9 Disguised Impact of the Distribution Processes in Turkish Television Domestic Strategies for the Global Dizi

9 Disguised Impact of the Distribution Processes in Turkish Television Domestic Strategies for the Global Dizi Arzu Öztürkmen Boğaziçi University, Turkey The rise of dizis, Turkish drama series, and their circulation around the world has generated a growing news media and academic interest in the history and structure of “Turkish content.” A report issued by the Ministry of Development in 2018 stated that dizi export had reached around 400 million viewers in more than 140 countries, with a volume of 350 million dollars, ranking second following U.S. series (T.C. Kalkınma Bakanlığı 2018). During the 2010s, the foreign press covered this issue several times (Armstrong 2017; Vivarelli 2017; Bhutto 2019), while scholarly research on transnationalization processes has also increased significantly in recent years (Yesil 2015; Alankuş and Yanardağoğlu 2016; Erguvan and Koçak 2020; Qasmi 2020; Kaptan and Kraidy 2021; Kesirli Unur 2021). Since 2011, I have been involved in an ethnography of the television industry in Turkey, focusing mainly on the intermediality of both the verbal and visual components that make up the dizi genre. My book, The Delight of Turkish Dizi: Memory, Genre and Politics of Television in Turkey, explores the dizi production process, with its tightly interwoven mode of communication and consumption (Öztürkmen 2022). This essay aims to highlight an important dimension of dizi production history, showing how distribution played a key role in the establishment of the dizi genre, mainly through financing but also by increasing the volume of production. When a handful of dizis were being sold in the first decade of the 2000s, one could hardly talk about a dizi industry, but rather a “sector in-progress.” The number of production companies was low, and the distributors were more involved with the acquisition of foreign content than with selling “Turkish drama.” Compared to other sectors of the Turkish industry, distributors of Turkish drama have been much more friendly and accessible during my research. In many cases, they have acted as a hub connecting a diverse range of academic and journalistic researchers engaged in dizi studies. They contributed greatly to the establishment of a discursive realm on dizis, producing a rising trend of publications. Exploring the historical process through which distributors shifted from acquisitions to sales, this essay examines the politics of global DOI: 10.4324/9781003185161-10 Disguised Impact of Distribution 155 success. Rising international sales created new dynamics among distributors and producers as they shared the emerging revenues. Recent dizi scholarship has shown a particular interest in where and why dizis traveled around the world, focusing primarily on cultural proximity to explain their diverse regional receptions (Berg 2017; Aslan 2019). How they traveled, however, has been less of a concern, a matter that I noted had been overlooked during the early stages of my research. The content which had traveled since the middle of the first decade of the 2000s had in fact gained visibility thanks to distributors’ persistence in setting up new business models and producing creative forms of promotion. As they witnessed firsthand the global rise and reception of dizi as a genre, distributors accrued knowledge on the structural, emotive, and technological aspects of its production. Producers began to consult their distributors on content design for their new dizi productions, particularly in the domains of casting and subgenre. Merging their valuable knowledge, experience, and international contacts, some distributors began to move toward production as well. This chapter explores the unique experience of dizi distributors during the 2010s as a model that helped establish a genre, yet lost its impact due to the rapid changes brought by digital platforms, where traditional sales models are no longer effective. Toward “Distribution Studies”: Situating the Turkish Dizi Industry in a Global Context There is a consensus that the study of distribution processes has long been neglected by scholars when compared to production and audience studies. In her analysis of media industry studies, Alisa Perren notes how distribution has been overlooked as the “space in between” production and consumption and associates the paucity of literature on distribution to “the result of definitional inconsistencies and the absence of a conversation across various areas of Media Studies (2013, 165).” Distribution studies is therefore a relatively new field of research, where ethnographies demonstrate diverse experiences in global markets as much as they display certain structural commonalities (Baccarne et al. 2013; Grimes 2013; Perren 2013; Donders and Evens 2014; Steemers 2014, 2016; Michalis and Smith 2016; Frieden et al. 2020). The case of Turkey has its own particularities, which this chapter will explore. Namely, dizi distribution and production processes developed in much closer dialogue with each other as compared to other industries. The revenue coming from transnational sales financed the dizi industry’s improvements in content and production quality. It was the encounter with the global markets that established the genre of dizi during the 2010s. Distribution mechanisms have been discussed more in the domain of cinema than television. For example, Timothy Havens’s (2014) work on media intermediaries, examines the dialogue between content and its distribution. Drawing Anthony 156 Arzu Öztürkmen Giddens’s concept of “structuration,” Havens explores how media’s “industry lore” offers a discursive realm