{"id":7467,"date":"2017-03-23T13:46:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T17:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/turkish-flourish\/"},"modified":"2017-03-23T13:48:04","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T17:48:04","slug":"turkish-flourish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/turkish-flourish\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Flourish"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TurkishDrama-MIPTVFeature-417\"Mansha Daswani checks in with leading Turkish drama distributors about how they are sustaining the genre\u2019s moment in the spotlight.<\/em><\/p>\n

The last few years have certainly been challenging times for Turkey. Amid slowing economic growth, political unrest, security concerns and an attempted coup, tourism took a hit last year. However, the dizi<\/em> industry\u2014the prolific drama production sector\u2014continues to fire on all cylinders, with scripted series airing daily on all of the main networks. Distributors, meanwhile, are stepping up their efforts to keep the Turkish wave going, penetrating new territories, selling format rights and finding innovative ways to edit and market their shows in an ever more crowded business. It has, after all, been a very long road to international success.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all started with G\u00fcm\u00fc\u015f<\/em> in 2006,\u201d says \u00d6zge Bulut Mara\u015fli, the executive VP of international and corporate strategy at Do\u011fan TV Holding, the parent company of Turkey\u2019s leading broadcast group, Kanal D. That was the show that pan-Arab broadcaster MBC licensed, aired as Noor <\/em>and sparked a viewing phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first there was no demand, and we created the demand,\u201d Bulut Mara\u015fli says. \u201cIn the \u201990s we were watching telenovelas in Turkey, but now Latin Americans watch Turkish dramas. They give Turkish names to their children from our drama characters. In the MENA region, women take our characters as role models and they change their lives for good. These things make us happy. Now when we launch a new drama, broadcasters come to us and demand it before we air it on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

PIONEERING A GENRE<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Turkish distributors do indeed have to thank Middle Eastern audiences for creating the foundations of a dizi<\/em> export sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe increase in sales prices, hand in hand with the economic status of the MENA region where Turkish drama series first gained popularity, have definitely been a trigger in the exportation of Turkish content,\u201d reports Can Okan, the founder and CEO of Inter Medya, an independent outfit that began selling Turkish series in 2008 after first serving as a film distribution venture.<\/p>\n

And while the Middle East remains a key territory for the genre, it\u2019s been the boom in Latin American demand that has really boosted the sector. Chile, for example, has emerged as a voracious consumer of Turkish series, with leading broadcaster Mega recently inking an output deal with Kanal D covering Wounded Love<\/em>, Time Goes By<\/em> and Fatmag\u00fcl<\/em>. \u201cKanal D has licensed approximately 1,200 commercial hours to Mega until today,\u201d reports Do\u011fan\u2019s Bulut Mara\u015fli.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MENA region has always been the largest importer of Turkish TV series, however, the weight has shifted to Latin America as Turkish dramas continue to break viewership records in that region,\u201d agrees Be\u015fir Tatli, the managing director at Calinos Entertainment. \u201cThey now fill prime-time slots in a number of countries, including Chile, Peru and Argentina.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inter Medya\u2019s Okan adds, \u201cAlthough there have been some declines from time to time, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia are still territories where good quality productions always find a buyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

NEW HORIZONS
\n<\/strong>And now, even more markets are opening up, among them India and Malaysia, says Izzet Pinto, the CEO of Global Agency. \u201cIndia has such a rich local market, so for them to be buying foreign content is a big thing. Also, there are some new territories in Africa. There\u2019s still not much, unfortunately, in Western Europe. It will open up. I will be happy if I can enter territories like Portugal and Spain this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweden\u2019s Eccho Rights took a gamble on Turkish series back in 2009 when it started representing Ezel<\/em> from Ay Yapim. \u201cNobody had any idea where it would go at the time, so we tried it and it has been working ever since,\u201d says Fredrik af Malmborg, managing director at Eccho Rights. \u201cEzel<\/em> is still selling. We just sold it to Malaysia and Mongolia. It has been a success everywhere, it\u2019s incredible. And we built on that. We were early in the genre and believed in it. It was not just opportunistic\u2014I watched it and really liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For af Malmborg, the opportunities for selling Turkish drama continue to expand. \u201cWe\u2019re selling a lot to India, we\u2019re starting to sell series into Italy and we just sold Brave and Beautiful<\/em> to Spain to a major channel. There is some competition coming in from Indian drama in some countries, like Indonesia. Malaysia is opening up. Some countries in the Balkans weren\u2019t airing Turkish programs for a while, but they\u2019re coming back. When the Turkish series come in everybody goes crazy, and they buy everything because the first one worked so well. And then it doesn\u2019t work so well, and they try other things, and then they come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

