A nation rebuilds

In February, two powerful earthquakes killed over 50,000 people and injured a further 100,000 in southern and central Türkiye and northern and western Syria. The earthquakes are estimated to have directly impacted 26 million people across the two countries.

Such huge numbers are difficult to fathom and do little to convey the true tragedy of the natural disaster, which the World Health Organisation called Europe’s worst in 100 years and reduced multiple cities to rubble.

Aftershocks have continued to impact the devastated countries, which are vulnerable to seismic activity due to their proximity to the intersection of three of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust.

While Istanbul sustained no damage this time, there is the feeling among the city’s inhabitants that over the next 10 years it is a matter of when, not if, a quake will hit the Turkish media hub. This would have huge consequences for the country’s TV industry, given Istanbul is where most of its companies are based and its shows are filmed.

“It’s not a rumour, it’s going to happen,” says Ekin Koyuncu, the former executive director of Kanal D International, who now serves as global distribution and partnership director at OGM Universe, the fledgling sales arm of OGM Pictures, which has been behind Turkish dramas such as Chrysalis, Golden Boy and the recently launched Miracle of Love

The country’s TV industry, world famous for its globetrotting melodramas which have captivated

Reeling from the recent devastating earthquakes, Türkiye’s TV industry has its cameras rolling again, while streamers and new international buyers are expanding the scope and reach of its popular dramas. But what impact could a new government have?

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By Nico Franks

audiences across Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), rallied to support the millions of people struggling in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Broadcasters including ATV, Kanal D, Star, Show, TV8, Fox, TRT and Kanal 7 in Türkiye joined forces to present a special live telethon to raise funds, while with production across the country halted, prodcos sent equipment such as generators and lighting as well as clothing to help the rescue efforts.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, cameras in Türkiye kept rolling while lockdowns elsewhere around the world shut down productions, meaning the health crisis gave the country’s TV industry an unexpected lift. Things couldn’t be more different now, with broadcasters’ ad revenues taking a dive as companies chose not to advertise for three weeks during the period of national mourning.

Meanwhile, Koyuncu suggests some viewers may have turned against certain pro-government broadcasters in the weeks following for failing to provide accurate coverage of the government’s inadequate response to the quakes. Instead, they turned to streaming services and social media platforms. Recent weeks have seen trust pick up, she says, “little by little.”

In March, cameras began rolling again and Turkish dramas have returned to the air, with Mustafa Ilbeyli, head of advertising and sales at public broadcaster TRT, saying revenues and ratings have rebounded and “everything is back on track” in terms of filming production schedules.

“We have an election coming up, so a lot of the advertisers want to use up their budgets before the ads in the election campaigns start,” says Ilbeyli, who believes viewers in Türkiye are looking for more light-hearted shows following the disaster.

Miraculously given the circumstances, the pipeline of Turkish drama coming through won’t be severely disrupted by the earthquake, although execs point to perhaps slightly fewer overall hours being produced this year compared with others.

“We will be a little down on our targets in terms of episodes at the

High-volume dramas from Türkiye have become a hugely attractive option for broadcasters looking for longrunning series that consistently pull in good viewing figures in both afternoon and primetime slots.

Handan Özkubat, Eccho Rights end of the season, which I believe won’t affect the international buyers significantly in terms of finished content,” says Robert Zara, chief operating officer at distributor Calinos Entertainment, which shops series

Entertainment, which series such as Adim Farah and Twisted Lives

Zara is also keen to use formats sales to make up for any potential lost revenue, having already seen and MENA, as well as parts of Asia, have provided happy hunting grounds for Turkish distributors ever since the global success of 1001 Nights in the 2000s. One blip came from a blanket ban on Turkish content implemented by linear broadcasters throughout the Middle East amid political tensions between Saudi Arabia and Türkiye between 2018 and 2022.

Calinos shows such as That’s My Life remade in Romania, where it is in its fourth season, as well as Dila, The Bitter Life and Starlust in Latin America.

A popular Star TV series titled Golden Boy, produced by OGM Pictures and distributed by Night Train Media-owned Eccho Rights, broke the deadlock in the Middle East last year, after it was acquired by Middle Eastern media group MBC. The show continues to break down boundaries after it became the first Turkish drama to be licensed by a Finnish broadcast group (MTV Oy) and a commercial broadcaster in Sweden (TV4) in March – a development Turkish execs are united in celebrating. similarities, making it easier for our series to translate into those cultures,” adds Koyuncu.

Golden Boy was the most watched series of 2022 in Turkey and continues to rank as the number one drama series in the country each week, according to Eccho.

Handan puts the sales to to to more 35

Golden Boy one y what Zara calls the telenovela style,

Eccho’s director of Turkish drama Handan Özkubat puts the sales to Finland and Sweden down to the quality of the show, which has been licensed to more than 35 territories worldwide in less than six months since its launch, including Spain (via Atresmedia), Chile (Mega) and Romania (Antena 1/Happy Channel). falls into one of the two very different categories of drama currently being produced in Türkiye, what Zara calls the telenovela style, which would also apply to every show mentioned so far in this piece. They are conservative, produced in high (very high) volumes, aimed at women and older audiences and have plotlines that focus on the key themes of family, love and revenge.

