1. Introduction

Through the years, television always provoked inadvertent effects on the viewer (^{Ferrés, 1998}), especially soap operas, a cultural product typical of Brazil (^{Lopes, 2011}). Since the television's arrival for Brazilians in the mid-1950s, soap operas have been known as the big trump card in Brazilian television. Those productions affect millions of television viewers in that country daily.

However, beyond a function guided by the televisual entertainment logic, ^{Wolton (1990/1996}) argues that television does not merely employ a recreational function. Thanks to the televisual social bond, television strengthens the affective bonds between its television audiences, constitutes memories, creates points of contact between all the extremes of society, and awakens stimuli and sensations that generate not only a consumption experience, but also a social and cultural role in the context of relationships.

Nonetheless, in recent years, there have been several discussions over the reconfiguration of media dynamics and theoretical perspectives regarding this current television moment. Part of these studies suggests that television has ended (or is moving towards an end), especially when discussing the advancement of streaming platforms.

^{Fechine (2014}) states that the digital environment has significantly contributed to understanding the "new era of television". Under these circumstances of consumption, we discuss the possibilities of sharing the television archive beyond television's unidirectional flow. If those audiovisual contents were previously exclusive to the analogue collections of television broadcasters, nowadays they are available on the internet, all of that being possible due to digital media's new and massive status.

The audiovisual archive begins to circulate beyond the unidirectional television flow. Thanks to this decentralization of television, these audiovisual contents come back through convergence cultures to occupy the screen of smartphones, tablets, desktops, and other consumption possibilities (^{Lipovetsky & Serroy, 2007/2009}).

Globoplay, the Grupo Globo streaming platform, has been active in the Brazilian streaming market since 2015, competing with major streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime (^{Santos Neto & Strassburger, 2019}). Besides offering original productions under the "originais Globoplay" (Globoplay originals) seal, Globoplay acts as a repository for TV Globo's productions. All the programming is live-streamed continuously and becomes available to the user immediately afterwards. ^{Vieira and Murta (2017}) point out that Globoplay has been trying to regain the television flow's audience due to changes in the audiovisual content distribution channels. For that purpose, the authors agree that the platform should use several marketing and content strategies to attract the television audience.

In this way, we hypothesise that among the actions taken by Grupo Globo, TV Globo's project with old soap operas reinforces the television's strength and its social function in the face of this convergence era.

Soap operas have been seen as a major strength in Brazil since television arrived in the country in the mid-1950s. Over the years, soap operas have dealt with themes related to everyday life, exploring social, political, and cultural matters. According to ^{Lopes (2011}), such productions have an affective connection with the audience and, thereby, are a cultural, symbolic institution and a representation of our identity.

Thus, this project stands out for the platform's commitment and effort to understand the recovering TV Globo's old soap opera project and how this movement makes them available and more affordable to the audience than previous projects carried out by the organization. It is known that returning old soap operas to digital platforms meets an old desire of the Brazilian television audience (^{Vaquer, 2019}).

In this sense, this article aims at discussing aspects related to the context of the decline of television approaching Latin American television studies with other established theories about television. In addition, the study's goal is to give visibility to the appeal to television viewers' memory as a mediatic strategy, in the context of television platformisation, as an impetus for Globoplay's development. This article was carried out using a case study developed by ^{Yin (1984/2015}) through a qualitative approach. Based on theoretical data, we intend to articulate theories with empirical data to support the presented proposition.

2. Television in Decline: The Latin American Perspective

Discussing the future or decline of television requires guiding criteria and specific excerpts in order to obtain comprehension. In the first place, one needs to understand which criteria must be used to determine the Brazilian television decline. In this way, which parameter can we use to acknowledge or invalidate our hypothesis?

From this perspective, we supported our argument with the definitions of ^{Wolton (1990/1996}) about the concept of the televisual social bond. The author's theoretical approach allowed us to understand television from new perspectives. ^{Wolton (1990/1996}) defends the idea that "television plays a role in the daily reaffirmation of bonds that unite citizens in the same community" (p. 135).

For him, television provides the public with the most diverse kinds of content daily. Whether in journalism or entertainment, television has a (unverbalised) contract with the audience (^{Wolton, 1990/1996}). The author outlines that television plays a strong role in our relationships. Through those television contents, we can interconnect via social bond, an invisible and untouchable one.

