Televising The Revolution

Putting additional capacity into a power grid is not an unusual move for a power company. Events such as hot and humid summer days often call for the boost to prevent power brownouts and outages, but a television show?

Turn up the juice was the order of the day and power officials in Sao Paulo, Brazil were expected to do just that on Friday, September 28 during the airing of the season finale of a soap opera.

The final episode of “Tropical Paradise” had the power folks scrambling for the switches to crank up the energy as an estimated 90% of the country’s population was expected to view the popular show. The power grid had a surge of new life in anticipation for great demand of those who would go to the fridge to get a drink or snack or want to use a microwave to prep a meal.

Prime-time soap operas known as telenovelas, with average runs of 200 episodes, are a major event in Brazil. Their plot lines often show up as front-page news and the show’s characters are major topics of conversation.     -33-