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Tag: Turkish TV series

  • Sweden’s SVT Takes Turkish Drama ’20 Minutes’

    Sweden’s SVT Takes Turkish Drama ’20 Minutes’

    The “24”-style thriller from Turkish producer Ay Yapim is one of the hottest of a new wave of Istanbul-set TV series.

    20dakika_ekstra_007Swedish broadcaster SVT has picked up the rights to new Turkish drama series 20 Minutes, marking the second Turkish series the Swedish network will air in primetime.

    SVT nabbed 20 Minutes, a 24-style beat-the-clock thriller about a man racing to save his wife, from Eccho Rights. The series, produced by Istanbul-based Ay Yapim, will go out in Sweden starting in January.

    The deal follows a similar deal with Eccho earlier this year for The End, another red-hot Turkish TV serial.

    Commented Fredrik af Malmborg, managing director at Eccho Rights: “earlier on this year SVT took the brave step to be the first Western broadcaster to air a Turkish drama when it screened The End. The launch worked very well, with good ratings and a strong reception in the press, so the acquisition of 20 Minutes is the natural next step.”

    Turkey has become the new hot spot for international broadcasters looking for top-end drama. The territory’s booming TV industry has also attracted attention from Hollywood. 20th Century Fox Television and Sander Moses Productions have signed up for a U.S. adaptation of The End and Ay Yapim is in negotiations for an American take on 20 Minutes.

    via Sweden’s SVT Takes Turkish Drama ’20 Minutes’ – The Hollywood Reporter.

  • Turkish TV Series Help Greeks Forget Financial Crisis

    Turkish TV Series Help Greeks Forget Financial Crisis

    Turkish TV Series Help Greeks Forget Financial Crisis

    By Stella Tsolakidou on January 7, 2012 in News

    tourkika sirial

    Athens Reuters made an extensive and thorough report on Turkish drama TV series dominating daily Greek TV programmes, with more and more Greeks becoming enthusiastic over the neighboring country’s products.

    Beginning the report with an Athens taxi driver, his Turkish passenger, who happens to be the boss of a company selling Turkish TV series to Greece, and the driver’s wife, who wants to know what is to happen of her favorite protagonists in the coming episodes, Reuters explains how “the glitzy tales of forbidden love, adultery, clan loyalties and betrayal” have become a sort of comfort for recession-hit Greeks.

    The financial crisis plaguing Greece led TV channels to buy Turkish productions in order to save money. But now, it seems that these soap operas are “saving” the Greeks from their everyday problems.

    Some fear this is a cultural invasion but others see it as an opportunity of getting to know the everyday lives of simple people.

    “Kismet”, “Ask ve Ceza”, “Ezel” and “Ask-I Memnu” are only some of the many Turkish series previously broadcast or still on air in Greece.

    The panoramic shots of Istanbul, the awakening of memories related to better times, lost traditions and familiar scenes have skyrocketed the ratings of the Turkish TV series.

    “Ezel” and the other series portray a lost dimension of Greek society that has been buried in recent years,” novelist Nikos Heiladakis wrote in a local newspaper article about the success of one crime drama. “It awakens in today’s Greek a lost identity,” he wrote.

    According to Reuters, Greek fans are so impressed by the new trend that they are already writing Turkish words on their Facebook accounts, while “some Greek magazines have started offering CDs for intensive Turkish lessons.

    via Turkish TV Series Help Greeks Forget Financial Crisis | Greece.GreekReporter.com Latest News from Greece.