NEW YORK CITY (By Jennifer Ordoñez, Newsweek) September 20, 2006 — Like so many first-generation Latin Americans, Silvio Horta grew up in a Spanish-speaking home in Miami where each night his mother had the TV tuned to one thing: telenovelas. In the Spanish-language soap operas, which draw higher prime-time ratings in some urban markets than the Big Three networks, man and woman meet, fall in love and are kept apart by evil forces that, after 13 weeks of twists and turns, are ultimately no match for the lovers' passion. So when Horta, 32, was tapped to executive-produce "Ugly Betty"—an English-language remake of a wildly popular telenovela, debuting Sept. 28 on ABC—he had to call his mami. "I was, like, 'What did you like about them?' " says Horta. Her response: "There's something so universal about the themes, it gets to you."

ABC and its competitors are betting that it gets to a wide U.S. audience. Last month, Fox launched My Network TV, an offshoot that's offering original programming to affiliates starting with two telenovela adaptations. NBC Universal Television Group is retooling several series from its Telemundo unit and CBS also has English-language telenovelas in the works. Latinos like Horta, who identify with their parents' culture but are more fluent with English media, are the target demographic for many of these shows. Their households skew younger and have more inhabitants, elements that appeal to advertisers (and, therefore, the networks). By some estimates, Latino buying power could reach $1 trillion by 2010. "Advertisers have been beating down my door," says Nely Galán, former Telemundo president, whose production company is remaking the telenovelas for NBC.

Shot on video instead of film, and with budgets of as little as $30,000 per episode, Spanish telenovelas are low rent compared with American prime-time scripted dramas, which can cost as much as $3 million an episode. But "Ugly Betty," about a homely-but-kind Latina who navigates thorny personal politics at her job as an assistant at a fashion mag, is ready for prime time. Co-executive-produced by Salma Hayek, "Betty" is being aggressively marketed to Latin Americans: vans with external TV screens that loop promotional material have been circling Latino-dominated neighborhoods in Chicago and East Los Angeles. Spanish billboards read: SO UGLY, THEY HAD TO DO IT IN ENGLISH. "We want them to know that, for entertainment, ABC is for them," says Marla Provencio, senior vice president of marketing.

But the form may look unfamiliar. Typically, telenovelas last one season: once the star-crossed lovers overcome their seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the show ends. "Betty" is structured so the show can continue if it's renewed—and it's not nearly as over-the-top as the original. (It was recently moved into the slot before "Grey's Anatomy" to attract women 18 to 49, too.) Melodrama is what has sustained the genre, however, and there's plenty of it on the My Network TV shows, "Desire" and "Fashion House." Each runs 13 weeks in the same prime-time slot on weekdays; a summary episode airs Saturdays. So far, each show's pulling in more than a million viewers nightly—OK for a new show on a start-up network. On "Fashion House," Morgan Fairchild plays a fashion-industry villain. Bo Derek's her nemesis. In one episode, they beat each other up ... for nearly an hour. Could Fox executives be aware that more men in America watch Univision, whose mainstay is telenovelas, than ESPN?

My Network TV is keeping costs down. It's filming for less than $500,000 per episode, say people involved with the shows who didn't want to be named because production costs are proprietary, and at a breakneck pace, taping 60 shows in about three months. "That's key to this model," says Jack Abernathy, chief executive of Fox television stations. "We've managed to save costs by economies of scale. There's no sitting around. Everyone is acting, editing, writing, shooting at the same time." They better make some time to keep an eye on all the competition.