Trajectory
With a huge marketing push, the show started its run on April 2007 in Canal 13. In September of that year, the show started airing in the entire Spanish-speaking Latin America market on the Disney Channel and soon, the program became a sensation among kids and tweens in the entire continent.
When it debuted, Patito Feo was a direct competitor to Telefe's Casi Angeles in Argentina. Casi Angeles' was produced by Cris Morena, the ratings' leader in kids and teen fiction for over 15 years. Patito Feo beat Casi Angeles, marking the first time a Cris Morena production didn't had the lead in the Argentine market in 2008. During that year, Patito performed exceptionally not only on TV but also on merchandising sales. The soundtrack album was the best-selling album of 2008 in the country and over 100 licensed products were released. An official magazine exceeded sales expectations and had its initial print sold out within a week and a stamp album also had record sales for Panini in Argentina. The song Las Divinas was the best-selling ringtone ever in the country.
In Argentina, 400.000 tickets were sold for the first national live tour, over 150.000 in Buenos Aires and 90.000 in the litoral city of Mar Del Plata during the summer. Afterwards, the complete cast toured Latin America with over 700.000 tickets solds for shows in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bolivia and Paraguay.
In 2008, Patito Feo won the Martin Fierro Award and received a nomination for the International Emmy Award for Best Children & Young Adults program.
The show became a huge success soon after its debut. The soundtrack was the best-selling album of 2007 according to CAPIF, over 70 licensed products were released and the cast toured Argentina (with stops in Buenos Aires, where over 160,000 people saw the live concert, Mendoza, Córdoba, Mar del Plata, Rosario, Salta, Tucuman and Santa Fe) and, subsequently, the rest of South America, North America and Central America with stops in Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Panama, Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bolivia and Turkey, selling out arenas and stadiums.
In 2008, Patito Feo won the Martin Fierro Award and received a nomination for the International Emmy Award for Best Children & Young Adults program.
Although the show was incredibly well received by the audience, Patito Feo attracted huge criticism due to the fact it glamorized the villains, a group of mean and beautiful girls that called themselves Las Divinas (The Divines). Besides being superficial, Las Divinas were also mean and bullied Patito. The fact the villains were much more popular among young girls than the main character caused concern over some groups and the issue was even on the cover Noticias, Argentina's most imporant current affair magazine, under the headline "The Triumph of Discrimination".
After a very well received first season, the show was renewed for a second one. In May, the second season finally debuted. While its first week did well in ratings, viewership started to decrease significantly day after day. Meanwhile, Casi Angeles, which went through an extreme makeover after a lukewarm reception during its first year, became incredibly popular and it got to a point where it was almost doubling Patito's rating. In the end, Patito Feo second season was heavily beat by Casi Angeles second season and the show ended up being canceled by Canal 13 two months before the initial plan with the final episodes being aired only on the Disney Channel and on international markets. An inconsistent storyline and a huge quality drop in the scripts were blamed for the show big decline in popularity.
In early 2008, under the name De Tout Mon Coeur, Patito Feo started airing on children channel Gulli in France. It soon became a huge success, being the most-watched show on the channel. A few months later, Elastic Rights bought the rights to distribute the show in Italy, Portugal and Spain.
In Italy, Il Mondo di Patty and debuted on the Disney Channel and soon became a gigantic hit. Due to the big popularity, a huge merchandising line was unveiled and Laura Esquivel visited the country to promote the show. The rights were bought by terrestrial Mediaset-owned Italia 1 which started airing the show in the Summer of 2009. Il Mondo di Patty became an even bigger success in the country, being one of the most-watched shows on the channel.
Also in 2008, Patito Feo debuted on Cartoon Network in Spain. It was very well received and became one of the top shows among young girls on cable. In 2009, it debuted on the Disney Channel and became one of the highest-rated shows on cable in Spain, topping Hannah Montana.
In Italy and Spain, the show spawned over 200 merchandising including toys, apparel, cosmetics, food items and a video game for Playstation and a special Singstar game. The soundtrack album was certified over 5x Platinum in both countries. It was also a huge rating hit in Portugal, Greece and Turkey. In Greece, the album was certified for 11x Platinum.
With the success of the show, Laura Esquivel launched a successful Italian acting career in Italy, where she stars in movies and TV shows. Legal problems between the executive producers of the show and the production company made hard for the cast to tour in those countries. However, a new musical with local actors was licensed and, even though none of the original cast members were part of the production (with the exception of Laura Esquivel for a few special presentations), over 250.000 tickets were sold in Italy and Spain. Over 30.000 tickets were sold for concerts in Athens.
In March 2009, a Mexican remake, Atrevete a Soñar, made its debut in Canal de las Estrellas in Mexico, produced by Televisa. One year early, the original version was shown with huge success on the Disney Channel and the original cast sold over 120.000 tickets for concerts in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Veracruz and Queretaro.
The Mexican version was also a huge hit, with over 90 licensed products. The soundtrack album achieved Platinum certification. The cast toured over 15 cities with the live tour, with over 11 presentations in the Auditorio Nacional in the City of Meixco.
There are plans for a US version and MTV Networks is currently developing a pilot.
Even though the second season wasn't as successful, with the show being canceled early amid lawsuits, internal fights and lackluster ratings against a successful second season of Casi Ángeles, the second season soundtrack was still the best-selling album in Argentina in 2009 and the live DVD was also the best-selling DVD of that year.
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