People walk out of the Palais des Festivals during the annual international audiovisual entertainment trade show
© AFP/File Valery HacheCANNES, France (AFP) - It's also making big bucks for some of the world's leading program makers, contradicting playwright William Shakespeare's famous observation that "the course of true love never did run smooth."
The staple of TV in Spanish-speaking countries for many years, love story telenovelas -- or soap operas -- were the surprise hits this year in Germany, one of the world's largest TV markets.
"Verliebt in Berlin," the German version of Colombian smash hit "Betty La Fea" (Ugly Betty) was watched by more than 3.8 million viewers when it aired on Sat 1 channel earlier this year.
"Betty" is the story of a career woman who, although not conventionally beautiful, succeeds in getting her boss to fall for her, whilst fighting for her rights and for love along the way.
As a result, telenovelas were high on international program buyers' wish lists and sales were brisk at the influential MIPCOM TV trade show in Cannes this week.
"We're seeing lots of Latin American and Asian buyers at the stand but that's normal," Jose Escalante, senior executive at the international arm of Venezuela's RCTV, told MIPCOM Daily News.
"What has been different this week is the large numbers of German, French, Dutch and Scandinavian companies buying both completed novelas and formats."
This means that romantic dramas where love conquers all -- after some 200 episodes -- will be coming to TV screens across Europe, from Spain to Russia and France to Romania.
A large part of this success is due to the telenovelas' new look.
Love and aspiration are still the key ingredients but the new dramas now also reflect harder aspects of modern day life, such as divorce and drug addiction.
Another reason is that some of most innovative and powerful players in the TV content business are starting to produce and distribute telenovelas. These include British-based FreemantleMedia, as well as America's NBC Universal and Sony Pictures Television International.
Added to that is the view that "people are ready for romance" in Europe, Nick Manholt, FreemantleMedia's senior development executive, told AFP.
"The telenovela continues to grow in popularity, bringing new business to broadcasters and local producers, from Germany to Korea and from Israel to the UK," said Paul Johnson, head of TV at Reed MIDEM, which organizes MIPCOM.
But it has taken some time for the Latin American telenovela to arrive in Europe.
It took almost 10 years for German broadcaster Sat 1 to be persuaded to air a telenovela-style romantic drama, Wolf Bauer of FreemantleMedia's German subsidiary Grundy UFA, told AFP.
A person visits the annual international audiovisual entertainment trade show
© AFP/File Valery HacheBut when the show finally went on air, it was a smash hit that turned round ratings and fuelled demand for more love stories both in Germany and outside.
FreemantleMedia has repeated its first German success with "Bianca -- Road to Happiness," a modern fairy tale about a woman who begins a new life after being wrongly convicted for a crime she did not commit.
Broadcast on Germany's public television station ZDF, the show was extended due to popular demand.
Mixing romance with reality is proving a powerful TV recipe that has widened audience appeal to pull in 14- to 29-year-olds in big numbers without losing the core audience of older women.
But men are also starting to be targeted.
"Finding Rodrigo," a new telenovela coproduction between FreemantleMedia and Colombia's Teleset, stars a man who pretends to be gay in order to get on to a reality show. The problems really start when he is forced to "out" himself on-air and falls in love with show's beautiful female presenter.
Telenovelas are also starting to turn full circle, with FreemantleMedia starting to win commissions for some its newest telenovelas from Latin American broadcasters.
Colombia's RCN Television, for example, signed a deal at MIPCOM to broadcast FreemantleMedia's "Forbidden Games," and "Blue Sky" was licensed to Colombia's Caracol television.
These deals indicate the new telenovelas are likely to be around for a while.
"As they have an end, telenovelas will have more variety than (conventional) soaps," FreemantleMedia's Manholt pointed out.
It also looks likely that "the end" will continue to be a happy one for viewers, broadcasters and the programme makers. As the old saying goes: "Love conquers all!"
©AFP