that affects the legitimation of television texts. Indeed, there is a clear connection between the dizi industry’s representational practices, and producers’ discourses about what content “works.” In his work on the Azteca America network, Juan Pinon (2011) shows another important dimension of distribution as a structured space in which institutional culture and business practices emerge as determinants of acquired economic value. My ethnography of trade shows proves Havens’s and Pinon’s arguments. Based on the meetings in Turkey following these events, I observed how producers valued the information and impressions that distributors collected in markets in their decision-making for the coming seasons. Another important issue Havens raises concerns the balance between creative autonomy and content diversity and the role of media intermediaries in operating as organizational links. In the case of Hollywood, for instance, there are key figures who work in different units of the same organization. The dizi industry, however, works through different organizational models. Some distributors operate as independent companies, while broadcasting networks usually have their own distribution units. Recently, some producers have united to start their own distribution common company. Diverse cultures of management in entertainment industries offer cases where—contrary to what is commonly believed—network executives and producers do not always oppose creative talent (Johnson et al. 2014). While working in between production and consumption, they develop shifting strategies for generating new meaning and value for content creation. Network executives and producers in Turkey also closely collaborated in the early 2010s on content creation until their networks changed hands.1 The 2010s were also the decade during which dizis began to successfully circulate in global markets. My interviews with producers, network executives, and distributors revealed that by the end of the 2010s, distributors had a say in the decision-making regarding subgenres and casting. The Challenges of Dizi Ethnography: From Production to Global Market Research in film studies requires trespassing certain gated domains. Between the celebrities and decision-makers of a high-revenue market, the social worlds of film industries consist of secretive communities, where participant observers are not always welcome. In her seminal article, “Access: Reflections on Studying Up in Hollywood,” Sherry Ortner (2010) showed how her attempt to launch an ethnography was confronted by Hollywood’s enclosed community, where gaining access to industry insiders was almost impossible. She proposed the term “interface ethnography,” where researchers can only attend events that present the closed institution to the general public and where informants give interviews only in cases where they see personal benefit. In her analysis of qualitative interviews in media production, Disguised Impact of Distribution 157 Hanne Bruun (2016) calls such key social players of the media industry “exclusive informants.” She points out how production ethnography is unique in terms of its methodological design and its complications during the publication of research findings. To Bruun, media studies scholars are themselves an academic elite, yet they cannot avoid “cold calling,” facing an asymmetric social relationship with the exclusive informants they intend to interview. My research also required interviewing key dizi industry figures in various settings and circumstances. I should admit that I had comparatively less difficulty accessing them. As a professor of performing arts, many of my former students had by the 2010s begun working in the dizi world, and they directed me to their industry friends and acquaintances. As my focus was on the genre and its historical construction (rather than its finances or politics), I began by interviewing writers, art directors, cinematographers, and editors. Once they understood my project, they referred me to producers and network directors. Through this snowball effect, I was able to interview around 200 social players in the industry and attend more than 30 dizi sets over a decade. The timing of my research also coincided with a period when dizi export had escalated. Soon I embarked on the ethnographic ground of global television markets like MIPTV, MIPCOM, DISCOP, ITVF, and ATF. Access to global content markets opened the door to another privileged domain. With the help of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, which officially represented Turkey at these events, I attended the MIP events from 2013 onward (Figure 9.1). Access to be in these markets exposed me to the gated discursivity of the industry. A market’s primary function is to link content traders, but it also Figure 9.1 Posters of Turkish drama along the Croisette, in Cannes during MIPCOM, October 17–20, 2016. Arzu Öztürkmen. 