Okay, let's do this. I want you to just for a
second think back to 2012. What was reality TV
then? I mean, we were deep in the mean judge
era. You know the whole formula. Oh, totally.
It was almost a sport. It was. A contestant stands
there, they sing their heart out, and then some
guy in a tight t -shirt just completely dismantles
their confidence for readings. That was the playbook.
The humiliation was literally the point. Exactly.
So then you get two of the, I mean... arguably
biggest latin superstars on the entire planet
jennifer lopez and mark anthony and just to add
another layer they conceived this show while
married but by the time it airs things are well
let's just say complicated they team up with
jamie king who's this legendary director you
know the guy behind tours for madonna for rihanna
and they decide to do a reality show but And
this is the key. They basically throw the entire
playbook out the window. Right. They're not sitting
in some studio in Hollywood. They're not waiting
for contestants to come to them. They're getting
on planes. They're going out and finding people.
It was like a travel show, a cultural deep dive,
and a talent search all at once. And that's what
we're digging into today. Cue Viva, The Chosen.
And if you're thinking, oh, I kind of remember
that. Well, you're in the right place because
this isn't just a recap. We've got a stack of
sources here that show how this experiment was
at the exact same time. A huge hit and a massive
flop. It all depending on what channel you were
watching. And that's really the core of it. It's
this perfect case study in audience demographics,
you know. But beyond all the business stuff,
the talent they found was just. It was genuinely
wild. We're not talking about another pop singer.
We're talking about like my musicians and fire
jugglers. Yeah. So that's our mission for this
deep dive. How did a show with this much money,
this much star power end up in what the networks
called a death spiral while also breaking records
on another channel? So let's start with the premise.
What were they even trying to build? It wasn't
just a TV show, right? No, not at all. The end
goal wasn't a record deal. And that's the most
important thing to get. Simon Fuller, the American
Idol creator, he was involved, but the objective
was totally different. Lopez, Anthony, and King
were building a cast for a live show in Las Vegas.
A Vegas show. A huge Vegas show. They called
it the greatest Latin show ever. See, that changes
the whole equation. If you're casting a pop group,
you need people who look good on a poster. But
if you're booking a residency at, like, Mandalay
Bay, you need spectacle. You need something the
guy in the last row can actually see. Precisely.
And that really drove the whole tone of the show.
Critics at the time, like in the Chicago Tribune,
they pointed out that the show didn't have the
usual dramatic backstories or the... Public humiliations.
Because you can't build a professional cast by
making fun of them. You can't. You're treating
them like potential colleagues, not like, you
know, contestants on a game show. In hindsight,
that sounds so refreshing. But back in 2012,
wasn't that a huge risk? Weren't audiences trained
to want the train wreck, the drama? It was a
massive risk, for sure. But I think they replaced
that kind of interpersonal drama with logistical
drama. The show became about the journey. the
travel they were holding auditions on location
i mean argentina brazil guatemala mexico wow
and the format itself was still pretty tough
in its own way if they liked an act they invited
them to los angeles right and once you got to
la it wasn't over some acts were cut right away
after a second look The ones they really liked
were invited to stay at the QViva compound. Ah,
the compound. So it had that kind of real -world
vibe? A little bit, but they didn't really focus
on, you know, who was fighting over the breakfast
cereal. The focus was always, always on the talent,
on the craft. Okay, let's get into that talent
list because this is where the Vegas requirement
becomes so obvious. Some of these acts are just
incredible. Let's start with music. The musical
choices were so specific. They weren't just looking
for pop. For instance, they found a group from
Guatemala called Musica Maya AJ. This is traditional
Mayan music. We're talking indigenous instruments,
pre -colonial sounds. Which is, that's about
as far from the mainstream Latin pop of 2012
as you can get. I mean, putting traditional Mayan
music on Fox in primetime, that's a statement.
