From the Plan Operativo de Fomento (Operational Development Plan) to Netflix. Transformations in Argentinian serials in the last decade

Abstract

The production of audiovisual series of limited duration appears as a field for the development of audiovisual stories in Argentina. In the field of professional production there is a shift from the long-running serial narratives (soap operas, comedies, etc.), produced and broadcasted by the main open television channels, to narrative fictions with a limited number of chapters exhibited by cable television and VoD platforms.
This transformation occurs internationally. However, the Argentine case has some peculiarities. In coexistence with the beginning of the abandonment of part of the open TV audience and coinciding with the passing of the Audiovisual Communication Services Law during the period 2010 - 2015, the State allowed the opening to a new type of audiovisual fiction. The Operational Plan for the development and Promotion of Digital Audiovisual Content, carried out by the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts, allowed the realization of more than 1500 hours of content that involved the diversification of production companies, production sites and thematic areas. Both for reasons of costs and search for new formats and to ensure the diversity of content, the projects financed by this route had a limited duration between eight and thirteen chapters. In this way it was possible to put into practice a different narrative from the television of the moment which, moreover, did not necessarily coincide with the logic of the cinematographic story. At the same time there was a stylistic opening that in some cases broke the conventions of television programming of commercial networks.