Turkish television dramas (Turkish: Türk dizileri)

21/03/2022

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Turkish television drama (Turkish: Türk dizileri) has grown radically since the 2000s. Most dramas reflect Turkish culture and are the country’s most well known economic and cultural exports. Turkey is the world’s fastest growing television series exporter and has currently overtaken both Mexico and Brazil as the world’s second highest television series exporter after the United States. The television industry has played a pivotal role in increasing Turkey’s popularity in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North Africa.

Turkish series are mostly produced in Istanbul, as television companies chose to settle there after the wave of liberalization for private television in the 1990s.Turkish television channels producing dramas include TRT, Kanal D, Show TV, Star TV, ATV, Fox, TV8, and Kanal 7. The Turkish television series market is marked by stiff local competition: out of the 60 series produced every year in the country, almost 50% do not run for longer than 13 episodes due to the strong competition among the different local channels, resulting in the high quality and popularity of the longer-running productions.

Çalıkuşu was the first Turkish TV series exported internationally in 1986 to the Soviet Union. Turkish television shows are almost always available in multiple languages, dubbed or subtitled to accommodate the target country’s language. The success of Turkish television series has boosted tourism as well, as visitors are keen to see the locations used for their favorite shows. The sudden and immense international popularity since the 2000s of Turkish TV dramas has been widely analyzed as a social phenomenon.

In addition to broadcasts on television, Turkish series are followed by fans on legal and illegal internet platforms in many different languages.