It is. They also had Jesus Bionis, who is this
classic mariachi singer from Mexico. And from
Puerto Rico, they found Christian Neves, who
plays the Cuatro. Okay, for anyone who doesn't
know, what is a quattro? It's the national instrument
of Puerto Rico. It looks sort of like a small
guitar, but it has this very bright, almost metallic
sound. It's not an instrument you usually see
getting a solo spotlight on a huge international
show. So they're checking all these boxes for
authenticity, but it's a Jamie King show, so
it had to be visual. And the dance acts you have
listed here sound... Intense. Intense is the
right word. Look at the Malambo dancers from
Argentina. I was reading about this. Malambo
isn't just dancing. Is it something else? Oh,
no. It's a traditional gaucho folk dance. And
it's all percussion. It's just heavy boots stomping
on the floor. And they use these things called
boleadoras. The stones on chords? Exactly. They
whip them around. They hit the floor. It's aggressive.
It's loud. It's basically rhythm as a weapon.
And this is where the show actually had to get
tough. The notes mentioned two different Malumbo
groups, Impacto Malumbo and Remolino Malumbo.
Right. And this is where the nice show had to
make some hard cuts. Yeah. So with Impacto Malumbo,
the judges decided they couldn't take the whole
team. They picked just two guys to go to the
compound. The rest were sent home. Oh, that's
brutal to travel all that way as a team and then
get split up. It's the reality of casting. But
then with the other group, Remolino Malumbo,
they get to everyone. So you can imagine the
tension in the compound. One group is whole,
the other is broken up. And what about from Brazil?
You have to have Brazil. Of course. They had
a group called Capoeira do Tapatio. Capoeira
is that amazing mix of martial arts and dance.
It's all acrobatics and spinning kicks. And from
Colombia, Swing Latino, which I'm guessing is
not your standard salsa class. No, this is acrobatic
high -speed salsa. I mean, they're throwing people
10 feet in the air. It's legitimately dangerous.
Speaking of dangerous, my favorite category in
our notes is the unusual. And the first thing
listed is just fire jugglers. Yes. Sergio Rivera
from Guatemala and Diego Mon from Mexico. Both
of them. And again, think Vegas. A fire juggler
on American Idol is a joke. A fire juggler at
Mandalay Bay. It makes perfect sense. It totally
does. And then there's an act here. Acrobatic
quebradita? What on earth is that? Quebradita
is a Mexican dance style. It's really fast. Acrobatic
just means they were basically doing gymnastics
while dancing. Lots of flips, these crazy dips.
Super high energy. It's just such an amazing
range of talent. But I do see a note about a
group that didn't make it. The scissor dancers.
Ah, yes. From Peru. It's a traditional Andean
dance where they hold these two big metal blades
like shears and clash them together for rhythm
while they do these insane athletic stunts. And
they got cut? They got invited to L .A., they
auditioned, and they were eliminated. It just
shows you how high the bar was. They were trying
to build one cohesive show, and sometimes even
amazing talent just doesn't fit the puzzle. So
you have all this incredible, unique talent.
You've got J -Lo and Marc Anthony going through
a very public split while filming. You have massive
budget. I mean, on paper, this show is a slam
dunk. On paper, yeah. In reality, it was. It
was much more complicated. Which brings us to
what you called the tale of two broadcasts. This
is really the heart of the story. Okay, let's
break it down. January 28, 2012, the show premieres.
It premieres on Univision, the Spanish language
network, and it is a smash hit. It gets 2 .2
million viewers on its first night. Okay, so
2 .2 million. That doesn't sound like a Super
Bowl number, but for Univision, was that a big
deal? It was huge. You have to look at the context.
That number was a 37 percent increase over what
Univision had been averaging in that Saturday
night slot. I mean, a 37 percent jump. That's
a monster hit. The Spanish speaking audience
absolutely loved it. Right. So party time at
Univision. But then a few weeks later, March
3rd, the English version premieres on Fox. Same
show, just, you know, packaged for an English
speaking audience. And here's the crazy part.
It also got 2 .2 million viewers. The exact same
number. Pretty much the exact same number of
people watching. But on Univision, 2 .2 million
is a reason to celebrate. On a major network
like Fox, in primetime on a Saturday, 2 .2 million
is an absolute catastrophe. That is just... Wild.
So the same audience size means success in one
world and total failure in another? It was considered
a massive underperformance. It lost its time
slot to every other major network. And that's
when the death spiral, as you called it, began.