158 Arzu Öztürkmen includes conference formats, which introduced me to a variety of discussions and screenings and a diversity of participants, ranging from CEOs and celebrity writers to creators and showrunners. This is how I was invited in 2014 to join the organizing committee for the Country of Honor preparations for MIPCOM. While I observed the markets and exchanged my remarks with their social players, they too observed me as a committed follower of MIPCOM conferences, which they themselves could barely find time to attend (mipcom NEWS 2015; Prensario Internacional 2015; Vivarelli 2016a, 2016b; Falcon Castro 2018). This proved a turning point in my research, where I found myself in a position that George Marcus (1995) has called the “circumstantial activist.” Marcus claims that ethnographers take on numerous identities throughout multi-sited research and become subjected to a set of relationships. He states, “This condition of shifting personal positions in relation to one’s subjects and other active discourses in a field that overlap with one’s own generates a definite sense of doing more than just ethnography, and it is this quality that provides a sense of being an activist for and against positioning in even the most self-perceived apolitical fieldworker” (1995, 99).2 Being part of the organizing committee for the Country of Honor preparations for MIPCOM, I was able to merge my conference experience with the current demands of the dizi industry. Acting as the coordinator of the conference program for Turkey had put me in a multi-sited position. At home, I had to convince the committee to host groups of international television journalists, prepare the content of several panels, and hold warm-up rehearsals for the high-profile panelists, including producers, writers, directors, stars, and network executives of the dizi industry (Figure 9.2). My “circumstantial activist” position surfaced at different levels. Because the composition of the organization committee was quite diverse, I often found myself in a “discourse translator” position between the private sector, which domineered the industry, and the government officials, who claimed “official representation” of Turkey. I assumed a similar negotiator role with our friends in France, the organization authorities. There, I had to make sure that Turkey was treated and hosted in the best caliber possible, a position which required negotiations to gain access to in-demand sites in the Palais des Festivals and to be able to choose high-profile moderators. Since 2013, an important part of my research in global markets has consisted of an ethnography of face-to-face sales encounters in Cannes during the MIP events. Onsite encounters offered performative grounds where buyers and sellers interviewed one another. These were preset appointments arranged long before the markets. Distribution companies prepare their multilingual staff for each of their products and for different target customers, ranging from the regions of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to Latin America (LATAM). Although market ethnography does not allow access to these interviews, one learns a lot from observing body language and from interviews with sales staff. In many cases, long-standing customers revisit and attend happy hours and parties sponsored by the distributors. Overall, the Disguised Impact of Distribution 159 Figure 9.2 “Turkey: Home of ‘Dizi’ Content,” panel during Turkey’s year as Country of Honor Year, MIPCOM, October 6, 2015. Participants from the left: Selin Arat, Halit Ergenç, Tuba Büyüküstün, Kerem Deren, Hilal Saral, and Arzu Öztürkmen. ethnography of distribution processes is as challenging as that of production, as both are layered and gated domains. This is why, in most cases, oral history offers more information (however partial and incomplete) on the experience of the distributors, which has been rapidly evolving since the beginning of the pandemic.3 The memory of global markets as they were before the pandemic is now historical ethnography. Most distributors, however, expressed that they were less affected by the pandemic as compared to other domains of the dizi world. Although face-to-face meetings occurred in the marketplace, they were followed by intensive internet correspondence. In other words, distributors were already familiar with the digital discursive realm that other players were forced to adopt with the pandemic. 160 Arzu Öztürkmen From Acquisition to Sales: A Brief History of Television Content Distribution in Turkey A wide range of research on dizis has associated the global reach of the dizi with its regional-cultural affinities. Some research also points to tensions arising from conflicts over dizi boykots (Alankuş and Yanardağoğlu 2016; Kaptan and Kraidy 2021). The scope of sales first covered primarily the Balkans and the MENA region, followed by Latin America and Muslim Asian areas. In the early years of dizi sales, the genre was consolidating itself, while writers and producers were testing different storylines and producers searched for new settings for shooting and invested in infrastructure and production quality. The breakthrough of the Turkish dizi owes greatly to the initial entrepreneurial skills of the distributors who had long been closely following the content markets. The distribution of television content had originally started with the acquisition of foreign content for Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) in the 1970s and was boosted by the development of the video industry both in Turkey and Europe during the 1980s.4 As a founding member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1950, Turkey had been a part of international media platforms, developing bilateral ties with neighboring countries. TRT began attending MIPTV events in the 1970s, acquiring movies, drama series, documentaries, and entertainment shows to be broadcast in Turkey. When private networks opened in the early 1990s, they too began attending television markets, searching for material to fill their program grids. To gain access to international content, many new private companies hired former TRT executives who already knew the trade show circuit. In Cannes, they bought foreign content, mostly in the form of popular movies. They were “mobile merchants,” representing medium-sized independent companies without their own exhibition stand at MIPTV. They knew one another, but did not have much of a sense of belonging to an industry. During the 