As they say in football-mad Brazil, you don't make changes to a winning team. Rede Globo, Brazil's largest and the world's fourth largest television network, has taken the injunction to heart: for 30 years, its weekday evening line-up has hardly changed. Television executives the world over scramble to change schedules to suit fickle tastes. Globo sticks to its game-plan.

From 6pm to 10pm, Monday to Friday, viewers get the following: a soap opera; local news; a soap opera; national news; another soap opera. Thereafter they get football on at least one evening a week and a Hollywood film on another. A mix of sitcoms and popular-interest current affairs fills up the rest. Weekends and daytime weekdays are dominated by another staple: auditorium shows, in which household-name presenters serve up celebrity interviews, live acts, competitions and real-life dramas.