GLOBAL PLAYERS
\n<\/strong>FOX Networks Group Content Distribution (FNGCD) has also taken on Turkish drama, given its connection with the FOX broadcast outlet in the country. \u201cIt\u2019s been two years now since we brought in the Turkish drama to the overall catalog,\u201d says Prentiss Fraser, executive VP and managing director of content distribution. \u201cIt has completely skyrocketed the business for us. It\u2019s been fantastic. These were assets that were being created for the channel in Turkey anyway and then being monetized by third parties. Protecting the brands and doing our own distribution, we\u2019ve been able to secure a lot of revenue for the production community and the channel business, it\u2019s been really great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like so many other distributors, Fraser has found Latin America and U.S. Hispanic to be the best markets for Turkish content at present. \u201cIt\u2019s hands down where we see the most amount of money coming from. The Middle East has always been a strong market for Turkish drama, but we\u2019re now seeing it in places like Pakistan and Indonesia, and we\u2019re moving into the Far East. SVT has picked up a couple of Turkish dramas. It\u2019s now slowly wriggling its way through Western Europe too. We\u2019ve done a couple of sales in Italy. We want to try and get into some new markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inter Medya\u2019s Okan says that his company has started to receive requests from Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. \u201cI believe that we will quickly spread in these newer markets just like we did in all the countries and regions where Turkish content has been broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aysegul Tuzun, the VP of sales and marketing at MISTCO, which represents the slate of pubcaster TRT, is similarly bullish about the future of Turkish drama given the industry\u2019s increasingly high production values and the fact that Turkish actors have \u201cbecome \u2018brands\u2019 in the international arena. The interest towards Turkish drama from all over the world will continue rising just like last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s helping to drive the sector is the volume of production and the range of genres available.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur catalog is huge, it\u2019s very varied, so there\u2019s always something for any need: short series, action, drama, etc.,\u201d says M\u00fcge Hanil\u00e7i, the content sales deputy manager at broadcaster ATV.<\/p>\n

Global Agency\u2019s Pinto cites \u201cmodern-day dramas with big casts, well-known faces and big budgets from leading production companies\u201d as those getting the most interest. \u201cFor Turkish dramas, clients always look for famous, familiar faces\u2014that\u2019s a priority. Also, the story is very important, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do\u011fan TV\u2019s Bulut Mara\u015fli identifies \u201clove and family stories\u201d as being key sellers, particularly \u201cimpossible or forbidden love, a missing child or a mother trying to hold her family together. Combining these stories with beautiful scenery of Turkish cities, of course, makes it much more desirable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting a similar sentiment, Calinos\u2019s Tatli observes that \u201cimpossible love stories teamed with dramatic narratives have always had the largest demand. [Stories with] strong and independent female protagonists who challenge patriarchal social structures and fight in the name of love are the types of dramas that sell the most.\u00a0 When it comes to love and passion, betrayal and intrigue, there seem to be no geographical boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

MISTCO is home to TRT\u2019s top-rated Resurrection <\/em>(Ertugrul<\/em>), a historical drama about the establishment of the Ottoman Empire. At MIPTV, the company is presenting a world premiere screening of The Last Emperor<\/em>, another historical epic. \u201cWhile illuminating the recent past of Turkey, it is also drawing a [connection] between history and modern day,\u201d Tuzun says. \u201cThe story sheds light on the last 14-year reign of the strongest Ottoman Emperor in the 19th century, Abdulhamid Han. The Last Emperor<\/em> has a great cast of celebrities, such as B\u00fclent Inal, who attracts tremendous interest from the international audience, and \u00d6zlem Conker, who is a very well-known Turkish actress.\u201d<\/p>\n

While historical epics are still big ratings winners in Turkey, there are some new trends emerging. Calinos\u2019s Tatli is seeing \u201ca greater appeal for detective and revenge-themed plots. Crime and vengeance have been widely incorporated into the dramatic narratives, mainly to attract male audiences, which helps attract different types of advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n

