Introduction: Ibero-American Fiction in the Midst of Political and Technological Changes: the Persistence of Melodrama as a Narrative Matrix

This year, the Ibero-American Observatory of Television Fic- tion (Obitel) has dedicated special attention to the persistence of melodrama on screens in times of streaming and the proliferation of deprogrammed and multiscreen consumption. Obitel is made up of 12 countries that monitor the production and distribution of televi- sion fiction. For this yearbook, however, it was not possible to count on the participation of Ecuador, since it did not achieve the neces- sary conditions to work with the common methodology required. Chile, for its part, participated by providing data in order not to in- terrupt the historical series, but the analytical chapter corresponding to that country is not included either.