Premios Tu Mundo (Your World Awards) Finalists Announced Today

Telemundo announced today the list of finalists for the 2013 edition of “Premios Tu Mundo” (Your World Awards). In addition, Daddy Yankee, Natalia Jimenez, Victor Manuelle, Christian Castro, Banda Los Recoditos, Voz De Mando, Elvis Crespo and Roberto Junior y Su Bandeño are among the confirmed performers for the star-studded awards show to be broadcast live on Thursday, August 15 at 8 p.m. ET from the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida. The special will also feature the anticipated arrivals pre-show “La Alfombra de Premios Tu Mundo.”

TELENOVELA WATCH: EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA Struggles In Its Premiere Week

EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA (weeknights at 10:30 p.m. ET) premiered this week on Telemundo, staggering out of the blocks with the lowest rated premiere week of the year for the network; its numbers are comparable to the DECISIONES EXTREMAS reruns that aired on the network last month, and that is with ROSTRO benefiting from a far higher rated lead-in of PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRÓN DEL MAL.

TELENOVELA WATCH: EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA Premieres July 30, ROSA DIAMANTE Expands, LA QUE NO PODÍA AMAR Nears End; Plus, PABLO ESCOBAR, UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR, PREMIOS TU MUNDO

EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA PREMIERE
EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA premieres this Monday at 10:30 p.m. ET on Telemundo, the third telenovela to premiere on the network this month.  Bizarrely, the television promos for the show vaguely state the start time as “after PABLO ESCOBAR;” EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA looks to be a mystery telenovela, but does the time the show is airing really have to be kept a mystery as well?

TELENOVELA WATCH: POR ELLA SOY EVA, PABLO ESCOBAR First Thoughts Plus, UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN, CORAZON APASIONADO

POR ELLA…SOY EVA (weeknights at 8 p.m. ET on Univision) premiered this week, a Televisa comedy telenovela that breaks up the similarly toned, mostly dramatic telenovelas currently on Univision’s primetime schedule.  I confess, I’m generally not a fan of Televisa’s comedies, and through three episodes of POR ELLA, that hasn’t really changed.

RATINGS: PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRON DEL MAL Averages Nearly 2.1 Million Viewers During Premiere Week

In its premiere week, Telemundo Media’s broadcast of PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRON DEL MAL (Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord), Monday-Friday at 10 p.m. ET, averaged nearly 2.1 million total viewers (persons 2+) and nearly 1.2 million adults 18-49, according to Nielsen. On the heels of a highly-rated premiere, the international hit starring Andres Parra as Pablo Escobar ranked as the second-highest novela premiere week in Telemundo’s history among adults 18-49, behind 2011’s smash hit LA REINA DEL SUR (Queen of the South), and outperformed CBS and NBC each night at 10pm among adults 18-34 and outperformed ABC Monday-Thursday in the demo.

TELENOVELA WATCH: PABLO ESCOBAR, ROSA DIAMANTE Premiered; Plus, UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN, UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR & POR ELLA SOY EVA

ROSA DIAMANTE and PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRÓN DEL MAL premiered this week on Telemundo, two productions that could not be farther apart on the telenovela spectrum: the former, an assortment of fairly traditional telenovela story elements such as an abandoned newborn, wicked matriarch, corporate power struggle, and deep family secrets; and the latter, a big-budget docudrama about the rise and fall of a notorious cocaine trafficker.  About the only thing the two shows have in common is they both offer a welcome respite from Telemundo’s Miami studio productions which have dominated the network’s schedule this year, with ROSA filmed entirely in Mexico and PABLO mostly filmed in Colombia.

RATINGS: PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRON DEL MAL Debuts To 2.2 Million Viewers

Telemundo Media's Monday night premiere of PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRON DEL MAL (Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord) averaged nearly 2.2 million total viewers and 1,264,000 adults 18-49 at 10 p.m. ET, increasing the time period delivery by triple digits versus the prior month and double digits versus the prior year in key demos, according to Nielsen.

RATINGS: PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRON DEL MAL Debuts To 2.2 Million Viewers

Telemundo Media's Monday night premiere of PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRON DEL MAL (Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord) averaged nearly 2.2 million total viewers and 1,264,000 adults 18-49 at 10 p.m. ET, increasing the time period delivery by triple digits versus the prior month and double digits versus the prior year in key demos, according to Nielsen.

TELENOVELA WATCH: ROSA DIAMANTE, PABLO ESCOBAR Starting Next Week; Plus, CORAZON VALIENTE

TELEMUNDO PREMIERES ROSA DIAMANTE & PABLO ESCOBAR
Telemundo announced this week their new telenovela, ROSA DIAMANTE, will premiere on Tuesday, July 10th at 8:30 p.m. ET, sharing the hour with UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN, which is in its final chapters.  The move to rush ROSA DIAMANTE out this week in half-hour installments seems designed to get the jump on Univision who is premiering the Jaime Camil/Lucero telenovela POR ELLA…SOY EVA the following week.  This tinkering with schedules is fairly common during premiere weeks between the rival networks and I imagine will get even worse when the third Spanish-language broadcast network, MundoFox, hits the air in August.

TELENOVELA WATCH: UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR's Breakneck Pace, LA QUE NO PODÍA AMAR, UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN; Plus, Start Dates For PABLO ESCOBAR and POR ELLA..SOY EVA

UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR (weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on Univision) continues to zip along at a breakneck pace as this week Rodrigo (Gabriel Soto) and Luciana (Zuria Vega) married in a civil service.  It was a clever move by the writers, giving the audience a week of romance, a great deal of it familiar telenovela tropes like the make out session in a stream, though tossing in an odd little excursion assisting a woman in childbirth.  The pair are still planning a big church wedding, which in a Mexican telenovela, is the wedding that counts.  As Luciana says, they are wed by laws of man, soon, they will be wed in the eyes of God.  Of course, with church weddings typically serving as the climax of the telenovela, and with Rodrigo’s jilted fiancée Gala (Jessica Coch) and her mother Julie (Frances Ondiviela) digging dirt on Luciana, it seems doubtful that church wedding will go as Rodrigo and Luciana intend.