Introduction

The ongoing processes of digitization, convergence and globalization experienced by the cultural industries in recent decades have had a structural impact on production, distribution and exhibition, also configuring fragmented and deterritorialized audiences from the point of view of consumption. These changes permeate both, the productive processes and the organization of work as well as the ways of consuming, visualizing and accessing fiction audiovisual contents.

Despite the entry of large global platforms as producers and distributors of national serialized fiction as of 2018, most of the productions circulating for consumption in the Expanded Audiovisual Space (^{Marino, 2016}) were originated individually or promoted by different alliances between traditional actors of the audiovisual industry: open television channels, pay television providers, pay television signals and audiovisual production companies.

From a theoretical perspective that articulates issues from the subfield of the political economy of communication with contributions from cultural studies, the aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between the origin and ownership structure of the different agents producing serialized fiction for open television in Buenos Aires and the predominant themes in the productions concerning the presence of “the local” or the approach to global/universal issues in the narratives. It is assumed that in order to place their serialized fictions in the international market, peripheral countries such as Argentina appeal to narratives strongly anchored in the local, which gives them a differential value in a market still dominated by the American cultural industry.

At a methodological level, a data matrix was designed with all serial fictions broadcast by open television in Buenos Aires³ in the decade between 2011 and 2020. Only national productions premiering in each year were considered and those whose broadcasting lasted more than one year in the programming grid were also counted, giving a total of 220 fictions. From that universe, a sample of the ten most watched fictions each year (100 in total) was selected to identify their predominant themes.

To obtain it, the average rating of each program was taken into account. At this point, it should be noted that, although multiplatform and unscheduled audiovisual consumption is an increasingly widespread practice, rating continues to be a relevant data in relation to the measurement of linear television audiences; an indicator also considered by producers and the advertising industry in their decision making. It is also one of the few tools that allows a comparative and diachronic reading of the evolution of the consumption of audiovisual products, given the infrequency and opacity of the indicators disseminated by some actors such as platforms and specialized consulting firms.

In sum, the article presents, from a dialogic perspective, the characteristics of the productive structure of serialized fiction for open television and its interrelations with the themes and plots that fictional products address. The option for a diachronic type of analysis covering the decade between 2011 and 2020 provides elements to also understand the evolution and dynamics between these two aspects over time.

Television serial fiction: industry and cultural artifact

The open television system in Buenos Aires is made up of six stations, four of them have licenses in the City of Buenos Aires and one in La Plata (Province of Buenos Aires), being TV Pública the only channel with national coverage license. Although the Buenos Aires commercial broadcasters Telefe, El Trece, Canal 9 and Net TV have local licenses in the City of Buenos Aires, and in the case of América TV in the city of La Plata, a factual distribution architecture has been created whereby its contents reach the whole country in different ways: through affiliates, repeaters or direct sale of contents to local channels. Only the state broadcaster alone covers most of the national territory with its signal (99.5%). The channel Net TV (Grupo Perfil) started its transmissions in October 2018, and like the other open television channels, can be watched through air, Digital Terrestrial Television or in subscription television systems.

For decades, Argentina has exhibited a media system characterized by a high concentration, both, in its ownership and in the geographic centers of content production as well as consumption (^{Becerra & Mastrini, 2017}). This situation determines that the audiovisual context of the country in terms of content production, especially fiction, is largely defined by the characterization of these actors. The efforts to deconcentrate production carried out by the National State, particularly between 2010 and 2015, with the promotion of fiction production in the provinces, did not manage to alter this centralization scenario (^{Rivero, 2018}).

As for fiction contents, El Trece and Telefe, the market leaders since the early 1990s, have concentrated the most consumed fictional production during the period under study. In the case of El Trece, national fiction has been provided by its production company Pol-Ka, while Telefe works with a couple of independent production companies, particularly Underground (Telemundo), which produces for its prime-time. Since 2014, both channels have programmed an increasing amount of foreign fictions, particularly of Turkish and Brazilian origin, with which they reached high audience levels in prime-time and at low costs, to the detriment of a decreasing national production of premiere serialized fiction (^{Kirchheimer & Rivero, 2021}; ^{Rivero, 2020}).

The case of television serialized fiction is a subject that has been widely approached from different points of view within the television industry, and one of the pioneers was ^{Martín-Barbero (1987)}, who early understood the double role of these contents, as a specific product of the television industry and of popular success. Thus, he described the articulation between the commercial logics of their production and the cultural logics of their consumption, basing his proposal on the triadic relationship between the television industry (the structure and dynamics of production), the cultural groups (social uses and ways of watching) and the products (textual composition of the telenovela).

A considerable number of studies were carried out in Argentina by ^{Mazziotti (1994}, ¹⁹⁹⁶, ²⁰⁰², ²⁰⁰⁶⁾, who analyzed telenovelas from the production sphere (production, sale and circulation of these products) and identified the existence of studies linked to textuality, program contents and audiences.

