Turkish Drama Executives Explore Business in Latin America

Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari, editor of TV Latina, moderated a panel at Content Americas where Turkish media executives discussed programming trends, new business models and opportunities for new partnerships and co-productions in Latin America.

The session began with Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, Josiah Meigs distinguished teaching professor at the University of Georgia, delivering a presentation focused on the reasons why international audiences, especially in Latin America, engage with Turkish content, current productions in Turkey and opportunities for forging alliances.

Bowen-Tombari then asked the executives about their companies’ experiences after ten years since Turkish dramas entered the Latin American market.

“Our company was formed five years ago by experienced individuals in Turkish media,” said Erdem Seçkin, CEO of OGM Pictures. “The advantage of the company is having creators in leadership, which is a great strength for us. We have done exceptional work in these five years, creating nine Turkish dramas, all of which were ratings leaders, and 19 dramas for streaming platforms, which have been very successful.”

He added, “However, when we produce a show, unfortunately, the financial result is negative, so we cannot survive if we only sell in Turkish territories. Our main drive is to sell outside the Turkish territory, bridge the gap and become profitable by selling in other markets. Our flagship drama or the most successful one has been sold to 70 countries, and Latin America is one of the major markets for us, so we design our dramas with that region in mind. Of course, we deal with international markets and are not limited. Even if a production is not successful in Turkey, there is a possibility of success internationally.”

Kerim Emrah Turna, managing director of MediaHub, commented on their early experiences in introducing Turkish content to Latin America. “The journey began ten years ago. In January 2014, I found out that we signed two contracts in Chile, one with Mega and another with Canal 13. This story didn’t start exactly at that time because we wanted to distribute our series in Latin America long before, and we put in a lot of effort and time before that success. We worked hard, and it wasn’t easy to convince buyers and industry leaders in Latin America because obviously, in those times, almost no one had an idea about Turkish content.”

For Turna, Latin America has become “very important to us. But now I believe that as distributors of Turkish dramas, we have a great balance worldwide. And this gave me the courage to leave the corporate world and establish my own company. My journey in media started almost three years ago. It’s a fairly young company, but because Turkish content is distributed very well in international markets, that really gave me the courage to embark on and to start producing our own content without having to depend on conventional Turkish television.”

Meanwhile, Turkish streaming platform BluTV was recently acquired by Warner Bros. Discovery. Bowen-Tombari asked Deniz Sasmaz Oflaz, CEO of BluTV, about the synergies between the companies and the strategy behind original productions.

“They invested 35 percent before the pandemic started, three years ago,” she said. “Discussions began before Covid, and basically, during the three years, they observed our strategy and efficiency in what we were doing. However, it has been eight years since we founded BluTV and launched our first original productions in 2017. Editorially and strategically, we have experienced constant growth, although it was a challenge at the beginning because we were the first global SVOD platform in Turkey. There were two main challenges. Firstly, the large amount of free content available. Therefore, we had to differentiate ourselves with what we produced because even though the content could be very good, it wouldn’t necessarily attract subscribers. We used our Turkish way of storytelling but in a more innovative way, building fan communities, because when you create fans, you attract more subscribers.”

Jimmy Arteaga, the recently appointed CCO of Hemisphere Media Group, spoke about his experience working with Turkish content from the broadcaster’s perspective.

“Our journey with Turkish dramas began in 2016,” he noted. “It was a long and very amusing story. And we don’t have time to tell the whole story because you would never believe what happened. The truth is that novels, dramas and soap operas, however you prefer to call them, are as old as human existence. The first novel we had was that of Adam and Eve. There was betrayal, temptation and, ultimately, they were expelled by God.”

He continued, “What happened with Turkey? It took me two years to study it with my team. Why were Turkish dramas not a necessary reference for some Latin American markets at that time? Chile has a high level of local production but is not necessarily exported due to language, among other things. However, they have excellent scriptwriting, which was later used by different channels in various parts of the world. And we began to study what was happening with Turkish dramas and why these dramas were able to cross over to this side of the world. The first point we identified was that they are exactly between what I would call the West and the East because they have the best of both worlds.”

The conversation then touched on the topic of co-productions. OGM Pictures’ Seçkin commented: “Yes, we are open to co-productions, but we must find our missing part. So far, if we look at examples done in Turkish territory, we can see that co-production is based on co-financing, where one party simply funds the project and the production is carried out by the other party. They do not participate together in the creative or execution of the project.”

Oflaz from BluTV emphasized the platform’s need to differentiate itself with content offerings due to the volume already available in the market. “We had to differentiate ourselves. We had no other choice, otherwise, it would be easy for someone to sit in front of the TV and switch from one channel to another. The format is shorter. Even the pace of the content is an indication of how we can change it. Our first goal was to reach the audience that consumed content on pirate sites in Turkey. They were accustomed to this storytelling style, and we tried to blend it with Turkish culture through narration.”