'Merlí', TV3's bittersweet success that ended up being absorbed by Movistar+

Barcelona(As every summer, ARA dedicates a series of Sunday Media articles to reviewing television history. This year we are rescuing some of the most notable channel changes that historical fictions experienced.)

An unconventional philosophy professor determined to make his students truly learn, beyond passing exams. This was the premise of Merlí, one of the most successful series ever launched by TV3, which was based, in large part, on the combination of an established actor like Francesc Orella in a state of grace – with a character that fit him like a glove – and a cast of young talents like Carlos Cuevas or Elisabet Casanovas. Its success, however, was the seed that ultimately led to its move to a platform with a larger budget, like Movistar+.

The 40 original episodes were broadcast between 2015 and 2018, and a measure of its success is its ability to be exported: Atresmedia dubbed it into Spanish and broadcast it on La Sexta, while Netflix bought it for the international market and offered it to its subscribers in South America and the United States. Italy and France had their own adaptations. The popularity of the titular character was so great that an Argentinian football fan, Horacio Domínguez, explained that he was often stopped in the street in his country to be asked if he was the actor from Merlí.

The series was planned for only the three seasons that TV3 offered and concluded with a closed ending. But that achieved following stimulated creator Héctor Lozano to continue imagining more plots for that universe. The result would end up being Merlí: sapere aude, a sequel that would shift the focus to the character of Pol Rubio, played by Cuevas. Who had been Merlí's favorite student in the original series, now arrived at university, with the aim of studying philosophy and becoming a professor, like his mentor.

Movistar+ launched its takeover bid for the new series, knowing it had the winning card of the budget and the most assured international projection, as the platform has a presence in Latin America. TV3 invested in it, but as a minority partner. And this, of course, involved sacrifices. The first, not being able to premiere the series in the first instance. Movistar+ uploaded to its service Merlí: dare to know on December 5, 2020. Initially, a full year of exclusivity was reserved, but it agreed to shorten this window a bit so that TV3 could offer it to the Catalan market as the highlight of the season's start, on September 14, 2020.

Despite this lag, viewership was decent: the first season achieved a 14.8% share and the second 12.1%. These figures were notably below the 18.4% average achieved by the 40 episodes of the first series, but sufficient to lead most nights.

The second of the tolls was more painful: by having Movistar as the majority partner in its production, it turned it into a bilingual fiction despite marketing it as "the first series in Catalan" on the platform. The introduction of Latin American actors, intended to also satisfy the international market, represented another departure from its own imaginary that Merlí had managed. Furthermore, the sequel arrived on the TV3 grid when the embers of the controversy for having broadcast Drama, a TVE series that also mixed the two languages. The then Minister of Culture, Mariàngela Vilallonga, openly criticized it. The then director of TV3, Vicent Sanchis, defended that it be broadcast as it had been produced, without dubbing more dialogues into Catalan, considering that the creators had opted for this mix.

Despite this discomfort, the Corporation has continued to defend co-production with other platforms, as this allows it to significantly increase the quantity of available titles and, in addition, for these fictions to enjoy a more comfortable budget. The paradigmatic case is Cites, which since it ended up under the umbrella of Amazon Prime has also introduced plots in Spanish. TV3 contributed 30% of the budget, but in this case and to avoid protests, the channel opted to dub into Catalan the characters who spoke in Spanish, with the option to watch it in dual with a mix of both languages, for those who wanted the original version, as it was filmed, without the dissociation that was generated by seeing actresses like Aina Clotet or Carme Fortuny dubbing themselves into Catalan, but without the lip movement matching the words heard.

Merlí was one of the catalysts for this change of policy and adaptation to the new paradigm of being a small fish in an ocean of deep-pocketed platforms.