In this regard, watching television can be understood as a social experience because, according to ^{Wolton (1990/1996}), the audience becomes part of the constitution in a televisual social bond, together with other subjects in certain programming. Therefore, this would be an important criterion to ensure television's existence - its socialising function.

As ^{Wolton (1990/1996}) said:

when watching television, the TV viewer joins this potentially immense anonymous audience that watches simultaneously, thus establishing, like it, a kind of invisible bond. It is a kind of common knowledge, a double bond and a crossed anticipation. "I watch a program and I know that someone else is watching it, and they also know that I am watching it." It is, therefore, a kind of spectacular and silent bond. (p. 124)

However, with the advent of digital media, endless discourses about television's end emerged in the academic context. In the face of the platformization context, given the concept proposed by ^{Wolton (1990/1996}), we came up with a question: would television be losing its socialising function to the detriment of new media cultures?

Several arguments attempt to invalidate ^{Wolton's (1990/1996}) theory by proclaiming that new media support would weaken this socialising television function. The most evident in these discussions are several transmutations that changed, in a certain way, some of the main characteristics of television: real-time transmission, an intrinsic characteristic of television production, was overcome by on-demand transmission; the unidirectional flow moved over to an asynchronous communication model; broadcasting gave over to narrowcasting (^{Scolari, 2014}). In efforts to understand the current moment of television in the Latin American context, authors such as ^{Scolari (2014}), ^{Carlón (2014}), and ^{Fechine (2014}), among others, focus their research on what television is going through in a positive perspective.

^{Carlón (2014}) gives us an initial proposition by defending that: "the television crisis is due to changes in media and discursive devices and social practices of production and discursive reception" (p. 17). The criticism made by ^{Scolari (2014}) focuses on this capacity for misunderstanding the current moment of the media observed by ^{Carlón (2014}). His argument enforces that theoretical perspectives must follow these transformations. The fact is that many of these approaches disregard this current stage of television in contemporaneity. Besides that, part of those studies denies the convergence of new technological supports in opposition to the function of generalist television.

According to ^{Scolari (2014}), these discussions have their foundations in a dichotomous opposition between paleotelevision and neotelevision previously discussed by Umberto ^{Eco (1984}), discussions that seem reduced to a laconic definition of a languished television, and most importantly, its expiry date in a countdown. Therefore, we aim to understand the current television model based on established theoretical contributions.

^{Carlón's (2014}) perspective indicates that, for the most sceptical theorists, television would cease to be television when live transmissions became obsolete to the detriment of recordings. The recorded would not be the result of television but of cinema instead. On the other hand, live-broadcasting television shows would be understood as a universal characteristic of television - a socialising and unifying function. However, for ^{Scolari (2008}, 2014), ^{Fechine (2014}), and other authors, the end of television, based on this argument, would not be enough. Furthermore, it would be necessary to consider the entire media ecosystem to reach the conception in which television has not exhausted itself. In an effort to avoid some prefixes such as the term "post" (post-modernity, post-television), ^{Scolari (2008}) understands that it is necessary to disassemble from the concept of an "outdated television". The author understands that television is not outdated, thus denying the "post-television" label. The "post" prefix indicates a later moment, and according to ^{Scolari (2008}), we do not live in a moment after television.

To deal with this new movement, ^{Scolari (2009}) assigns the term "hypertelevision" to classify the current moment of television, when there is a prioritisation of hypertextual experiences made available by the culture of digitisation, which generates hypermedia experiences. ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy (2007/2009}) also discuss the hypermedia context to understand those interrelationships of supports that exchange and begin to give new meanings to media culture.

For ^{Scolari (2009}), hypertelevision represents "a new type of television consumption characterised by a fragmented, ubiquitous and asynchronous reception: a different program on each device at the same time" (p. 13). In this scenario, the contemporary audience became interdependent on bilateral relations between television companies. The new digital supports ensure autonomy to the audience of this hypermedia culture described by ^{Scolari (2009}). From this perspective, one begins to think of a multiplatform, multidirectional television. ^{Carlón (2014}) argues that,

in our society, people have different tastes and make (because of their identity belonging to different social groups), whenever they can, different choices (this phenomenon is exploding in households where screens multiply and everyone can choose what they want to see). (p . 17)

Of course, these are complex changes in the context of mediations culture. ^{Sgorla (2015}) points out these "changes in media and discursive devices, the social practices of production and reception, and new offers made possible by the digital environment, extending the opportunities for individualised choices" (p. 15).

