, as with the case of Panzer Chocolate. This means that there’s not only one unique movie, but an entire series of parallel contents which complement the main story and which are produced for other devices or media, like the mobile phone, the comic, the exaggerated reality, Internet exclusive videos, videogames, etc.

 The inrush of trans-media narration into fiction has been one of the key arguments of the sessions, and it was the main subject at the conference of Rosa Álvarez-Berciano, a professor at the Pompeu Fabra University. In the expert’s point of view, we constantly see ourselves with fictions the argumentative plots of which are developing themselves with the help of different supports and devices. Álvarez-Berciano was especially critic with the choice of too much uniform fiction coming from the part of the general Spanish channels, which in her point of view, begin ignoring the young and adult public, failing to have a connection with it, and which turn towards the Internet in order to satisfy its necessities regarding other types of fiction. Following this idea, she encouraged the channels to adapt themselves to the new interactive digital world of the complex narrative strategies, which are permanently separated of linear time, parody, self-referentiality, the speculation field that allows the viewer to play with the synthesis of image and fiction.

The Internet, according to Álvarez-Berciano, is full of cross-media formats. Some of them were part of the screening about new fiction formats, a subject dealt with by Ingrid Guardiola, also from the Pompeu Fabra University. Some formats in which one could see the combination of genres, of low income formats, and of trans-media narratives, like Els convidats or The truth about Marika. But televisions and the big production companies don’t want to be left behind. Javier Naharro from Play TV which is part of Globomedia, explained to us the way they are implementing a whole set of trans-media contents to go with its great format series and complete the main fiction and also this way increase the experience of the viewers. One of the examples would be the trans-media plot of the series El barco, which can be viewed on the social website, named Twitter, an hour before its TV broadcast.

New television formats and book presentations

But one of the most important moments of the 4th CONTD Sessions, and a constant one, was, without a doubt, when the students of The Official Master’s Degree in Audiovisual Contents and Formats, presented their projects in a pitching session before a group of television producers and representatives. This time, the selected projects were: El Mercado, a cultural tendencies magazine made for young people from the markets; Ícaros, a documentary-soap about the meaning of fame and success and about the reasons people have to pursue this public recognition; Cuaderno de Bitácora, a reality-game show about trips around twelve cities of the Mediterranean on board of two catamarans; Krypton, a documentary-soap about people that become daily heroes; La última noche, a musical show about rock music and creative culture, and with bands playing live; Telele, a kids’ show where the well-known contents are explained with the help of the new multimedia devices; Va de retro, a documentary show about the way technology remains out of phase in contemporary society; and Espiral de silencio, a fiction series focused on the investigation of the murder of four teenagers in a small town.

The projects were extremely valued by the members of the board which had Teresa Díez, from TVV, Miquel García, from TV3, Alberto González, from Prisa Digital, Manuel Serrano, from New Atlantis, Samuel Martín, from TVE and Kiko Martínez from EAVF (Empreses Audiovisuals Valencianes Federades). But as we announced at the beginning, this was the edition in which Canal 9 decided to produce the pilot of the Krypton and Va de retro projects, this being the first time a television channel or production company has ever assumed the public engagement of analyzing the possibilities of some formats generated by a master’s degree, transforming them in a broadcasting program.

On the other hand, and also completing the fiction dedicated program, it was the end of the communication presentations on the part of scholars and experts, about subjects regarding the main theme of this edition. Another presentation was the one of the publications resulting from the speeches and presentations made at the 3rd CONTD Sessions: Contenidos y formatos de calidad en la nueva television, published by IORTV and La calidad de los contenidos audiovisuales en la multidifusión digital, published by UOC, which are receiving a great feedback from researchers and students. The presentations were made by Yolanda Marugán, from the RTVE Institute, Josep Gavaldá and José María Vidal, professors at the University of Valencia, Alejandro Perales from the Unión de Consumidores Audiovisuales and José Ignacio Pastor, from ACICOM (Associació Ciutadania i Comunicació).

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And this was all. Since the end of the 4th CONTD Sessions, we are more than satisfied with their result and we are already working on the next year sessions, which will be about the documentary. Join us again next time.