Yeah, I know how this goes. The ratings aren't
there, so the network starts to panic. Exactly.
First thing they did, Fox cut the episodes from
two hours down to 90 minutes. Which just guts
the storytelling, I'm sure. Of course. Then they
push it to late night, which is network code
for we're just burning this off. And finally,
on May 14th, Fox officially canceled it. They
only ever aired six episodes. So if you only
watched Fox, you saw this show appear and then
just vanish. But if you watched Univision, you
saw the whole thing and loved it. It's a perfect
example of audience segmentation. The general
market audience in 2012, it seems, just wasn't
ready for a show about the cultural history of
the quattro. But the Hispanic market was desperate
for that kind of representation. It's such a
shame the Fox audience missed the Fire Jugglers.
They really did. But here's the twist. The TV
show was only ever the means to an end. The destination
was always Vegas. Did the cancellation kill the
live show? I'm guessing no. No. And that's the
real win here. The show was basically just a
really long making -of documentary. Cuviva. The
Chosen Live happened on May 26, 2012. And where
did they do it? At the Mandalay Bay Event Center,
a major venue on the Las Vegas Strip. So they
did it. The Fire Jugglers, the Malambo Dancers,
they all got their Vegas moment. They did. For
the talent, the promise was fulfilled. They got
to perform on one of the biggest stages in the
world. I love that. It feels like a really happy
ending, but I'm looking at our last note here,
and there's a pretty big shadow hanging over
this whole thing. Right. We can't wrap up without
talking about the lawsuit. Yeah. So what happened
there? Well, in 2013, about a year after the
show aired, a man named John Jacobs filed a lawsuit.
And it was a big one. Oh, yeah. A $25 million
lawsuit against Jennifer Lopez, Mark Anthony,
and their production companies. On what grounds?
For $25 million. He claimed that he actually
pitched them this exact idea for a reality show
all the way back in 2007. Five years before it
aired. Five years. He said he had the whole concept,
the travelogue, the talent search across Latin
America. Yeah. He claimed they heard his idea,
passed on it, and then just made it without him.
So basically, he's saying they stole the show.
That was his claim. It just adds that layer of,
you know, showbiz reality to the whole fairy
tale story. It's always a reminder that it's
a business, isn't it? Always. So when you put
it all together, what is this show? It's a hit,
it's a flop, it's a Vegas spectacle, and it's
a giant lawsuit. I think it's a really bold experiment.
First, it proved that the talent pool in Latin
America is just unbelievably deep and way more
diverse than mainstream media ever shows. It
put things like Quebradita on a global stage.
For sure. And second, it really showed the power
and specificity. of the Hispanic market in the
U .S. The fact that Univision could make it a
hit while Fox couldn't do anything with the same
show, that speaks volumes. Do you think it was
just ahead of its time? Like if this came out
on Netflix today, it would be a smash hit. It's
very possible. You think about shows like Squid
Game or Money Heist. We're so much more used
to international content now. But in 2012 on
network television, it was a really tough sell.
Still, the notes say over 30 million people worldwide
eventually saw it. That's a lot of people seeing
Mayan music for the first time. It is. The global
reach was huge. It aired in 21 countries. So
to sum it all up, J -Lo and Marc Anthony on a
road trip, a hit on one channel, a flop on another,
and a huge one -night -only show in Vegas. And
a $25 million lawsuit. Can't forget the lawsuit.
It's an incredible story for a show that barely
existed on American network TV. It burned very
bright and very fast. A bit like a fire juggler.
could say. Huh. I see what you did. Before we
sign off, what's the one thing you think we should
leave people with on this? I think it really
forces you to ask, how do we define success in
media? I mean, by network TV standards, Fox canceled
it. So it was a failure. Period. But you ask
one of those Malambo dancers who got to perform
at Mandalay Bay if it was a failure or ask one
of the 30 million viewers who saw their own culture
celebrated. Sometimes the ratings just don't
tell the whole story. That's a perfect way to
put it. Success really does look different depending
on where you're standing. Exactly. Well, thanks
for joining us for this deep dive into the wild
world of QViva, The Chosen. We'll see you on
the next one. See you then.