Inter Medya Special Report MIPCOM/OCTOBER 2022

Can Okan (Left), Ahmet Ziyalar (Right)

WS: Tell us about how Inter Medya began.

OKAN: In my youth, I worked in our family com pany Fono Film at various levels for a long time, and I was actively involved in almost every level of film distribution and postproduction. In this way, I can say that I grew up in our industry. Inter Medya started out as a film distribution company serving the Turkish film industry solely within the domestic market. In its first ten years, its basic market structure remained more or less the same, but soon found itself operating both inbound and outbound. Starting from 1999, we expanded to Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and Asian countries, extending our field of distribution to include these markets and enriching the product range. In addition to the geography above, Inter Medya has started distributing Turk ish TV series and movies across the globe and has become an important content provider and distribution company worldwide.

WS: What have been the company’s major mile stones in the last 30 years?

OKAN: From 2007, Turkish TV series and feature films started to draw broad interest from all

Can Okan & Ahmet Ziyalar DECADES OF SUCCESS

n the three decades since its founding, Inter Medya has evolved into being more than just a provider of high-quality, ratings-winning drama series. While that remains a key part of the com pany’s business, Inter Medya has steadily expanded into other areas, including format development and sales and pioneering a new form of shorter-run, more innovative scripted productions for OTT plat forms. As Inter Medya marks its 30th anniversary, Can Okan, founder and CEO, and Ahmet Ziyalar, president and COO, discuss the secrets to the com pany’s success and chart what’s still come.

these markets, as well as the Middle East and North Africa. With solid market demands, both local and international, and accompanied by strong governmental support, the Turkish film industry and TV content production business developed more and gained further stature. In 2016, Inter Medya started to develop and pro duce entertainment, reality and game-show for mats by bringing together a creative team. In 2019, Inter Medya launched its own production department. In 2021, Inter Medya took a bigger step and invested in Inter Yapım, a sister company

dedicated to producing both scripted and nonscripted content. Within this frame, Inter Medya became an international company distributing content in over 150 countries and pursued its

vision and working discipline, provides a sus tainable, dependable and customer-oriented service based on the foundations of trust. While different political and economic prob lems appear all over the world, Inter Medya is still positioned as a bridge to many industrial transactions thanks to its geo graphical and political position.

WS: How are you positioning the company in the crowded land scape today?

journey as a producer as well as an interna tional distributor.

WS: Ahmet, how did you come to be part of Inter Medya?

ZIYALAR: After working as a professional manager in different companies for years, I joined Inter Medya in 2010 and became a business partner and dream partner with my best friend, Can Okan.

WS: What have been the most gratifying successes for you in the company’s three decades?

ZIYALAR: We see every experience of Inter Medya in its 30-year jour ney as a success and an achieve ment. Every experience made us stronger and braver. Finally, our biggest step was to invest in our pro duction company Inter Yapım with the encouragement of Inter Medya’s global vision and experience.

WS: How do you want your clients and partners to see Inter Medya?

ZIYALAR: Celebrating its 30th anniversary today, Inter Medya is a company that makes great contributions to the coun try’s economy through selling content and training young and inexperienced people in the film and TV series industries. Even more than a company, we position Inter Medya as an école . Inter Medya, which has a global

OKAN: Inter Medya is a company that has a multinational team and a global vision due to doing busi ness worldwide, which is growing day by day. We have very strong business relationships that we have been developing for years. We believe that our difference is to be solutionoriented, to provide transparent service and to provide a mutually beneficial business. We attach great importance to strong and sincere relations both in our internal team and in our relations with third parties.

WS: What are your goals and expectations for Inter Medya in the next year?

OKAN: Inter Medya is a company that grows and develops every day. Of course, our first goal is always to increase the number of countries that Turkish content reaches. At the same time, tak ing an active role in co-producing projects with different countries is one of Inter Medya’s pri mary goals.

“We believe that our difference is to be solutionoriented, to provide transparent service and to provide a mutually beneficial business.”

—Can Okan

“Inter Medya, which has a global vision and working discipline, provides a sustainable, dependable and customer-oriented service based on the foundations of trust.”

