In an affirmation that telenovelas are truly crossing into the mainstream (as evidenced by the recent success of ABC’s “Ugly Betty”, an adapation of the famed Colombian novela “Betty la fea”), the UK’s most important network, the BBC, is going to do some skanky soaps of their own, in an effort to bump up ratings:

…BBC is investing millions in its own telenovela, working on several ideas with famous screenwriters and has put British playwright Jonathan Harvey in charge of developing the project with the Talkback Thames independent production company.

The director of the BBC’s fiction division, Jane Tranter, says that the series will follow the structure of a telenovela.

“We will know how many epidodes it will have from the beginning; a beginning, a twist and plot points, but we will tape each episode a couple of days before broadcasting it.”

According to EFE, the advantage of the Latin American telenovela structure is that is has a definite end date, which helps boost ratings, instead of going on forever until viewers eventually disappear.

If they really want to make a good telenovela, they need to scrap the renowned playwright, take a plane to Mexico and meet with Televisa writers. They know how to write a good novela. They created the formula that doesn’t fail. Why reinvent the wheel?

Via / Terra EFE