Crossing the Atlantic: Globo’s Wager in Portugal Helena Sousa Universidade do Minho Table of contents Brazilian biggest television network, TV Globo, is one of the most interesting cases 1 Supremacy at home 1 of so-called reverse cultural imperialism. As 2 Going beyond Brazil 2 Sinclair et al. point out ‘the irony is that La- 3 Gabriela: the onset of ‘reverse’ depen- tin America, which was practically the cra- dency 4 dle of the theorisation of cultural imperia- 4 A new strategy for a new system 6 lism, is now the region with most spectacular 5 Conclusions 9 examples undermining that theory’ (1996:7). 6 Bibliography 9 Indeed, Globo - run by the Marinho family - is today one of the most powerful multi- media groups. Though Roberto Marinho (in This paper is the starting point of a two- his 90s) built up a conglomerate of nearly year research project about the impact of 100 companies, in the communications arena Globo Network in Portugal. The research the main enterprises are: Globo’s own ten project will mainly expand on the issues co- television stations and 68 affiliated stations; vered in this paper. The aims of this pa- Globo’s Radio network has 11 own stations per are two-fold: firstly, to analyse the rele- and 15 affiliated; O Globo newspaper (the vance of the Portuguese television market to second largest paper in the country); Globo Globo; secondly, to examine the importance News Agency; Globo Publishing; Sigla au- of Globo’s telenovelas in Portugal since the dio producer; Globo video and Globo films 1970’s as well as the consequences of the re- (Lima, 1990:36). cent transfer of Globo’s capital and know- According to João Roberto Marinho, how to a newly created commercial televi- Vice-president of Globo enterprises and the sion channel in Portugal, Sociedade Inde- son of Roberto Marinho, ‘the Globo network pendente de Comunicação (SIC). reaches today a potential market of 33 mil- lion households with TV, and the network re- 1 Supremacy at home aches 97% of the Brazilian territory’ (inter- viewed by Mayblin, 1996:8). The TBI Ye- ‘If we are speaking of television in Brazil, arbook 96 claims that TV Globo currently that necessarily means we are speaking of attracts 65% of the country’s viewing audi- Globo’ (Lima, 1990:35). ence. This figure is nevertheless disputed by 2 Helena Sousa João Roberto Marinho who states that the fi- not constructed on the margins of state, but gure is 70% (Ibid.). The remainder 30% is in its shadow, with the support and pro- divided between five national, privately run tection of the successive military regimes. services - São Paulo based SBT, TV Man- Its consolidation, however, took place un- chete in Rio de Janeiro and the former regi- der the patronage of the New Republic and onal stations TV Record, Bandeirantes, and the Collor government was key. After se- CNT - and one publicly owned broadcaster. curing the private system with public invest- Literature about Globo often portraits it as ment and a technological infrastructure ow- being the world’s fourth largest network in ned by the state, the military governments terms of audience size. The ‘fourth largest singled out one of the private systems, the in the world’ which is still taken for gran- Globo network, as their favoured. The mili- ted was established when TV Globo won an tary’s choice was confirmed by the next ci- international award in the US in 1985. At vilian government, even though this meant that time research showed that Globo was the that the government would refrain from en- fourth biggest network in the world after the forcing even the minimal existing regulatory American NBC, ABC and CBS. Since then legislation (1994:32). no research had been conducted to find out The relationship between the media busi- if that is still the case. But, in terms of audi- ness and national politics in Brazil could har- ence size, things might have changed. ‘Both dly be more intimate. Indeed, Roberto Ma- India’s and China’s state TV network mono- rinho makes no excuse for supporting those polies, for instance, now command audien- in power given that without their permis- ces several times larger than Brazil’s Globo sion, Globo could not operate in its present network, not only because they are monopo- form. ‘As long as the political power re- lies but also because of the sheer size of their mains strong, we will show solidarity with respective population (Mayblin, 1996:9). it; if things change towards public opinion, Being or not the ‘fourth largest in the we will change as well’ (Marinho quoted in world’, Globo gets most of Brazil’s US$3.9 Diário de Lisboa, 30 July 1984). billion expenditure a year in advertising (Ku- cinski, 1994:52). The Globo network ab- 2 Going beyond Brazil sorbs about 80% of advertising for television and 60% of the total amount of money spent Having a strong position in the domestic on advertising in the