—Ahmet Ziyalar

30 YEARS OF INTER MEDYA

1992 Can Okan establishes Inter Medya as a distribution company selling North American feature films to Turkish television channels.

1994 The number of feature films distributed by Inter Medya exceeds 1,200.

1999 Inter Medya expands its operations to Central and Eastern Europe, including the theatrical distribution of fea ture films in Romania and Bulgaria.

2000 The company expands its operations to CIS.

2003 The slate of content distributed by Inter Medya reaches over 5,000 hours in the countries where it operates.

2008 Inter Medya signs its first worldwide distribution agreements with several successful Turkish production houses, including Avşar Film and TMC.

2009 Inter Medya becomes the exclusive distributor for audiovisual content produced by Focus Film, which special izes in daily TV dramas.

2010 The company becomes the exclusive worldwide con tent representative of free-to-air channel operator FOX Networks Group Turkey.

2011 Ahmet Ziyalar joins the Inter Medya team as a partner and COO. Inter Medya expands its catalog through an exclu sive agreement with Ay Yapım for Red Scarf. The company extends its content catalog with a string of acclaimed shows.

2014 Inter Medya licenses Turkish drama series to Spanishspeaking TV channels in the U.S. and 21 South American countries.

2015 Inter Medya builds an internal creative team to develop and present game shows, reality TV and adventure formats for national and international television networks.

2016 The company’s creative team develops and pro duces the competition quiz format Fifty Fifty for ATV. It signs a distribution agreement for its formats with Grupo Secuoya, a leading Spanish media company.

2017 In its 25th year, Inter Medya renews its corporate identity and logo. The company’s global sales reach around 50,000 hours of content. Inter Medya moves to its new office in one of the most modern buildings in Istanbul.

2018 Inter Medya’s creative team develops the reality dating show format The Perfect Couple with DMomento Producciones in Colombia. The company also signs a distribution agreement with Acun Medya and starts to represent the licensing rights of Exathlon . Inter Medya signs its first distribution agreement with TIMS&B Productions.

2019 Inter Medya expands its operations to series produc tion by producing a new season of Behzat Ç. for BluTV, the first Turkish SVOD platform.

2020 The production department produces Respect for BluTV. Inter Medya takes over the international distribution rights of The Ambassador’s Daughter, produced by O3 Medya. The company also extends its catalog by adding the representation rights of every upcoming series produced by TIMS&B Productions.

2021 Inter Medya establishes a new production company, Inter Yapım. The company also produces the second season of Respect and distributes it on BluTV. With the creators of the format, Inter Medya produces the reality dating show format El Poder del Amor Latin America

2022 In its 30th anniversary, Inter Medya reveals it is expanding its business with a newly designed office. Inter Medya’s catalog grows to 12,000 hours of content and over 400 feature films from various genres.

MEET THE

Beatriz Cea Okan

VP & Head, Sales & Acquisitions

“Inter Medya is a company with a global vision, constantly improving itself and aiming to move forward. It distributes Turkish content in more than 150 coun tries, with the awareness and responsibility of carrying the stories produced from its land to other cultures. We love spreading our vision to everyone we work with.”

Team Member Since 2010

Nesrin Eyüpoğlu

Marketing & PR Executive

“Diversity, passion and style best describe Inter Medya. A pioneering company, Inter Medya has a diverse, multicultural and multinational workplace with world-class experts. Passion is at the heart of Inter Medya’s identity. It’s an instinct that fuels commitment and sparks excellence, and style is our mindset.”

Team Member Since 2016

Hasret Özcan

VP & Head, Legal & Business Affairs

“The feeling of being part of a growing fam ily is a great encouragement. I believe such enthusiasm goes across to our partners and clients. I would love for them to feel that we are always here for them 24/7 to support them personally and profession ally and enable them to feel that they are part of the family.”

Team Member Since 2016

Elena Pak Sales Executive

“The people are what I value the most in Inter Medya. It is a team of professionals with a great desire to build the company’s corpo rate image by producing high standards in the work environment. I’ve been allowed to grow with the company, spread amazing content, know more people worldwide and build long-term relationships with them.”

