Univision’s trying something very new to accompany the premiere of a new telenovela Antes Muerta Que Lichita, which premieres tomorrow at 8 p.m. They’ve partnered with Screenz to create an app to gather “novelovers” with interactive games, prizes, and other engagements on Lichita.com. All of the action is meant to ensure viewers are watching live. Mark Lopez, executive vice president and general manager of Univision Digital says that:
Univision Network’s telenovelas are virtually DVR-proof, with 91 percent of our viewers watching our programming live, creating a telenovela fan community enabled by the UniNovelas app was a natural extension. We want to continue to reward our highly engaged audience for tuning in and interacting with the content they love.
Some of the features of the Screenz app:
- Play-along Experience: real-time dashboard with polls and predictors about the telenovela for users to interact with and earn prizes.
- Curated News Feed: curated social, video and photo content for users to consume and share with each other and their social networks.
- Novela Pages: information about Univision Network’s primetime telenovelas as well as exclusive access to special content such as character blogs, webnovelas, tutorials and more.
While on the website there are character blogs, fan content, tech tutorials, and a webnovela, Corazon Enamorado, “a novela inside a novela that users will be able to experience along with their favorite characters.”
According to Nielsen, Latinos in America are already 10 percent higher in smartphone adoption than the national average, so the second screen app should work towards the network’s advantage in hooking viewers for the new programming.