Ibrahim Sahin

April 2008

Earlier this year, regulators in Turkey announced plans to raise the cap on foreign ownership in media outlets. This means more competition for the public broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), which operates four national TV channels—TRT1, with general entertainment; TRT2, covering news, arts, documentaries and culture; TRT3, featuring sports and parliamentary broadcasts; and TRT4, with educational content and Turkish music—as well as TRT International, a service for Turkish viewers around the world. In this exclusive interview, Ibrahim Sahin, the newly elected director general, tells TV Europe about his strategy for taking TRT into the digital era.

TV EUROPE: TRT has been through a difficult period, with the director-general position vacant for the past two years. What are your plans for the organization?

SAHIN: My primary objective is to ensure that TRT continues to be a leading Turkish broadcaster in the future. One priority is to attract more viewers and to improve our advertising [sales]. In this area, we lost some ground in recent years due to strong competition from commercial broadcasters. We will comprehensively update our programming schedule, analyzing the positioning of each of our channels for the benefit of consumers, with the objective of fulfilling our public-service commitments. While we are successful in many areas, including sports broadcasting, documentaries, family edutainment and news, we need to improve our quality and ratings in other areas. We plan to continue to transform TRT into a modern media institution so as to embrace a digital future.

TV EUROPE: What challenges do you face?

SAHIN: I see some structural problems that need to be addressed. The key problem is an overly bureaucratic management and a vertical, hierarchical structure. Although we are not a profit-oriented organization, we require a leaner and more efficient structure; I am convinced that a more streamlined structure will aid us in fulfilling our obligations. Internal reorganization is a necessary step. We also need to attract production and advertising professionals. Moreover, we plan to reconfigure our technological infrastructure, in order to convert from analogue to digital and to implement high-definition television.

TV EUROPE: News Corporation has become active in the Turkish market. Why do you think Turkey has become more attractive to international players?

SAHIN: The Turkish economy is the largest emerging market economy in Europe, with a gross domestic product of $390 billion for 2006. Turkey is referred to as “the Anatolian tiger,” due to the annual economic growth rate of 7.5 percent. The demographic structure is also attractive, with a large, young population of 75 million and strong growth. Turkish advertising spending increased at a rate of 20 percent per year from 2001 to 2006, to a level of $2 billion; the advertising market grew three to four times faster than the overall economy during this time period.

Because of rising advertising revenues, competition in the Turkish media sector is also increasing: Altogether there are now 260 television channels—53 of them broadcasting by cable—most of which operate at a local level. Foreign investors are interested in acquisitions in order to gain a quick entry into this expanding market.

TV EUROPE: Will TRT be launching any new channels?

SAHIN: We are planning to launch a new 24-hour sports channel. This is logical step, since TRT already has comprehensive, diversified sports rights; we feel there is a market demand for a free-to-air sports channel. We will also increase our efforts to acquire top domestic and international sports rights, focusing particularly on soccer, the most popular sport in Turkey. We want to establish a new children’s service. Another aim is [to use] TRT International [which I would like to rebrand as] TRT World, as a 24-hour news channel, like a BBC World or CNN International.

TV EUROPE: Why have you made launching a kids’ service a priority?

SAHIN: In Turkey, two-thirds of the population is under 35 years of age, with a high birth rate. In addition to acquiring content, we believe that co-production of children’s programming with strong international partners will assist us in strengthening our portfolio and maintaining our leading position in the children’s sector. We recently signed a co-production agreement to produce the puppet series Big & Small in collaboration with BBC, YTV and Studio100. TRT will assess models for the co-production and co-financing of animation series, based on Turkish folklore characters, for example.

TV EUROPE: What are your plans for new media?

SAHIN: The Internet is the fastest-growing media segment in Turkey and in the other European countries. As of the end of 2007, Turkey had 16 million Internet users, which means that 21.1 percent of the total population has Internet access. Of these users, more than 3 million have a broadband Internet connection. Many Internet portals have been established in Turkey, with significant traffic, and foreign investors have also made sizable acquisitions in this segment. Our broadcasting strategy must adapt to this quickly changing usage pattern. In order to meet this challenge, we will initiate a working group to design a new-media strategy for TRT.

I am a member of the board of Turkish Telecom. We have very good projects for IPTV with Turkish Telecom, so you can watch TRT1, TRT2, TRT3 and TRT International [on broadband]. But it is only real-time television. We have more than 90,000 hours archived. If we make [this available on] digital platforms, we can get money from our archives.