Turkish dramas ‘continue’ to sell despite local turmoil
Ivanka to speak with ‘CBS’
LOS ANGELES, April 4, (RTRS): Undeterred by local turbulence, Turkish TV dramas continue to expand their global footprint. Netflix recently nabbed more than 400 hours of “dizi,” as the shows are known locally, and local hits such as “Insider,” produced by Ay Yapim, and Kanal D’s “Wounded Love” continue selling solidly around the globe.
Paradoxically the country’s post-coup attempt climate has been conducive to more foreign production companies coming in, thanks in part to the roughly 17% drop in the Turkish lira value against the US dollar being seen as a positive. In January, LA-based Karga Seven Pictures (“Hunting Hitler”), which is owned by Red Arrow, opened an Istanbul office to churn out Turkish content. Endemol Shine Group, which opened an outpost in 2014, is a big local player, as is Fox.
According to the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, annual revenue from overseas sales of Turkish TV shows surpassed $350 million in October, up from $300 million in 2015.
“For us the Turkish market is definitely growing,” says Prentiss Fraser, exec VP and managing director at Fox Networks Group Content Distribution. The company is launching six titles at MipTV, including local hit “Second Chance,” about a woman starting over after her husband disappears without a trace.
There are some indications that the Turkish TV boom could be peaking, with fewer smash hit shows among the multitude being churned out. But experts say the phenomenon that has made Turkey the second-largest exporter of scripted TV content after the US is still in full swing. The market starting to evolve toward the OTT sphere.
In January the first Turkish streaming series, titled “Masum” (Innocent), launched on local platform BluTV. About six months earlier Netflix launched in Turkey in partnership with local telco Vodafone, after buying a mega package of local content for worldwide play from Eccho Rights. Netflix is expected to soon announce its first Turkish original.
At MipTV Ay Yapim will launch its first OTT original, “Phi,” about a celebrity psychiatrist who is a compulsive womanizer. The show is being touted as the first in a new wave of edgier Turkish TV fare. It will be interesting to see how the launch of Netflix and Amazon Prime as well as local streaming platforms in Turkey could impact the market.
Meanwhile, in the latest instance of a shift from exporting ready-made TV shows toward formats for remakes, a Hindi-language adaptation of Turkey’s female empowerment megahit “Fatmagul” premiered April 3 on Fox’s Star India pay-TV network. And a Spanish redo of psychological thriller “The End” will soon air in Spain on Telecinco.
Turkish serials are still going strong. In Latin America they are hotter than ever. In Chile, Peru, Panama, and Uruguay last year at least four out the top 15 shows in all categories were Turkish, while not a single one was American.
Timur Savci, head of shingle TIMS, which spearheaded the country’s TV boom with “Magnificent Century,” and other small-screen execs say that the ratings system introduced in Turkey in 2012, using high-consumer TV households as its base, has become a stumbling block. Having that audience segment as reference constrains creativity by favoring repetitive storylines, and long running times, they claim. This in turn is making it “more challenging for Turkish producers to export their content,” Savci says.
Ivanka Trump will be interviewed by “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King in her first television interview since being named Assistant to the President, CBS News announced on Monday.
King will interview Ivanka on Tuesday in Washington, with the interview airing this Wednesday during “This Morning” between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. A preview of the interview will be presented Tuesday night on the “CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley” and on CBSN, CBS News’ 24/7 digital streaming news network.
She is expected to discuss her official White House staff role and what she hopes to accomplish in her new position. Ivanka is President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter and was recently named to the new position within her father’s administration, which will see her take up an office in the West Wing as well as getting a top-secret security clearance.
“United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell” returns to CNN April 30, Variety can reveal exclusively.
In the first episode of the new season, W. Kamau Bell delves into the lives of immigrants and refugees, and he interviews white nationalist Richard Spencer, who tells the host, “I want to bathe in white privilege.”
In other episodes, Bell, a native of Chicago, will return there to speak with politicians, residents and gang members about myths and the realities regarding violence in that city. He’ll also visit Muslims in Michigan, the Appalachian region, Standing Rock, San Francisco’s Chinatown, and Puerto Rico.