As discussed by ^{Scolari (2014}), ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}) also sees hypertelevision as a transmedia promise whose viewer becomes a primordial subject in constructing narratives and communication processes disseminated by the media. While in the paleotelevision era, television did not talk about itself, these days, television invites audiences to be part of its programming and its products; that is, we must agree that television, nowadays, transcends the boundaries of traditional theories about what we understand as television.

By way of explanation, we see that engagement on social media plays an important role in this new communicational dynamic discussed by ^{Scolari (2014}). Through new media support devices, the audience shares their perceptions in real-time with others, and it became interdependent on the television communication flow. Television organises itself through participatory culture (^{Jenkins, 2006/2009}).

In this new phase of mass communication, those new productions build a model spectator that demands from a real spectator cognitive and interpretive skills that characterize digital natives. Hypertelevision is speaking to them, a generation raised around interactive digital environments that developed new perceptual and cognitive skills. (^{Scolari, 2014}, p. 49)

Actually, based on this argument, we can observe that television nowadays incorporates the dynamism from relationships created in the digital spheres into its interior, which brings us to the concept of social television (^{Fechine, 2014}). For ^{Fechine (2014}), social television amplifies the spectator voice through social platforms and promote a closer relationship between industries and audience (^{Jenkins, 2006/2009}). In this framework, television production practices in Brazil have constantly changed, and streaming platforms must deal with this new reality regarding television consumption, as we will see further on.

3. Convergence Culture and Hypermedia: Where Is Television Heading?

In the direction of convergence culture studies, we should keep in mind that this concept must not be understood as a way to deal with the transposition of analogue media practices to the digital universe. In fact, convergence results from a mindset in a collective consciousness. For ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}), media convergence refers to how we deal with media supports in our time and, notwithstanding, how they institutionalise us.

We have to understand memory under the aegis of such new phenomena, processes and media practices capable of reconfiguring the way we deal with these technological supports. ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy (2007/2009}) address this new moment in our culture as a society supported by a profusion of screens and media products. We are living in an era of hyper-excess, hyper-consumerism, and above all, in the era of hyper-screens. The exhaustion of devices and technological means heightened television consumption to another level, but that does not mean traditional supports are outdated.

At this point, we observe that ^{Scolari's (2009}) argument approaches ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy's (2007/2009}), particularly when we consider the socio-technological transformations that reconfigure contemporary television. The term "hypertelevision", designated to classify this current moment of television, refers to the moment in which television prioritises hypermedia experiences made possible by the culture of digitisation (^{Scolari, 2009}).

As noted by ^{Scolari (2009}), television or hypertelevision reframes the way consumers of this convergent culture relate to television products. The main characteristic of this new communicational grammar focuses on the transmedia character through a hypertextual aesthetic of television and the language of networks.

In this configuration, television breaks the previously established traditional theoretical barriers to occupy new media spaces in digital and technological environments. Thus, ^{Scolari (2009}) bases his argument on the idea of a hypertextual aesthetic to contextualise this current moment of television, calling attention to the different layers fragmented through screens to captivate the audience. Digital machines can absorb aesthetics and languages; such processes should be understood as hypermediations (^{Scolari, 2008}).

In that way, we observe that hypertelevision modifies the rhythm of the relationships between content producers and audiences in digital spaces. Television itself now creates and encourages television audience participation to become part of the construction of narratives and communication strategies it adopts (^{Finger & de Souza, 2012}). Thus, in these spaces, mutations occur in the production chains, which re-signify media spaces and, above all, new ways of communicating (^{Fechine, 2017}).

To support this thought above, we believe that ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy's (2007/2009}) contributions converge in a promising way with ^{Scolari's (2009}) and other theorists in Latin American television studies. In a dissenting perspective against the more extremist discussions regarding the future of media, ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy (2007/2009}) provide us with denser readings to endorse the idea of hypertelevision in this context of convergence. An idea of television that (still) cannot be dated and invalidated¹.