seventh largest adverti- market, Globo started considering the export sing market in the world (Amaral and Gui- of its cultural products, mainly telenovelas. marães, 1994:29). In the 1992 financial sta- In the 1970s, Globo’s executives perceived tement, the Roberto Marinho group declared the export of its products as a ‘prestige fac- just over US$2 billion net revenue (Kucinski, tor’ rather than as a revenue source. Given 1994:52). that telenovelas were made for the domes- Globo’s financial success is far from being tic market, its export implied practically no the mere result of an entrepreneurial stra- additional costs. Any extra-funds it could tegy. In fact, as Guimarães and Amaral generate would be well received but, in the point out, the broadcasting monopoly was early stages of internationalisation, profits www.bocc.ubi.pt Crossing the Atlantic 3 from the external market were expected to the best price’ (quoted in Grael and Rocha, be kept low. 1988:143). At that time, two external markets stood The telenovela’s popularity in the Portu- up as the ‘natural’ markets for Globo’s te- guese market made Globo’s executives con- lenovelas: the Latin American market con- sider further expansion into the European sidering that most Latin American countries market in the early 1980s. Globo started pro- were at the time strong producers and consu- moting its products in specialised internatio- mers of the telenovela genre, and the Portu- nal magazines. Presenting itself as ‘Globo guese market due to its cultural and linguistic TV Network of Brazil’, the corporation was proximity. prepared to sell not only telenovelas but also The export to Latin American countries mini-series, talk shows and sports program- would be more demanding as it would in- mes. Globo became a constant presence in volve promotion, distribution and the dub- international television festivals and markets bing to Spanish. Apart from that, in La- (e.g.. Monte Carlo festival, London Multi- tin America, Globo already had a strong media market, NAPTE, organized by the Na- competitor in terms of production and dis- tional Associated TV Program Executives, in tribution of telenovelas: the Mexican televi- the US, etc.). Furthermore, Globo became sion network, Televisa. In contrast, Globo highly competitive in terms of international would not have any competitor in Portugal televisions awards. These awards were im- and there would be no need to make any lin- portant to promote the product (Grael and guistic adaptation. Therefore, Portugal be- Rocha, 1988:143-4). came the first external market for Globo’s te- Orders from Latin American countries lenovelas. In 1976, Globo sold Gabriela to were dealt with by the International Division the Portuguese Public Broadcasting Service in Rio de Janeiro. The New York office dis- (PBS) company, Rádiotelevisão Portuguesa tributed Globo’s products in the US and Ca- (RTP). Its success was remarkable. nada while the Roma office received orders One year later, Globo set up an internatio- from Europe, with the exception of Portu- nal division to support the export of telenove- gal. RTP negotiated directly at board level las to Latin America. As expected, Globo’s in Globo’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro penetration in the Latin American market (Grael and Rocha, 1988:144). By the mid- was not easy particularly due to Televisa’s 1980’s Globo not only retained its leading competition. But their strategy was very ag- position in the Brazilian television market gressive as an executive from the internatio- but it was exporting its cultural products to nal division explained. ‘To enter and win this 128 countries (Melo, 1988:39). Globo’s te- market we had to face Televisa which pro- lenovelas, in particular, are galvanising audi- duces 26 hours of Spanish programmes per ences in Latin America, Europe, Africa and day(...). Still we have been able to sell our Asia. products, adding dubbing costs, 50% chea- If the export of programmes was relati- per than Televisa’s. How? Using what I vely risk-free, the same cannot be said about called ‘drugs strategy’: first you practically direct investment in a foreign company. In give, wait for success and later you sell for 1985, Globo exported, for the first time, ca- www.bocc.ubi.pt 4 Helena Sousa pital to Europe, buying 90% of Telemonte- people’, says Geraldo Casé, artistic direc- carlo. The headquarters of the company was tor of Globo’s International Division (quo- in Monte Carlo and its potential audience ted in O Jornal, Suplemento, 20 May 1988). was in Italy and part of France. The initial In both Lusophone countries, telenovelas are investment was of US$9 million but additio- the most widely watched television program- nal capital was needed, among other things, mes.1 to improve the reception of the television sig- In the beginning however telenovelas were nal in Italy.