1990s, companies like Avşar or TMC, were also involved in the production, targeting the domestic market. Some TRT dramas had been marketed to other countries, notably Çalıkuşu (The Wren, 1986), which was broadcast in Russia during the 1980s.5 It seems that the recent trend of Turkish export began when Calinos Entertainment tested the Central Asian market by introducing Deli Yürek (Crazy Heart, 1998) to Kazakhstan in 2001. Calinos owner Fırat Gülgen recalls his mindset back then: “Our dizis are like Latin American telenovelas: The stories are serial and consist of romance and class relationships. In those days we were marketing telenovelas to Turkic Central Asian countries for $30–40 per episode. Let us try our own dizis, we thought, for the same price (Arslan 2012) (Figure 9.3). One should acknowledge here the impact of the series Yabancı Damat (Foreign Groom, 2004) in the Balkans. The drama was formally broadcast first in Greece in 2005, then spread in the region via satellite networks, in many cases without subtitles. Produced by Türker İnanoğlu, a doyen of the Turkish film Disguised Impact of Distribution 161 Figure 9.3 Main Café in the Palais des Festivals flagged with Turkish content, MIPTV, April 4–7, 2016. Arzu Öztürkmen. industry, it depicted the story of a young Greek man falling in love with a Turkish girl, evoking the memory of cultural affinities between the Turkish and non-Muslim communities. Its broadcast coincided with an era of TurkishGreek rapprochement, giving the Turkish dizi its initial emotional appeal to foreign audiences.6 Like many other domains of dizi studies, the early years of dizi distribution lack historical documentation. Interviews are rare, and compared to production and reception, distribution was until recently overlooked as an area of inquiry. Therefore, oral history emerges as the main approach to collect data on the historical journey of dizis’ transnationalization. Following Deli Yürek and Yabancı Damat, the genesis of the international dizi boom is often traced to the 2008 sale of Gümüş (2005) to the Arab world. Fadi Ismail, then the group director of the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC), discovered the dizi at a trade show in Istanbul (Salamandra 2012; AlSaied 2015), and approached Sama Art Productions in Damascus, one of Syria’s most innovative drama production companies. The sensational popularity of Noor—the Arabized Gümüş—took the dizi industry by surprise. This also launched a new, Damascus-based post-production industry that edited and dubbed dizis into Syrian Arabic for circulation in the Arab Middle East. This coincided with an era when domestic production boomed in Turkey. With hit dizis like Aşk-ı Memnu (Forbidden Love, 2008), Noor was the harbinger of many more dizis translated into Syrian Arabic that continues to circulate in Middle Eastern markets. In global markets, acquisition, and sales often go hand in hand. The difference with the dizis was the unexpected and rather rapid switch from import 162 Arzu Öztürkmen to export. Once dizis began selling well in global markets and boosted the number of productions, the domestic demand for foreign content decreased significantly. When Turkish exports reached the second rank following U.S. sales, markets responded in different ways to this unexpected phenomenon. Foreign content moving in the reverse direction has happened in other countries, like in the case of Israeli, Korean, and Nordic content (see Eichner and Mikos 2016; Shahaf 2016; Ju 2018; Jacobsen and Jensen 2020). Although they were sold for higher prices, the volume of their transactions was lower when compared to dizi sales. The Politics of “Success”: Changing Broadcast and Distribution Strategies The traffic of national content operates in various directions. While adaptations of formats travel extensively, drama content is usually adapted as quality storytelling in different national platforms, and their transnational moves are well-documented on the basis of national industries (e.g., Jensen and Jacobsen 2020; Weissmann 2012; Waade et al. 2020; Helles and Lai 2017; McElroy and Noonan 2019; Ward and ORegan 2011; Guo 2015; Chalainanont 2020). The documentation of this traffic, however, is a difficult task and may greatly benefit from a digital media research methodology alongside empirical qualitative research. It is curious how, why, and through which agencies certain content travels. While it is difficult to map out the transnational moves in scholarly research, there are private enterprises that collect big data and regularly present and sell their findings in global markets. In a recent press release, Glance Vice President Frédéric Vaulpré describes the increase in the transnational moves: Who would have believed just a few years ago that the programming market would become internationalised to this extent? Who would have bet on the export and success of Danish, Turkish, Russian and Korean programmes throughout the world, far away from the territories where they are favorites, including on the American market? We had identified underlying trends in our analyses, and our role now is to guide our clients—television channels, studios, producers, distributors or rightholders—and to assist them with their decision-making. (Lellouche Filliau 2019) Research on the success of foreign content has been best explored in the case of the rise of Danish content in global markets The success of Danish content is often related to a sense of proximity communicated through universal emotions that transcend cultural differences (Jensen and Jacobsen 2020). Israeli success, on the other hand, depended on both the cultivation of a strong, creative, and innovative local production culture