Approaching the postulations of ^{Scolari (2009}), ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy (2007/2009}) demonstrate the magnetism of technological devices in mediatised environments. From this perspective, we can observe a critique made by the authors as an effort to show that we are not experiencing a decline and the death of communication media. Both authors, however, argue that, in order to seek this understanding, it is essential to adapt theoretical lenses in such a way that we can understand how such resignifications are intrinsic to the human condition.

It is agreed that the relationship between consumers and television is now decentralised, fragmented, and ubiquitous. However, these reconfigurations in television consumption incited by these supports cannot be understood as a decline in the socialising purpose of television, as defended by ^{Wolton (1990/1996}). The central point of ^{Lipovetsky and Serroy's (2007/2009}) criticism focuses precisely on the issue of mass media death, mainly in the movies. Part of the considerations raised by the authors seeks to dissolve a more abstract thought regarding what would be considered the "end of cinema" - which can be extended to other televisiual media. With the arrival of new technological devices, the authors argue that usual practices have been re-signified thanks to media convergence, corroborating the idea defended by ^{Scolari (2009}) and ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}).

The great criticism of authors such as ^{Scolari (2009}), ^{Fechine (2014}, 2017), and others included in this line of research focuses on discourses opposite to convergence in so far as extremist currents of thought place cinema and television on the verge of extermination. It turns out that, according to the authors, these mutations caused by media convergence must be reinterpreted by the cultural industries and mainly by the academic perspective. Above all, we need to understand that there is a new grammar of media communications (^{Lipovetsky & Serroy, 2007/2009}).

Regarding media convergence, ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}) observes that the design of this concept refers to transformations that occur in the form of socialisation between the public and the media, a result of a new modus operandi in the media, which we understand as traditional. However, such a position is not limited to the adaptation trends of languages and aesthetics of the media to the internet.

According to ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}), media convergence comprises macro-structural changes at cultural, social, market, industrial and technological levels. For ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}), it is necessary to pay attention to this thought because media convergence should not be reduced to technological transformations and the arrival of new devices, for example, computers and smartphones. Media convergence must be understood, above all, as a cultural transformation.

^{Jenkins (2006/2009}) starts from the definition of ^{Castells (1996}), who points out that "technology is not only science and machines: it is also social and organisational technology" (p. 5). In this new grammar of media communications, users appropriate and re-appropriate electronic and media devices to create connections, share experiences, and consume media products.

In this context, we observe the authors presenting a clear view of what is considered about the media's future. Users began to organise themselves and regulate their experiences and consumption habits in favour of their own demands based on what the media offers them. Given this situation, ^{Cajazeira and Souza (2020}) postulate that contemporary television has started to organise itself in several ways due to these reconfigurations. For the authors, television

ceases to be seen by its support and starts to be re-signified from this product breakdown into small audiovisual cells according to the use of each user, by their interaction with content in these environments and when conditioning a new form of perception of audiovisual experience and audience. (^{Cajazeira & Souza, 2020}, p. 218)

Therefore, the relationship between audience and media instances becomes more diffuse and decentralised. Participants of this convergence culture modify and restructure the relationships between consumers and content producers (^{Scolari, 2014}). In this way, with these new television flows, changes occur at broader levels that permeate from the construction of the television grid to the products to be offered by broadcasters.

In the face of endless discussions about the end of television, the "emergence of new logics of production and consumption opens a gap in the realm of broadcasting" (^{Scolari, 2014}, p. 44). Therefore, it can be noted that hypertelevision has come to be regulated by an increasingly fragmented dynamism to the extent that broadcasting (general television, segmented television) is gradually replaced by narrowcasting (archive television, decentralised television). Due to the ease of access to this content in digital spaces, generalist television witnesses major transformations in the communication ecosystem and the way viewers consume television. These alterations profoundly affect how media instances begin to relate to their consumers.

^{Cannito (2010}) argues that

technological evolution makes television more television. Instead of turning this media into something obsolete, contributed to its maturing as a language founded on the game the appearance of the video cassette, remote control and cable television, the telephone incorporation, live transmission, dialogue with the internet, etc. (p. 42)

If the television envisaged by ^{Wolton (1990/1996}) plays a central role in strengthening the social bonds that constitute the audience, it seems appropriate to question how this socialising and unifying role of television persists today before these reconfigurations in the media ecosystem.

