Top 10 Steps on How to Make A High-Rating Soap Opera in the Philippines

Here’s my Top 10 steps on how to produce a high-rating Filipino soap opera that would surely increase TV revenues and leave each mindless Pinoy stuck catatonically stuck at their TVs everyday.




1. Hire top-bill stars for the cast. Guys should be handsome and he has to have nice abs. Ladies should be very beautiful, sexy…and fair skinned.

2. Since most Filipino telenovelas are love stories, the protagonists should later find out that they were brothers and sisters. But don’t worry. In the end they will also find out that they were not siblings because one of them is an adopted child.

3. There should be a lot of crying, slapping, and hysterical yelling.

4. If the telenovela is received well by the viewers; extend the story by introducing the already saturated cast with new characters. Well if not, abruptly cut the script, kill some characters and finally end it.

5. To stretch the story, the character known to be killed (or dead) in the story must appear in the later part. Just give the alibi that he or she was saved in the accident or other person was buried and not him/her.

6. Villains should have one or more of these qualities: rude, greedy, violent, rich, or psychopath.

7. The girl will meet a new guy which will consequently be her new love-interest (same is true for the male).

8. The kontrabida should have a gun. It is very essential for harassing, kidnapping, or threating the protagonists.

9. For the grand finale, the antagonist must die from a violent death: car accident or explosion, gunshot, fire, or falling from a building. Note: it should be a very gruesome or painful death.

10. Lastly, the protagonists will end up getting married and eventually have children. For best effect, the children should be twins.

The inset is sent to me by a reader, Eman, on November 5, 2010

here are some i think are essentials *as far as ive noticed*:

1. in the beginning of the telenovela, there must be a flashback *childhood sweethearts, etc*, where the main characters are still in their childhood including their parents. as you have noticed all telenovela's undergo that part.

2. if the ratings are good, then extend the show further by adding additional stars, killing some or making twists. makes the story far off from the original plot though.

3. announce the coming ending of the telenovela one month ahead. like saying "ang huling tatlong linggo" to boost viewers and increase ad views.

4. Make text promos if the show ratings are bad.

Picture Credits:
Ugly Betty - http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/dreyes/1/1231716540/filipino-xugly-bettyx-tv-show.jpg/tpod.html