Team Member Since 2013

İrem Küçükkutlu

Marketing & PR Executive

“Inter Medya provides 100 percent service to its customers and business partners. The Inter Medya marketing team looks at each content as a separate world and decides the strategy and how we will use analytical and creative processes to convey that world to our customers.”

Team Member Since 2019

Neşet Ersoy

Sales Support Executive

“My department can be challenging at times because of the demands of our cus tomers—you can say it’s a battle against the clock. Our speed is the key. We want our clients to receive the content they bought as soon as possible.”

Team Member Since 2021

TEAM

Pelin Koray Sales Executive

“I love the transparent and trustworthy environment that Inter Medya provides to us; it is great to feel not only as an employee but as a part of a growing family.”

Team Member Since 2015

Sinem Alışkan Sales Executive

“Inter Medya understands the needs of its employees as much as its customers and can meet them in the best way possible. It provides a friendly and supportive environ ment that always increases our opportuni ties to improve ourselves, and I am happy to be a part of a family that grows every day.”

Team Member Since 2018

Melissa Şimşek

Sales Support Executive

“Inter Medya is my home away from home. I adore the people I work with. It’s a huge blessing to be a part of a team that feels like family. We are genuinely respected and cared for and continuously encouraged to grow personally and professionally. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to work.”

Team Member Since 2019

Erdem Atalmış

Legal & Business Affairs Executive

“We have been successful at implementing never-before-seen, innovative business models in this sector in multiple countries around the world. As a young lawyer, it has been a tremendous opportunity to observe and actively participate in the systems, processes and company culture that enable this kind of innovation.”

Team Member Since 2020

Tutku Tüzüner

Business Development & Research Executive

“I am very grateful to have the opportunity to work in a multilingual and multinational workspace with open-minded and enthu siastic people who present space for per sonal growth in my career.”

Team Member Since 2022

Gizem Gırlangıç Team Assistant

“Inter Medya is my second home. Our man agers and employees accept us as we are, respect all thoughts and ideas and allow us to work peacefully.”

Team Member Since 2016

CREATIVE UNIONS

Ayar on what their alliances with Inter Medya have meant for bringing their shows to a global audience.

Inter Medya represents sev eral shows from leading pro duction outfit TIMS&B, led by CEO Burak Sağyaşar and Chairman Timur Savcı, including The Trusted and Bitter Lands . “We’ve had a great ride with Inter Medya so far, especially with the wide and far distribution of our successful drama Bitter Lands,” Sağyaşar says. “They can bring their vast experience and deep-rooted connections to the table, which furthers the journey of the titles they carry. We enjoy meticulously craft ing the strategy of each product together according to its con tent and the target audiences it caters to.” Savcı, reflecting on seeing his company’s shows airing in markets across the globe, adds, “As one of the leading exporters in the Turkish drama scene, we are fortunate to have been witnessing the prolific journeys of our dra mas worldwide. Working with Inter Medya, we have been able to dive deeper into the LatAm market, which we find gratifying. We also look forward to building on our relationship and entering many uncharted new territo ries for Turkish dramas.”

Inter Medya recently expanded its alliance with BKM, taking on the rights to the series Another Chance , which joins hits like Ramo on the distributor’s slate. “As everybody knows, Turkish TV serials are rocking around the world,” says Zümrüt Arol Bekçe, CEO of BKM. “We thank Inter Medya for putting the same effort into making the films as successful as the serials,” Bekçe adds, noting that it’s been “hugely gratifying” for her to see her company’s shows res onate with audiences outside of Turkey.

O3 Medya has a “classic dis tributor-producer rela tionship” with Inter Medya, according to Saner Ayar, the company’s managing part ner. “We can actually call it a partnership,” Ayar says. “We share the casts and scripts with them and ask for their opinion. This is how we hear about the ideas and expectations of viewers around the world regarding the show. Actually, we ask Inter Medya to act more like an executive producer rather than a distributor.” Ayar adds that O3 Medya, producer of hits like Last Summer , has been thrilled to see its content exported outside of Turkey to markets such as Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. “The fact that our shows are liked in these regions shows that our big world has gotten smaller, and the world unites in what it likes. Thanks to shows and content, the world has gotten smaller.”