The second category is what Zara calls “western style” (though don’t expect any gunslinging action set on the American frontier). Instead, these are series commissioned by streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon that mirror those they commission elsewhere around the world: big budgets, shorter runs, younger-skewing and with the potential to focus on genres such as sci-fi

Sales of ready-mades remain

Sales of remain the Istanbul-based company’s main source of income, but Zara says format sales are growing and currently account for 20% of sales revenues, having been half that 12 months ago

Traditionally, Lat Am, CEE

The show, which OGM’s Koyuncu describes as a “very traditional melodrama,” tells the story of two sisters, who both fall in love with the same man, and stars Afra Saraoğlu, Mert Ramazan Demir and Çetin

Mert Ramazan Demir and Çetin Tekindor.

“It’s great news, if it works. Nordics have great productions – mostly crime and darker series. In terms of culture, it’s very different from us, unlike Latin America, the Balkans and the Middle East, where there are many

“All this content reflects the power and potential of our production industry,” says Zara, who is backed rm rst in Türkiye to produce for the international streamers with Into the is about a very niche industry, says Zara, who is backed up by OGM’s Koyuncu, whose fi became the first in titles such as Another Self and f Into Deep (Yakamoz S-245) for Netflix.

“Another Self f subject that maybe can’t translate into regular broadcasting on linear. But on nonlinear it’s reaching a younger audience worldwide. For OTT, we can be bolder and try new genres,” Koyuncu says, pointing to Into the Deep, an apocalyptic sci-fi drama – a genre previously unexplored in Türkiye.

But Koyuncu is quick to point out that local broadcasters are also willing to deviate from the tried and tested, as in the case of OGM-produced psychological drama The Red Room, which she says had an “innovative, difficult, non-linear style,” for TV8.

Özkubat believes the two types of show are sitting alongside one another happily enough, with the investment of the streamers helping to develop new talent and grow an ecosystem in a way that is beneficial for local broadcasters. Moreover, it’s the traditional series made by the local broadcasters that continue to sell well abroad, while the streamers grow the reputation of Turkish drama internationally.

To that end, Eccho Rights recently picked up 240 episodes of Endless (Fedakar), a Sürec Film-produced series it licensed to Achla TV in Israel and Happy Channel in Romania ahead of its premiere on Türkiye’s Kanal 7 in March.

“High-volume dramas from Türkiye have become a hugely attractive option for broadcasters looking for long-running series that consistently pull in good viewing figures in both afternoon and primetime slots,” says Özkubat.

Meanwhile, Turkish digital content curation firm Merzigo is set to announce a four-year agreement with Forbidden Fruit producer Medyapim at MipTV in Cannes that will see Merzigo distribute more Turkish content around the world.

Another company looking to do just that at the April market is Blind Duets distributor Global Agency, whose founder and CEO, Izzet Pinto, believes Turkish drama continues to evolve, both on local broadcasters and the streamers.

The TV formats veteran points to Global Agency’s recent drama One Love, which asks what would happen if the son of a conservative family and the daughter of a modern mother fell in love, displaying the conflicts between the conservative and the secular in Türkiye.

“The drama shows the conflicts of two different families, cultural differences and adaptation efforts. It deals openly and courageously with a subject that was never explored before in Türkiye. Its success is increasing every week and I believe that it will get a fantastic response worldwide,” says Pinto, who began Global Agency by focusing on selling formats.

One remake of an iconic Turkish show in the pipeline, according to Pinto, is 1001 Nights in Mexico. Pinto says the fact Türkiye has become a tourist destination for people from

Latin America only goes to highlight the soft power of Turkish drama. This power shows no sign of diminishing, even as some observers claim the country has slid towards the brink of dictatorship over the course of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 20 years in charge.

One development that has put some Turkish companies at odds with the international TV business has been their continued dealings with Russian companies following Russia’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine a year ago. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the Turkish government is yet to impose sanctions on Russia for the conflict.

“Wherever we can go, we want to go with our product, on an economic basis, but also to strengthen ties with any country around the world. We are serving people and people need to be entertained; it’s not about politics or government relations,” says TRT’s Ilbeyli.

With parliamentary and presidential elections coming up in May, things could be about to change in Türkiye, with opposition parties uniting to try to oust the long-serving leader, whose media regulator fined broadcasters for coverage that was critical of the government’s earthquake response. Many in the Turkish media industry are optimistic a change in government will come, although contributors to this piece were divided when it came to predicting how it might affect their work.

For some, a new government could allow producers greater scope to deal with different topics. “The Turkish TV authority keeps a strict eye on the dramas. If they don’t like the topic or a specific scene, they will fine the channels, so there is censorship. Production companies and channels find a way to make shows a bit more conservative and family-orientated. I hope in the future they will be more flexible. The more flexible they are, the better the script is,” says one Turkish distributor.

Another believes that should Erdoğan go, the executive teams at broadcasters such as TRT, Kanal D and ATV will likely change.

What all of Türkiye’s TV industry can agree on, however, is that no government, old or new, would want to risk killing the golden goose that is the Turkish drama industry – a key economic driver as the country looks to rebuild from the devastating events of February 2023.