Dubai-based MBC, the leading and most prominent group of TV channels and multimedia offerings in the Middle East, has just licensed two Globo productions, involving the telenovela Time After Time and the series Above Justice, two highlights of the NATPE Budapest 2017. With innovative narratives that stand out for their quality production and solid storylines, the shows will be dubbed in Arabic. The new licenses strengthen Globo’s partnership with MBC, which recently licensed Total Dreamer, a modern-day fairy tale that already spread throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, and ‘Hidden Truths’, the International Emmy winner for Best Telenovela in 2015.
In Time After Time, the mixture of a classic romance with a unique storyline shows how true love can overcome the barriers of time. Split between two phases separated by 150 years, the telenovela won over Brazilian audiences. With an interesting plot and well-structured adaptation of the storylines and characters across both periods, ‘Time After Time’ reached more than 173 million viewers and was a huge success in social networks. The show had a total of over 654,000 comments online, averaging 5,000 comments per episode. The first half is set in the 19th century, featuring Lívia (Aline Moraes, ‘The Illusionist’) and Felipe (Rafael Cardoso, ‘Empire’), who meet and fall in love. Plagued by intrigue, jealousy and ambition, their romance ultimately ends in tragedy. Destiny works its magic and the two reunite 150 years later under completely different circumstances, when they are given a chance to rewrite this love story. In addition to the couple, other characters also get a second chance to fix their mistakes and settle scores from the past.
In the series ‘Above Justice’, four independent, but connected stories ask the question of what exactly is fair and acceptable in extreme situations. The narrative goes back and forth in time and shows what leads people to take extreme and debatable actions, from several different points of view. The story begins when four people from different origins and backgrounds are arrested on the same night. Seven years later, after they’ve paid their debts to society, they are released and start rebuilding their lives. The show marked an unprecedented, innovative experience of scheduling on different screens when aired in Brazil, reaching excellent results. ‘Above Justice’ drew an overwhelming 134 million viewers on the open network, where each day of the week was dedicated to one of the four protagonists. In the digital world, the first four chapters were provided exclusively for the subscribers of Globo Play, Globo’s VOD platform, even before its premiere on network TV. This strategy was maintained throughout the series, always with Globo Play subscribers having early access to each daily episode. It ultimately enabled ‘Above Justice’ to reach more than 3 million unique users and 25 million video viewers.