4. The Globoplay Case and the Phenomenom of Old Soap Operas

Since the beginning of the decade, television studies have carefully discussed the growth of streaming platforms across Brazil. Since then, several platforms have debuted in this scenario, which has increasingly expanded the supply and demand for audiovisual products. Large and consolidated companies in the segment abroad, such as Netflix and Amazon, stimulated other Brazilian companies to invest in it.

In this article, we focus on Globoplay - Grupo Globo's streaming platform.

Launched in 2015, Globoplay begins its operations to meet initially four demands: (a) expand the televisual offer of TV Globo's linear grid through simultaneous transmission (simulcasting); (b) increase the production of original content under Globoplay's seal; (c) act as a repository of productions exhibited along with the linear programming (catch-up); and (d) provide full access to the collection of audiovisual productions of attractions that were successful on the broadcasting station. These last two notably have a bias towards the preservation and sharing of audiovisual content offered by the broadcaster. (^{Santos Neto & Bressan Júnior, 2022}).

In addition to real-time transmissions (simulcasting) of Rede Globo's programming, the service had about 80 old titles, including old soap operas and other television content, which was very successful in the station's programming. Under the "Replay" section, the subscriber has several contents available (soap operas, television series) that can be accessed through a wide variety of devices: smartphones, and smart TVs, among others (^{Globo Play É Lançado; Conheça Nova Plataforma Digital de Vídeos da Globo, 2015}).

Recently, Globoplay has started investing in unreleased soap operas under the seal “originais Globoplay” to make soap operas' watchers consume exclusive productions on the platform. However, among several strategies mobilised by Globoplay to expand its subscriber base, we emphasise the project of recovering old soap operas that compose Grupo Globo's archive.

In this sense, Globoplay arrives at the Brazilian streaming market as a strong media support to recover and make TV Globo and its subsidiaries' productions feasible, especially Brazilian old soap operas, understood as a typical Brazilian cultural product (^{Lopes, 2011}).

In view of the high audience rates with reruns those old soaps on open television, the project to bring old titles back started officially in April 2020 (^{Santos Neto & Bressan Júnior, 2022}). Still active, the project consists of recovering and making public on the platform two old soaps every 15 days.

It is interesting to note that, as highlighted by Erick ^{Bretas (2020})², the process of recovery and digitisation of the broadcaster's archive began at the beginning of the last decade. Within these conditions, we observe how the television past has detached itself from the big cinematographic reels, physical repositories with astronomical proportions, to an increasingly fluid digital technological support. Cloud archive techniques have become a reality; thus, contemporary television witnesses the "musealisation" of its own past (^{Cajazeira & Souza, 2020}).

However, it is known that the platform's interest in these files comes from a marketing intention. In this study, we called for our object of analysis of TV Globo's project to recover soap opera classics. This project materialises in a scenario of great technological transformations that affect television. Efforts in the publication of its old titles aim to retain the attention of the contemporary consumer, a native to technological languages and practices (^{Scolari, 2008}). We must acknowledge that this nostalgia market operated by the platform consequently aims to retain the viewer by appealing to memory. Many authors, as ^{Goulart Ribeiro (2018}) and ^{Holdsworth (2011}), discuss this correlation between nostalgia and its market power in the audiovisual context.

Old soap operas mobilise consumption in multiple directions. Over the years, Grupo Globo of Communication has explored these old titles with spaces dedicated to sharing its products, as highlighted by Viva³ - a pay-television channel. A project developed by ^{Bressan Júnior (2019}) identified that the old soap operas were responsible for increasing television engagement on social networks. By analysing the viewers' perception of the return of Rede Globo's old soap operas on Viva, the author has demonstrated that these old television titles play an important role in the company's marketing strategies. On social networks, people used to comment on the episodes of these soap operas with other people through Twitter, for example. In these spaces occur, as said by ^{Fechine (2017}), what we can call a "social television bond".

Remembrances, curiosities, and so many aspects are evoked through television. From a sociological perspective, ^{Bressan Júnior (2019}) also suggests that the affective memory of these users highlights issues beyond the marketing field. Despite that, the author also noted that even users who did not watch previous editions felt that they were integral members of these groups, which are reconstituted through the social bond on social networks.

As a result of the thesis developed by ^{Bressan Júnior (2019}), data demonstrate that television viewers externalised affective feelings of collective nostalgia when rewatching a television product. There were comments with mentions of certain narratives that structured the plot of the re-exhibition plot. Users remembered the characters, the period in which the soaps were shown, and other forms of remembrance.

Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, we emphasise the existence of a new perspective at the television archive as a media strategy capable of retaining the viewer's attention. As we pointed out, the recovering project of the Globo TV old titles does not seem to have only archival value for cataloguing and preserving these productions. There is an affective potential in the comeback of these products, which seems attractive to the platform.

From this perspective, ^{Bressan Júnior (2019}) highlights that teleaffective memory has an immeasurable value for Grupo Globo and the audience. The user's affective desire to return to the past, and the experiences and feelings evoked by this revisitation, demonstrate the platform's interest in this project of recovering old titles. Even those who have not experienced certain periods and, in this period of media convergence, have the opportunity to return to the past.

According to Globoplay, from the market perspective, the platform is committed to dialogue with young audiences focusing its strategies based on the old titles and, above all, promoting these products in order to reverberate on social networks and influence consumption (^{Bretas, 2020}). As defended by ^{Jenkins (2006/2009}), these consumers are known to be more likely to consume in digital spaces.

In this perspective, ^{Vieira and Murta (2017}) point out that the platform "seeks to attract an audience that is increasingly distant from traditional media that seeks autonomy to connect to audiovisual content in a personalised way, typical of convergent media" (p. 36). The platform's marketing effort to make these productions profitable is also prominent in the broadcaster's media strategies.

5. Globoplay in the Scenario of Transformations in Brazilian Television

^{Jacks et al. (2020}) believe that the COVID-19 pandemic reconfigured part of TV Globo's television schedule by recovering and stimulating the consumption of old soap operas in prime time. During this period, old soap operas offset the TV Globo's programming, given the lack of new productions to air.

When we look at Brazilian television, especially during the first months of COVID-19, the reruns leveraged the broadcaster's audience in order to surpass the ratings when these soap operas were aired for the first time on television. This factor also appears to be related to other aspects, such as the increase of people confined during quarantine. What stands out, above all, is the Brazilian television viewer's fascination for soap operas argued in so many papers (^{Bressan Júnior & Moraes, 2019}).

^{Lemos and Rocha (2022}) argue that the project to rerun old soap operas during the isolation period boosted the growth of platform subscribers. The authors reinforce that "elements linked to affectivity and emotional comfort provided by fiction can be decisive for entertainment consumption choices in times of severe instabilities such as the current period" (^{Lemos & Rocha, 2022}, p. 54).

According to a study by NZN Intelligence (^{Pandemia Influenciou Aumento nas Assinaturas de Streaming, 2022}), the streaming boom in Brazil during the pandemic period is directly related to social isolation. In this perspective, according to data released by Nielsen Research Institute (^{Ingizza, 2020}), the consumption of on-demand content after the start of the pandemic became a habit for about 42.8% of Brazilians and 43.9% consumed at least once a week.

According to Globoplay (^{Guimarães, 2020}), in 2020 alone, there was an increase in its subscriber base estimated at 145% compared to the previous year. Regarding the consumption of soap operas, the platform reports a substantial increase of around 140% compared to the previous year (^{Capuano, 2020}). Part of this growth results from the optimistic scenario regarding the audiovisual streaming segment.

As a comparison regarding streaming consumption in the country, only in 2020, approximately 42.8% of Brazilians watched content via streaming on a daily basis (^{Ingizza, 2020}). In 2022, a survey commissioned by Roku revealed that 75% of Brazilians use streaming platforms daily (^{Doliveira, 2022}).

With television viewers fleeing traditional media to digital devices, the television industries increasingly seek to expand the supply of their productions in the digital sphere. Streaming has achieved a high level in the television industry, which justifies the user's interdependence with the content offered by television. The old soap operas, for example, are now available for consumption at any time. The user only needs an electronic device with an internet connection and, in some cases, a valid subscription plan. Movements like these corroborate the hypertelevision concept encouraged by ^{Scolari (2009}) and reinforce the segment's importance in the country.

Practices of archiving and sharing television audiovisual material provide new ways of accessing the past, a new way of recovering and evoking their affective memories - and this factor proves to be strategic in the face of these reconfigurations of the Brazilian television scenario. In fact, we are experiencing new ways of consuming television.

In the face of the numerous audiovisual products that compose the archive of streaming platforms, it is noted that the public assumes an active autonomy to choose and claim which past(s) it wants to remember.