At FNGCD, romantic comedies and dramas led the slate for a while, Fraser says, but she sees that starting to change. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing some things in the development slate that are more crime-based and heavier drama, which is an interesting shift for the business. I think it will open up more opportunities for the content.\u201d<\/p>\n

At MIPTV, Eccho Rights is launching Phi,<\/em> a 20×60-minute drama created specifically for a digital platform by Ay Yapim, with two additional seasons planned. Hour-long episodes are rare in Turkey, as are limited episode counts.<\/p>\n

MAKING THE CUT
\n<\/strong>Turkish television is super competitive, and things can get axed after just a few episodes, leaving distributors with a delicate balancing act when it comes to deciding when to showcase new series internationally.<\/p>\n

At ATV, Hanil\u00e7i says that if the ratings for the first five episodes are positive, the show can start being introduced to foreign buyers. \u201cBut it\u2019s always good to wait until episode 13\u2014if a title goes past 13, then it will work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eccho\u2019s af Malmborg reports that presales are increasingly prevalent now, given how competitive the business is, but it depends on the region. \u201cIn Latin America, they normally need 100 45-minute episodes before they can make a decision. We\u2019re having quite some success now in Italy. We had Cherry Season<\/em> running well on Mediaset this summer and that was a shorter run. It\u2019s becoming more diversified, but traditionally the Turkish dramas have been long runners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkey also makes very long episodes, which means distributors are often re-cutting series into more conventional durations. \u201cOur original duration is more than 2 hours per episode,\u201d says ATV\u2019s Hanil\u00e7i, \u201cso we edit them into 45 minutes. We are very careful when we cut the episode because it has to be done in a good way, so the audience sees that the episode is ending.\u201d<\/p>\n

EDITING ROOM
\n<\/strong>\u201cWe are putting great effort into cutting them into 45 minutes,\u201d Eccho\u2019s af Malmborg says. \u201cFor Insider, <\/em>we\u2019re even creating a new ending for each one to make it follow the style of the series. In Sweden with SVT we started with The End<\/em> from Ay Yapim, and now we have a second series that\u2019s been picked up, Broken Pieces<\/em> from Endemol Shine. We\u2019re cutting it down, so we\u2019re going scene by scene to make each episode 30 percent shorter, and we make a new sound edit. In many Turkish series the storytelling is much slower, so sometimes we speed it up. That is also done with many Turkish series in Chile. There, the first five to ten episodes are cut down by 30 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

To broaden their customer bases, Turkish distributors are also looking at format opportunities. Eccho Rights is among the leaders in this space, with notable examples that include The End<\/em> being reversioned in the Netherlands and Spain. More recently, Fatmag\u00fcl<\/em> has been adapted for Star Plus in India.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2017 we are bringing format sales to the forefront,\u201d says Do\u011fan\u2019s Bulut Mara\u015fli. \u201cSome broadcasters want to reshoot the series with their own drama stars in their own cultures, which is a very good opportunity to spread our stories to different regions. It is also a good way to make the stories timeless and borderless.\u201d<\/p>\n

ATV\u2019s Hanil\u00e7i says that she\u2019s starting to see more format requests, particularly from Latin America and Asia. At FNGCD, Fraser notes that localization deals have been done in Latin America, \u201cand now the project is to try to get some of our Latin American productions produced in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

MISTCO is also looking at format opportunities, following the sale of the TRT drama Little Miss<\/em> to Latin America for potential adaptation.<\/p>\n

Another area of future growth is co-productions, notes Do\u011fan\u2019s Bulut Mara\u015fli, a view backed by Calinos\u2019s Tatli. \u201cWe still need a couple more years in order to enter a stage that would enable us to co-produce with some of our clients, but we would certainly wish to. We are actually in talks with a Mexican company that we have been negotiating with for some time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tatli is also keen for Calinos to start representing some of its own productions, pointing to an emerging issue for independent distributors: access to product. It\u2019s a situation that\u2019s being played out in the rest of the global drama landscape, as distributors worldwide battle it out to be aligned with the top producers in any given territory. As Turkish drama continues to find new slots internationally, you can expect the landscape of sellers trying to access that product to become even more competitive.<\/p>\n

Pictured: Kanal D\u2019s<\/em> Wounded Love.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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