A decade ago, national free-TV channels in countries couldn\\'t get enough of Latin American telenovelas, sometimes airing three titles a day and turning soap opera stars from the other side of the world into household names. In Indonesia, for instance, SCTV aired <i>Barbarita</i> (Venevision\\'s <i>La Mujer de mi Vida</i>) just after breakfast, <i>Amigos X Siempre</i> (Televisa) at lunchtime and <i>Carmenita</i> (Televisa\\'s <i>Abrazame Muy Fuerte</i>) in a prime-time afternoon slot. And that\\'s just one station. If broadcasters and distributors have since shifted and adjusted with changing audience demands, greater localisation, and roller-coaster economic environments, Asia\\'s growing pay-TV environment is now giving rise to something of a new optimism.Earlier this year, Comarex/Azteca found its Asian pay-TV sweet spot, signing a major output deal with Malaysia\\'s dominant direct-broadcast platform Astro. The deal puts Comarex\\'s titles on the platform\\'s new telenovela channel, Astro Bella.\\"Our focus for 2013 is to see the expansion of our telenovela channels and the distribution of new media throughout Asia,\\" says Martha Contreras, Comarex/Azteca\\'s Asia sales head. Sentiments on the rising profile of telenovelas as a result of pay-TV demand are echoed by Mario Castro, Televisa Internacional\\'s director of sales for Asia and Africa. At the same time as free-TV channels continue to produce locally, \\"in general there is a shift in demand, which is coming from pay-TV and new media platforms,\\" he says. Best-sellers in 2012 have been traditional love stories and \\"intense/passion stories\\" for female audiences. Telenovela\\'s rising fortunes in the pay-TV field follow a few tough years - and they may not be entirely over. \\"With local productions in much more demand and broadcasters seriously decreasing slots on free-TV, it has been a challenge to introduce and offer our formats and our best-selling telenovelas in Asia,\\" Contreras says. Other telenovela-based pay-TV channels in the region include Vision 2 Drama in Indonesia and Telenovela Channel in the Philippines. Schedules typically strip telenovelas on weekdays, with omnibus episodes at weekends. It\\'s not just Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines - long accustomed to the genre - giving ready-to-air telenovelas traction. Territories like Japan and Singapore are also beginning to express interest.To tap this demand, Venevision International customised one of its popular telenovelas specifically for the Asian market. The effort focused not only on the traditional language customisation, but also the number of episodes, says Miguel Somoza, Venevision International\\'s director of sales.Somoza says the special 26-episode edition of <i>Eva Luna</i>, tailored for the Asian region, has been sold in Japan and China, and negotiations for several other territories are about to be finalised. <i>Eva Luna</i>, a 26-episode story of a young woman who comes to America in search of a better life, is similar to its South Korean counterparts in length and pace. Local audiences can, therefore, relate more easily. The telenovela will not be the last in Venevision\\'s catalogue to get the trimmed treatment. \\"Given the performance of the sales we have conducted in Asia this year alone, I think it is clear that we will continue to exploit the potential in the region of special edited versions of our most successful novelas within our catalogue,\\" Somoza says.Raphael Correa Neto, Globo TV\\'s head of international sales, says that the segmentation of new technologies, platforms and channels is providing new opportunities for growth. \\"The success of pay-TV in many markets opens new possibilities for us. This is the best moment for telenovelas,\\" he says, adding that while local production in Asia is still very strong, \\"the market is always looking for something new\\". Globo TV sold <i>India A Love Story</i> to, among others, Singapore\\'s monopoly broadcaster MediaCorp last year. The series was the first Latin American telenovela MediaCorp acquired in years. One of Globo\\'s latest titles is <i>Looks & Essence</i>, a telenovela that explores modern-day values in the story of tough, hard-working handywoman Griselda. The Brazilian company has managed to increase penetration in markets such as Taiwan, Mongolia, Singapore and Indonesia, and will be focusing on South Korea, Japan, India and China in 2013.Distributors targeting China have a new challenge to overcome - the country\\'s new regulations have now included censoring online content. In such cases, Caracol Television International\\'s sales exec, Roberto Corrente, says format adaptations are the way to go. \\"Telenovelas are playing a key role in our strategy for Asia. Adapting them to the taste of our Asian viewers, we will ensure and expand the growth we have been experiencing in the past three years,\\" he says.Caracol is carefully examining its catalogue to find the next big hit that will, at the same time, satisfy the country\\'s regulations. \\"We have been preparing ourselves to cope with the particularities of such a huge content market like this one, selecting from our intense catalogue for the best productions and adapting them so they could perfectly fit China\\'s regulations,\\" Corrente says.Comarex/Azteca\\'s Contreras, on the other hand, has found the opposite happening in other territories in Asia. \\"China\\'s regulations have certainly made things more challenging in part by restricting opportunities to expand the market. However, we have found a more relaxing censorship and flexibility in other Southeast Asian territories, which allows our content to be on air,\\" she says.Still, the biggest challenge for a Latin renaissance to truly occur - whether in the form of formats or ready-to-air - is to create content that appeals to an increasingly fickle audience.Telemundo Internacional\\'s senior vice president, sales and business development for Asia, Xavier Aristimuno, says \\"one of the challenges we\\'ve seen is the diversification of audiences\\". As audiences become \\"more localised and technological, their needs are now more specific. In this fast-paced market the challenge is to capture these diversified audiences with one production.\\"To do so, Aristimuno sets his priorities in format adaptations. \\"Our marketing and sales priority in the region is to offer packaged formats to guide the successful local production of acquired titles,\\" he says.\\"I keep believing in the promise of great adaptations and now it has become a reality in the region. A demonstration of this is the many new successful titles distributed by Telemundo Internacional that have garnered great results as formats in the region,\\" Aristimuno adds. Many of the Miami-based company\\'s bestsellers are format adaptations themselves, such as <i>Una Maid en Manhattan</i>, based on the Hollywood movie starring Jennifer Lopez, novel-turned-novela <i>La Reina del Sur</i> and the U.S. Hispanic remake of <i>El Clon</i>.Looking ahead, distributors are anticipating a growing interest in Latin American culture and people among buyers in Asia.The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the Hispanic population will triple by 2050, essentially making the demographic a majority in the country. Thus, it has become increasingly common for Spanish-language telenovelas to score higher ratings than English-language prime-time counterparts.This has also led to the genre\\'s increasing presence in the U.S.\\'s mainstream media, be it as pop culture references and spoofs in E!\\'s <i>The Soup</i> and NBC\\'s <i>Saturday Night Live</i> or as reality TV participants such as telenovela heartthrob William Levy on BBC Worldwide\\'s <i>Dancing with the Stars</i>.Meanwhile in Brazil, Globo\\'s Neto is already seeing more interest coming from buyers, all thanks to major sporting events taking place in Rio de Janeiro in the coming years.\\"We believe that interest in Brazil will grow with the 2014 World Cup and the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. In fact, we are already seeing this trend. Viewers from the whole world, including Asia, want to find out more about us and this makes the schedulers look for Brazilian content. There is a growing interest in our music, culture and artists, he says, adding: \\"This will certainly have repercussions on our relationship with buyers in Asia\\". <i>ContentAsia</i> Issue Three 2012