In the ranking⁴ of the most watched productions by users in the recently mentioned years, two old productions stand out, namely: Tieta (^{Neblina, 2020}) and Mulheres de Areia (Sand Women; ^{Kogut, 2021}). This fact draws our attention because these productions occupied top rankings among all the soap operas available on Globoplay's catalogue. Within this panorama, we observe that, despite the large catalogue of original productions and other products that compose the audiovisual data of Globo productions, old soap operas seem to be the most consumed by users on the platform.

In these specificities, we see that these actions are now organised through the flow of the audience (^{Cajazeira & Souza, 2020}). If before the consumption of these contents was an exclusive decision of Grupo Globo, by regulating its schedule in the broadcasting flow, nowadays the audience recognises the advances of the media supports and how they become useful in their decisions - what, when and how they want to watch.

For ^{Jenkins et al. (2014}), participatory culture plays an essential role in consolidating these media instances. When claiming which pasts they want to relive, these viewers become responsible for maintaining television's livelihood. For this reason, we believe that hypertelevision occupies a primordial position in this current phase of television.

Return to the past provided by the television platformisation allows users to comment with other television viewers, question the attitudes of certain characters, and relive moments and memories of the past, all of that made possible by social television (^{Bressan Júnior, 2019}; ^{Fechine, 2017}). The television archive has proved to be potentially seductive to cultural industries. Thus, retaining the public of this new convergent culture demands precise choices of media and discursive strategies regarding the offer of its products capable of promoting a narrowing between the media and the public.

Effectively, the re-exhibition of televisual products in the television context generates a lower cost to these industries if we consider the higher costs needed to produce a high-quality television product, argues ^{Holdsworth (2011}).

As we noted, the interest in old titles comes from an old demand from the viewers (^{Vaquer, 2019}). Over the past years, the audience has sought new ways to consume the classics of Grupo Globo's soap operas through legal methods or by sharing these products illegally (forums, portable media and, even, via streaming). What we highlight about this movement is that, within the conditions imposed in this current hypertelevision format, it seems comfortable to believe that Globoplay juxtaposes itself to the expectations of this convergent culture.

6. Final Notes

In this article, we propose to discuss aspects related to the context of the decline of television approaching Latin American television studies with other established theories about television. In addition, in this study, we aimed to demonstrate how the television archive in the context of the platformisation of television has driven the growth of Globoplay, Grupo Globo's streaming platform - the largest Brazilian media conglomerate.

As we discussed, the transition from television to digital environments has generated discussions extremely necessary to understand how television nowadays resists (or adapts to) the transformations occasioned by media convergence. Since the beginning of the millennium, with the advent of audiovisual content-sharing practices through portable devices, there has been a certain prediction about the future of mass media in a context marked by technological revolutions at a frenetic pace.

Given the theoretical contributions mobilised in this study, we believe it to be early, or even too risky, to state the extinction of television. In response to ^{Wolton (1990/1996}), regarding the social bond, this study understands that television has not lost its main characteristic - the socialising role. Television has become an extension of itself, rather.

When analysing Globoplay's advance in Brazilian territory, especially during the pandemic period, driven by the return of Grupo Globo's old titles, it is noted how decentralised and ubiquitous the television maintains its characteristics as a socialising device. Social television and participatory culture are elements that now added and reconfigured this current phase of television. Therefore, we may not be witnessing television's decline, but its new essence.

The project of old soap operas' return, in the context of platformisation, accomplishes an old desire of the audience. The platform provides a more individualised consumption experience guided by the logic of narrowcasting. The audience detaches itself from the television flow, from the logic of broadcasting, to compose its own great programming. This does not mean that television has lost some functions. Nevertheless, television still operates this social and invisible bond described by ^{Wolton (1990/1996}). As television consumers, we still share our opinions with others, and this way, we must agree that television continuously sets our everyday life.

Within this context, the article reinforces Globoplay's strength in the Brazilian audiovisual streaming segment, and above all, it indicates the strength of television and the magnitude of television products in the platformisation context. In these specific excerpts, television archives anchored on the effervescence of contemporary nostalgia seem to be an effective strategy for the loyalty of the Brazilian audience. Even so, we emphasise the need to introduce new perspectives for this movement to perceive other interfaces that allow us to understand this current stage of Brazilian television.