Another perspective was proposed by ^{Steimberg (1997)} who identified the stylistic ruptures of Argentine telenovelas. According to the author, during the first two decades of Argentine television, melodrama was the topic par excellence of fictions. The second phase (1975-1990) was characterized by social verisimilitude, including conflicts and social changes of the time. Telenovelas became self-referential by exceeding the scope of fiction and appearing as a social fact, susceptible of being commented. Finally, in the 1990s there was evidence of an interweaving of genres and the multiplication of narratives with stories that followed each other in parallel.

^{Carboni (2015)} carried out a period-based reconstruction of the development of fiction in Argentina and proposed four stages. The first one was linked to an experimental and artisanal phase of production. Between 1950 and the mid-1960s, there was a shift from an artisanal and intuitive way of making television to commercial and competitive models that included financing through advertising and audience measurement. Then, fiction productions became more sophisticated with respect to aesthetics and art, the average length of the chapters was half an hour, a situation that began to be reversed with the appearance of the videotape in 1964, which made it possible to record programs. Along with editing, the international commercialization of audiovisual products, particularly telenovelas, was enabled.

The second phase considered fictions as an industrial product (1970-1988). Telenovelas gained strength throughout Latin America as exportable products. Although Argentina remained on the margins due to the production restrictions imposed by the dictatorship (1976-1983), the return of democracy began to timidly reactivate the sector. By then, the process of professionalization and industrialization was underway. The third moment of incipient transnationalization lasted from 1989-2001, that is, from the privatization of the main open television channels to the outbreak of the economic, political, social and institutional crisis in the country, which also had its repercussions on the audiovisual sector. Until the mid-1990s, there was a boom in co-productions. Then, the space for local fictions declined, partly because programmers were not willing to sustain on the air products that did not quickly reach the expected success. In the case of telenovelas, the themes changed and comedy went hand in hand with romantic plots. Likewise, audiovisual television production companies were created to generate products for the local and/or international market and outsourcing began to enter the production sphere.

The fourth phase was called transnationalization and glocalization of fictions between 2002-2012. After the 2001 crisis, the television industry had to reinvent itself along with the fictional proposals. Local audiovisual production companies aimed at two strategies: on the one hand, to incorporate broad themes and choral casts, breaking away from genre productions, and on the other hand, to establish strategic alliances with international production companies with the double objective of raising capital and locating contents in different countries.

The central aspects of the transnationalization and glocalization phase described above persist at present and become more complex with the phenomenon of platforming and worldwide distribution of fictional contents by large technological companies, which are increasingly entering the audiovisual content production business. However, as we have already pointed out, the most consumed fictions on open television, the target of analysis in this paper, are the result of the agency of traditional players in the audiovisual industry, so the production of fictional contents for platforms falls outside the interests of this article.

On market structure and serialized fiction broadcasting

In the years under analysis, the audiovisual television market underwent transformations, including the emergence of global players that produce and broadcast content on digital audiovisual platforms (Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, among others) and improvements in the quality of connectivity. In a complementary way, features of other stages such as external restructuring processes (^{De la Garza, 2012}) that can be explained by multiple variables were deepened: the relocation of audiovisual content with a view to reducing production costs and production outsourcing strategies to transfer or minimize the risks involved in the production process.

The execution of the analysis was crossed by methodological decisions. In this sense, in order to count and present the data obtained, the types of production were grouped according to six categories:

Based on the above, the original broadcasting of 220 serialized fictions was counted throughout the decade analyzed. According to the proposed categorization, we observed that almost 37% was produced by the two local audiovisual majors; a figure close to 36% was in the hands of public entities or agencies in association with audiovisual production companies with a track record and/or with audiovisual production companies with little or no track record. The third place, with a little more than 15%, was occupied by national audiovisual production companies with a track record and/or with little or no track record. Almost 40% of the total number of fictions produced during the whole decade in the hands of only two companies from Buenos Aires is indicative, as we have already pointed out, of the high levels of concentration and geographical centralization of the activity.

If we break down these global data, in the case of Telefe Contenidos we find that of the 35 original productions produced and broadcasted, 80% were in partnership. What is striking is that until 2016 these partnerships were executed with other national companies, but after the acquisition by Viacom CBS, the relationships were established, mostly, with international companies.

Regarding Pol-Ka, it stands out for being the company that produced the largest amount of fiction content in relative terms, holding 21% (47 productions) of the 220 fictions; the relevant figure is that most of those productions were made individually and it only made coproductions with foreign companies (Disney LA, Turner).