Inter Medya has fostered strong ties with several of Turkey’s leading producers. We hear from TIMS&B’s Burak Sağyaşar and Timur Savcı, BKM’s Zümrüt Arol Bekçe and O3 Medya’s Saner

Burak Sağyaşar

Timur Savcı

Zümrüt Arol Bekçe

Saner Ayar

Ahmet Ziyalar & Sarp Kalfaoğlu Inter Yapım

As part of its strategy for expanding into all sectors of the IP value chain, Inter Medya invested in Inter Yapım last year, which now serves as a develop ment and production division that builds on Inter Medya’s strong heritage in the distribution segment and targets the growing interest in series produced for dig ital platforms. Ahmet Ziyalar, CEO of Inter Yapım, and Sarp Kalfaoğlu, general manager, talk about their ambitions for the production business of Inter Yapım.

Sarp Kalfaoğlu (Left), Ahmet Ziyalar (Right)

WS: Tell us about how you’re positioning Inter Yapım. KALFAOĞLU: Inter Yapım is a brand-new production house backed by the most established and powerful distribution company in Turkey: Inter Medya. ZIYALAR: Inter Yapım doesn’t intend to produce content for the main streamers in Turkey—only for existing and newly emerging local and international digital platforms.

expe rience and global vision have also been an encourag ing factor for us.

WS: What does the introduction of this new sister com pany mean for Inter Medya?

ZIYALAR: Inter Medya will continue to do its job from where it left off by expanding its catalog. As always, it will continue to extend its worldwide reach and contribution to the Turkish TV series and film indus try by distributing Turkish TV series and movies.

WS: What do you want your cur rent and new clients and partners to know about Inter Yapım?

In Turkey, many successful producers make TV series for mainstream channels and do their job wonderfully. Inter Yapım aims to accomplish what has not been done before in Turkey, which is bringing bold, edgy and brave stories to life with productions that we call “New Generation Turkish Series.” We are also open and looking for co-productions with foreign production companies for bigger-scale projects.

WS: What led to the launch of this business? KALFAOĞLU: Turkey is well-known for its passion and competence in content creation. While our shows travel the world, our way of storytelling is also influencing talents from all around the world. Along with the global giants (such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+) launch ing their services in Turkey, there is also an invasion of new-age, local OTT players appearing in the market. This creates a need for more niche, buzzworthy, diverse and global content. But also, this dynamism creates con gestion. So, Inter Yapım, thanks to its sister company Inter Medya, also plans to offer a new production model that would benefit every player in the market. ZIYALAR: After its first productions, the positive feedback encouraged Inter Medya to invest in a production com pany to make wider strides in the production field. We realized that there will always be a shortage in the supply of high-quality content for the streamers, especially in Turkey. Producing content for digital platforms seemed like an opportunity for us. Inter Medya’s 30 years of

KALFAOĞLU: In ter Yapım was founded for a specific reason—not just to be another Turkish produc tion company. We have the ambi tion to tell buzzworthy stories with a business model that proposes a new execution manner. Most importantly, we know where the market is being squeezed. We are very much aware that our Turkish way of creating con tent is unique and valuable but sometimes struggles against global and corporate standards. We have a talented and expe rienced team. From our current and former experiences, we know where these gaps are and how to fill them.

WS: How are you positioning this business in the 12 to 18 months ahead?

KALFAOĞLU: Our market is much more vivid than ever. Digitali zation means quick answers to needs. The conventional con ception of TV is changing. SVOD platforms are in a so-called war, and even the most rooted ones have begun reviewing their business models. This will create new requirements, which will impact the audience and storytelling. Today, scripted shows don’t compete with each other but with TikTok and YouTube’s jump-cut content. Keeping in mind the luxury of the “slowburn” approach, without forgetting what we as Turks already do very well and have to offer to the world, Inter Yapım is prepar ing itself for this future, which is on the doorstep already.

“Inter Yapım aims to accomplish what has not been done before in Turkey, which is bringing bold, edgy and brave stories to life with productions that we call ‘New Generation Turkish Series.’

—Ahmet Ziyalar

“We have the ambition to tell buzzworthy stories with a business model that proposes a new execution manner.”

