As confirmed by the latest edition of MipTV at Cannes, despite the difficult political situation, Turkey has become a giant in the audivisual production: its TV products have reached an excellent level and, most importantly, they are ‘western’ enough to attract international markets. Italy is on the list of the 70 countries who have bought Turkish shows and in our country a few of them have been great hits: just think of Cherry Season, the first Turkish soap opera broadcast in 2016 on Canale 5 (a Süreç Film production), that has reached the considerable number of two million viewers, with an 18% share. And then came Fox Life: the channel of Fox Network Group Italy broadcasts three original Turkish productions, Happiness, Love of my Life and the most recent one Sweet Revenge.
“Turkish productions are very close to our reference audience” says Luca Rochira, Programming Director of Fox Network Group Italy, “that is to say mostly women over 25. The Turkish audiovisual product has dominated the last Mip TV editions and Turkish soap operas fit very well within our plan to broaden the fiction sector at Fox Life, without confining it to big American series such as Grey’s Anatomy. These are perfect products for our day time, also because Turkish episodes last two, even three hours and by adapting them to our 45 minute format we can obtain very long series, a crucial element for a soap opera”.
But Turkish revolution does not seem to rely only on soap operas: many American production companies are opening offices in Istanbul to start the production of new series to be distributed on the local market and other genres such as crime and drama start are rising.
