Jaime Acero of TelevisaUnivision: “UNIMÁS Is the Only One of the Three U.S. Networks Where a Dating Show Has Worked Monday Through Friday”

The dating show format has proven key for UNIMÁS’s counterprogramming strategy in the U.S. Following the successful run of Enamorándonos, a SoHo Formats production for the network that wrapped its cycle last year, two new offerings in the genre debut this Monday the 26th: at 8pm, Primeras Citas with Rafael Araneda, an adaptation of Warner’s format, First Dates, produced by Boxfish TV for TelevisaUnivision in Mexico, and from 9pm to 11pm it’s time for the first adaptation of El Túnel del Amor for the Hispanic market, a Floresta format from Sony Pictures Television, hosted by Cecilia Galliano. Additionally, opening at 7pm is the premiere of the fourth season of ¿Quién Caerá? with Adamari López.

¿Quién Caerá?, hosted by Adamari López

“The dating show has given us a lot of joy at UNIMÁS, remember Enamorándonos. We’ve been the only one of the three networks where a dating show has worked Monday through Friday. We wanted, with El Túnel del Amor, a slot even a bit later at night, that adult content. We realized there’s a lot of hunger for dating shows. The UNIMÁS viewer isn’t necessarily the Univisión viewer; the UNIMÁS viewer also consumes Netflix and platforms with reality shows like Love Island, Temptation, and these are also formats that have always attracted the TelevisaUnivision group,” Jaime Acero, senior director of Content Development & Non Scripted at TelevisaUnivision, told PRODU.

EL TÚNEL DEL AMOR

Acero explained that for some time the company had been looking for a format like El Túnel del Amor. “We wanted youth-oriented narratives, narratives that were a bit spicier overall. These major formats were extremely busy, and we found this one from Floresta, which caught our attention because of the many seasons they produced in Brazil, and we said, ‘there’s something here,’ because it also has friendship. So there are more layers than the love or sexual relationships of these young people, and we found that it could travel very well to our audiences, given the hunger there is for programs that are authentic, because the authenticity of this kind of production is fabulous,” he commented.

El Túnel del Amor

He noted that El Túnel del Amor is a very youth-oriented attraction reality show. “We’ve adapted it for Latin audiences because Brazilians, in fact, have a different mood. It’s a reality show that explores romantic relationships, friendship, attraction and desire from a younger, bolder, spicier perspective. There are 10 pairs of friends who are separated into two houses connected by a mysterious tunnel, where each one must act as cupid to find the ideal match for their companion. And it’s in that tunnel where those encounters happen. There’s a lot of close living together, since they were also filmed 24/7. There are challenges that will test their loyalty, mixed feelings… imagine, lots of passion and a whole lot of drama.”

He mentioned that the show was produced at Floresta’s hub in Brazil, where contestants from all Latin American countries and Mexico were brought.

“The Floresta team really caught our attention because of how professional they were. We hired many producers freelance, especially for the control rooms, from many Latam reality shows who also brought their own stamp on how this genre is told. And then, the adaptation that Sony Pictures Television also did with us, we liked a lot. We gave a bit more presence to the host, Cecilia Galliano, with the Consultorio de Ceci, segments where she confronts the characters and gets a lot more content out of them.”

The Consultorio de Ceci in El Túnel del Amor

He added that they are “super satisfied” with this version, and the preview of El Túnel del Amor on ViX made it into the top 10 most-watched titles in the U.S. “That’s extremely important for UNIMÁS, because it once again stands out as the network that offers unique content that complements the offerings of the other two major U.S. Hispanic networks. So we’re going all in,” he emphasized.

PERFECT TRANSITION

Acero details that the strategy behind the triple premiere this Monday the 26th, which kicks off with the fourth season of the game show ¿Quién Caerá?, hosted by Adamari López at 7pm, shows that UNIMÁS “has found its sweet spot with TV.”

“7pm is, as you know, the time of peak TV consumption in the U.S., and we’ve been putting game shows at 7pm for about five years now. It’s an offering that’s also very complementary and different from what Univisión or Telemundo carry. And we’ve realized that the game show has worked perfectly and fulfills its function of lifting the audiences left over from the afternoon and carrying them into primetime,” he points out.

And he adds that “evidently,” the dating show is “extremely important” for them. He notes that it has been very positive for them internally to see how a game show “can leave you with a very good audience, and then Rafa Araneda kicks off with a show that’s absolutely in UNIMÁS style. I think that transition is perfect, from people playing a game to then moving into a dating show, which is Primeras Citas, which also has a certain ease of consumption.”

PRIMERAS CITAS

He mentioned that Primeras Citas is a dating show, a genre “that has given us a lot of joy, because we’re the only one of the three major Hispanic networks in the U.S. to have this genre Monday through Friday. And it has found a very particular connection with our audience. This is a Warner format, produced by Boxfish, and we’ve been enormously surprised by the authenticity of its participants. It’s a very simple concept: it’s simply watching and listening to what two strangers say on a blind date, people of all ages, from 18 to 70.”

Boxfish built a restaurant for Primeras Citas in Mexico

He noted that for the show they built a restaurant, literally. “The production company Boxfish is made up of geniuses, they’ve done a spectacular production. There’s no TV crew here. All the cameras and microphones are hidden in the set design so that no one knows they’re on a TV set. Even the microphones are in the flower vase on the table! And where was the restaurant built? At Estudios 5 de Mayo in Mexico. The singles arrive at the door, and Rafa Araneda isn’t a TV host; he’s the maître d’ who receives them and seats them at the table. The viewer witnesses the conversations: excitement, nerves, sense of humor, expectations… and there are moments when there’s a connection and others when there isn’t. We’re very satisfied because we’ve found that it’s a very authentic show,” commented an enthusiastic Acero.

The executive notes that First Dates, the original format, is one of the most popular dating shows in the world. “It started on Channel 4 in England. It has been produced in more than 50 countries. One of the biggest and best adaptations is on Cuatro, which is Mediaset’s second channel in Spain, and it has been on air for 10 years Monday through Friday, making Mediaset’s second channel in Spain the most-watched time slot,” Acero pointed out.

Cecilia Galliano, host of El Túnel del Amor, and Rafael Araneda, of Primeras Citas