—Sarp Kalfaoğlu

FROM TO THE

Deeply rooted in the Turkish con tent ecosystem, Inter Medya has helped lead the transformation of the country from a prolific importer of foreign fare to one that is bringing its high-quality, compelling stories to markets across the globe. Indeed, Inter Medya’s own 30-year growth story speaks to how Turkey has evolved its positioning in the global content landscape.

Can Okan founded Inter Medya in 1992 to serv ice the content needs of local television channels, distributing a portfolio of feature films to

broad casters. That business continued to grow, with the venture representing some 1,200 titles, including blockbusters like The Silence of the Lambs and RoboCop, by 1994. On the heels of the success of that model, Okan expanded the business to Central and Eastern Europe in 1999, even taking on theatrical distribution of feature films in Roma nia and Bulgaria, before setting up a trade with CIS countries a year later. By 2003, Inter Medya was distributing some 5,000 hours in its footprint.

Eyeing further growth, Inter Medya entered the fast-developing television drama space, aligning with Avşar Film and TMC and quickly finding

Inter Medya’s 30-year journey from feature film distributor to a leading developer, producer and distributor of series, scripted and non-scripted, reflects Turkey’s own evolution as a content powerhouse.

success with 1001 Nights , which would be among the first Turkish series to make a real impact outside of its home mar ket. In 2009, Inter Medya became the exclusive distributor of content from Focus Film, a specialist in daily dramas, and by 2010 was representing shows from the successful free-to-air channel FOX.

A significant expansion of the Inter Medya slate occurred in 2011 when the company aligned with Ay Yapım for Red Scarf and later picked up the rights to a wave of shows that would go on to be significant hits outside of the country. These included 20 Minutes and Black Money Love. Latin America emerged as a huge opportunity, with Inter Medya licensing drama series to U.S. Hispanic broadcasters and outlets in 20-plus South Amer ican countries in 2014. By the time Inter Medya marked its 25th anniversary in 2017 with a new corporate identity and office space, it had notched up the sales of some 50,000 hours of content worldwide to a wealth of clients, including Netflix, which that year acquired 700 hours of content from the distrib utor. Inter Medya also broke new ground when Endless Love was named best telenovela at the International Emmy Awards in 2017. With its scripted success, Inter Medya furthered its ties with Turkey’s leading producers, beginning its relationships with TIMS&B Productions on the series Bitter Lands and O3 Medya on The Ambassador’s Daughter; those alliances con tinue to this day. Inter Medya also began eyeing opportunities with the OTT platforms proliferating in Turkey, producing Behzat Ç. for BluTV, the first Turkish SVOD platform. It fol lowed that up with Respect for BluTV. Inspired by those suc cesses, in 2021, Inter Medya invested in Inter Yapım to drive the development and production of “New Generation Turkish Series” for OTT platforms, generating a portfolio of shorter-run miniseries that could also be taken out to the global market, particularly to territories that have generally shied away from the novela-style dramas that Turkey has historically been known for.

As its scripted business grew, Inter Medya began pursuing other opportunities, in 2015 building a team to develop game shows, reality TV and adventure formats that could be adapted by local and international broadcasters. ATV, for example, boarded the quiz format Fifty Fifty in 2016, the same year Inter Medya scored a format distribution agreement with Spain’s Grupo Secuoya. The non-scripted business has continued to grow for Inter Medya, including the company aligning with the Colombian production outfit DMomento Producciones for the reality dating show format The Perfect Couple and Acun Medya for Exathlon. Last year, Inter Medya worked on the reality dating show format El Poder del Amor Latin America, bringing 11 Latin American countries together in the same program.

As it marks its landmark 30th anniversary, Inter Medya remains in growth mode, recently expanding its office space to accommodate its growing team. As of this year, it boasts a catalog of 12,000 hours of TV content and 400-plus feature films, with ten miniseries and ten movies in development or preproduction. Over its history, Inter Medya has sold content to more than 150 territories.

Over the course of its 30 years in business, Inter Medya has assembled ties with many of Turkey’s leading producers, including TIMS&B Productions, BKM and O3 Medya, and has also expanded into the production of its own content, focused on “New Generation Turkish Series.”