Two telenovelas have made waves recently in the U.S., for each of the major Hispanic broadcasters. ¿Dónde está Elisa?, based on a Chilean soap of the same name, aired on Telemundo at 10 p.m. between March and August and improved the ratings for the time period 30% over the previous telenovela, Los Victorinos. Elisa even managed to tie or beat Univision programming during two evenings during its run, a pretty fair feat in primetime for Telemundo.

At 10 p.m. Univision presents a variety of programming, mainly talk shows and series. In Hispanic proramming it is inherently risky to step away from telenovela genre, which Univision presents during the first part of its primetime, but it is also necessary in order to present a varied menu to an audience. Telemundo actually has an inverse strategy, programming a game show at 7 p.m. and then shifting into novelas for the remainder of primetime. However, Telemundo strips at 7 while Univision varies at 10, leading to a volatile ratings performance illustrated by sharp peaks and valleys in the graph above. Moreover, most of the high ratings were created by special programming. On average the regular shows at 10 p.m. only averaged a 1.47 household rating.

Still, the average rating for Univision at 10 p.m. began to rise after June, once the hot new telenovela Soy Tu Dueña aired at 9 p.m., creating a much stronger lead-in for the 10 p.m. time slot. Dueña has gone on to dominate the 9 p.m. slot and is currently averaging above a 2.5 household rating. It looks like Dueña is going to be the telenovela of 2010, just as Mañana es para Siempre was the big hit for Univision in 2009.

Unfortunately for Telemundo at 9 p.m., the recently premiered El Fantasma de Elena has been slightly underperforming, as compared to its predecessor Perro Amor. However Telemundo has recently announced a couple of new telenovela productions including Alguien Te Mira starring Danna Garcia and Christian Meier, which is likely to be a hit considering the track record of both actors.