On the other hand, public entities or agencies appear as the main financiers of serialized fiction audiovisual productions, mainly generating conditions for the participation of production companies with little or no background in the audiovisual market. In this sense, it is noteworthy that from 2011 to 2015, the largest number of productions was conceived through a series of contests promoted through the INCAA. In those years, 63 audiovisual pieces were broadcast as a result of these contests (19 carried out by production companies with a track record and 44 made by production companies with little or no track record); this implies more than 28% over the total number of fictions accounted for the period 2011-2020.

Likewise, in the 2016-2020 stage, there were fewer fictions co-financed by public entities or organizations, and none linked to State-driven contests. This is explained by the shift in communication policies since the change in the leadership of the national government in December 2015, which implied a drastic reduction of State participation in the financing of serial fiction projects⁶ (^{Carboni & Rivero, 2021}; ^{Nicolosi, 2021}).

In the next section, we will analyze the main fictions broadcast in the last ten years and we will consider their themes in relation to their key national and/or universal aspects as a condition for expansion outside the domestic market and interaction with international production companies.

Serial fiction, between stories and production companies

Considering the topics addressed by the 100 most watched national premiere fictions in the decade analyzed (top 10 of each year), we find that only 14 productions deal with issues strongly anchored in “national issues”. Among the remaining 86 fictions, there are diverse situations. The common denominator in this second group is the presence of universal themes, a wide predominance of the police genre, especially in series coproduced with international agents, and stories of classic melodramatic format with an emphasized stereotyping. This does not mean the absolute absence of local references, but these generally appear as coded winks that bring into play what is local without resigning the effort of internationalization. That is to say, the elements that most clearly appeal to an “Argentine us” are not structuring elements in the stories and are surrounded by elements that are sufficiently universal to allow their consumption in international markets. Humor includes elements and references that are difficult to understand beyond national borders, which is why it is common for sitcoms to be adapted and versioned in importing markets.

Conclusions

The purpose of this article was to systematize the broadcasting of serialized fiction productions on open television in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the period 2011-2020, in order to evaluate both the conditions of existence of the national market and to establish a dialogue between the productive structure and the recurring themes and narratives in the fiction programs with the highest audience during that period. Likewise, we sought to trace the relations between local audiovisual production companies and large international production companies.

Among the main results, it stands out that of the 220 fictions registered between 2011-2020, more than 60% were made by television audiovisual production companies either individually (34.5%), in co-production between national companies (11.3%) or with international production companies (16.8%), while the remaining percentage were contents made by different organizations or public entities in co-production with audiovisual production companies of different sizes.

As we have explained, for the analysis we have focused on the ten most watched fictions of each year studied. This implies some reflections: in the first place, most of those contents were broadcast on Telefe and El Trece channels, which have the highest audience, leaving out TV Pública, and with it, most of the fiction proposals broadcast by the public channel, which were those financed with public funds. It is possible that other issues have emerged from its evaluation.

Our analysis shows that the Argentine fictions most commercialized abroad, either by their reproduction in original version or by their adaptation, show that the presence of “local” (Argentine) elements in the original version does not represent a decisive aspect. Complementarily, of the 100 most watched fictions, 86 focused on universal themes common in television serialized fiction and were produced by national companies. This allows us to assert the non-existence of a linear relationship between the presence of foreign capital in production and the greater globalization of the topics addressed in fictions or the loss of local elements. On the contrary, it is possible to find examples in which fictions made in co-production with foreign companies (generally pay TV signals) chose the local as a preferential theme. But identical alliances also give rise to products without a defined geographical reference.

Based on the above, the ownership structure of the agents involved in the production of fictions seems to be a variable that by itself does not directly affect the depth and type of “local” presence in the plots. Fictions are not more “local” for having been produced by national companies, nor do they cease to be so for having foreign capital participation, at least as far as their subject matter is concerned.

Finally, in the series resulting from the partnership between the main production companies and their foreign capital counterparts, there is both the presence of local elements that refer to the Argentine social and political reality (El Tigre Verón, El Lobista) and other productions where the national reference is diluted. In any case, the common denominator among these fictions is their belonging to the police genre, which allows for more elaborated plots both in the development of their characters and in the temporal resources. This allows not only a greater appeal to heterogeneous audiences in different markets, but also the possibility of expanding the narrative universe of the series in new seasons by retaking and expanding some of the many edges of the detective story. In other cases (Un Gallo para Esculapio, Historia de un clan or El Marginal), it is observed that the presence of local elements acts as a catalyst that makes the product more attractive for international distribution, but from a narrative that reinforces a specific imagery about Latin America that portrays it as a territory of corruption, organized crime, mafias, exclusion and insecurity.

As we have noted, in several of the productions examined there is a tendency for products originally broadcast on open television to be absorbed by digital audiovisual platforms. In turn, the latter promote new seasons or remakes of Latin American classics that were once successful on the television screen. We wonder, then, who are the heirs of the vanguard of serialized fiction in Argentina and Latin America, the guardians of the stories and the symbolic capital.