That's "edutainment".

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Did you notice the formula for compound interest snuck into the latest episode of Desperate Housewives?

It hasn't quite come to that--yet. However, U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral has suggested that TV soap operas be used as a financial education vehicle,

A bank is involved in the production, but the producer, a community group with a media production affiliate, is not yet at liberty to name the institution.

Equally, Chevy Chase Bank in Bethesda, Md., declines to disclose details of its "edutainment" plans for the burgeoning Hispanic community in the greater D.C. area.

The bank does say that it will host a show of sorts, a presentation involving some theatricality-something intrinsically entertaining even without the valuable life-skills education it contains, says Enrique Carrillo, director of Hispanic banking. This will complement the bank's big push towards serving customers in Spanish.

"We're making an investment in this bi-lingual community," says Carrillo. The workshops Chevy Chase will offer will have "a novella or soap-opera-ish flavor," he says. "It's 'out-of-the-box' thinking, especially for a bank our size."

Dilsey Davis, who produced "Nuestro Barrio" with Freddie Mac's help, says, "Many of the viewers have no interest in finance. That's the thing, they become interested. They don't feel they are being talked to; they find themselves in the characters. It's more effective than a brochure." Formal research confirmed this and that the series--whose run was extended--was considered intrinsically interesting by viewers.

Davis, director of media advocacy for The Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, says, "The most significant change was that those who had seen 'Nuestro Barrio' were more trusting of banks than those who had not."

She adds that edutainment "is great for people who are unable to read [English]". However, Nuestro Barrio's appreciative audience also spanned those with their own businesses.

The Treasury's media representative did not respond by press time to requests for elaboration on the Treasurer's late 2007 call for financial edutainment TV shows and iPod-casts, so it is unknown if the Treasury has any plans of its own.

Freddie Mac spokeswoman Patti Boerger says of the hit show, viewed by 25 million people, "It was a new take on home-buyer education."

"Some lenders now use it [screenings or complementary DVDs] as part of their community outreach," she says. The government-sponsored enterprise was also pleased that Nuestro Barrio proved prescient.

The series was commissioned in 2004 before the recent flood of subprime foreclosures. When it aired in 2006 and 2007, treating themes like predatory lending and effectively reacting to mortgage rate-hikes, says Boerger, "it proved even more relevant" than envisioned.

By Orla O'Sullivan, contributing editor