and the fostering of a powerful wide-reaching global distribution mechanism Disguised Impact of Distribution 163 (Shahaf 2016). In Asia, state initiatives have been behind the success of both Korean and Japanese content. High volume of flowing content and formats is another factor behind Korean success (Ju 2018). Japan adopted strategies in competing with the success of Korean drama through the help of the “Cool Japan” initiative (Kazunaga 2014). Transnational success is also evaluated based on the number of remakes in other territories. To document the history of the transnational success of Turkish dizis, one needs to conduct oral history research, combined with a close survey of the national and international press. Dizi sales followed an interesting territorial journey throughout the 2010s and were accompanied by a sense of pride inside Turkey and surprise abroad. As sales opportunities emerged, Turkish dizis entered two regional market streams first, those of the Middle East and the Balkans. In the beginning, sales in the Balkans were mostly based on bi-lateral agreements that brought programs from one company to another. Dizis were usually sold from a Turkish distribution company to a network or another distributor in a Balkan country. In the Middle East, however, Arabic-dubbed series were sold through MBC, which held the distribution rights for the MENA region.7 This strategy continued, owing to the production companies like Ay Yapım and TIMS, which produced successful dizis including Ezel, Karadayı, Aşk-ı Memnu, Kuzey Güney, Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne?, and Muhteşem Yüzyıl. Following the initial success of the late 2000s, Turkish distributors who mainly focused on acquisition before, developed more interest in joining the sales market. While the distribution companies like Inter Medya, Calinos, and Global Agency began to be more actively involved, along with Kanal D, ATV, and TRT networks, who opened their distribution departments. Özsümbül remembers these early days of the market: The entry of Turkish distributors into the dizi export scene has its own story. Companies like Inter Medya, Calinos, and Global Agency, which used to come to content markets for acquisitions, turned to sales, while many networks opened their own distribution departments. Özlem Özsümbül offers a more insider account of the market’s genesis: We did not even have a distribution unit in our network, as we did not expect any revenue from such a sale. We had acquisition, production, and programming departments, but not a distribution one … Once the department was set up, we began to learn how to proceed. We were observing the flyers and tapes that circulated, and we too began producing such material, making suggestions to our superiors on how to technically improve them. We were providing the material, and beginning the promotion processes, spending money on it, visiting fairs, setting up our own stands, reaching out to new territories through aggressive phone calls, intensive mail, exploring their broadcasting venues. In fact, we learned many things as we walked with baby steps.8 164 Arzu Öztürkmen Turkish distributors brought new energy to the market. Handan Özkubat, director of Turkish drama at Ecco Rights remembers the sales of these early days. Through many face-to-face encounters at the markets and follow-up communications, they accrued valuable knowledge of international sales, adapting it to a “Turkish style.” “My first sale was to Afghanistan,” Özkubat recalls, “the customer could not speak English but knew some Turkish. Nobody took him seriously. Thanks to our communication skills, I prepared and sold a big package to him. Turkish dizis were just on the rise; there was some interest, but it did not reach its highest point yet.”9 Müge Akar, ATV’s content sales deputy manager, calls attention to the continuity of this transaction between distributors and customers: “I had a customer with whom I worked for years, made dozens of transactions, without having a face-to-face meeting. One day, we finally met when he visited Istanbul, talking as if we were old friends.”10 In time, these encounters established a new platform, where sales took on a new direction and created a new profile of customers with dizi know-how. Handan Özkubat notes, “Our customers developed an expertise on our dizis and industry in a very short time. They do not ask anymore the questions they used to ask. They now have an idea about which dizi fits in which time slot or works better on which channel. They know all of our successful stars and love them.”11 Sales to the MENA region coincided with those in the Balkans. Turkish dizi had become a new mode of mutual encounter, invoking Ottoman-era cultural linkages that had been suppressed in the course of nation-building processes. Due to their appeal in the Balkan countries, dizis also reached many migrant communities in Europe via established satellite channels and newly emerging internet sites. The rapid success of the dizi offered a win-win situation in the early 2010s, when relatively cheap and high-quality products made many international broadcasters more profit than they had expected. Like the MBC network in the Arab world, the more modest Russian channel Domashniy profited during this process, enabling Turkish distribution companies to raise their unit prices. The first leap came with Kuzey Güney (North South, 2011), which sold at US$120,000. The strength of the dizi genre became apparent when the Turkish remake of Desperate Housewives reached US$40,000 in the Arab market, while the original was sold for US$8,000. The trend continued with Kösem (2015), reaching an amount of US$275,000. Inter Medya’s Ahmet Ziyalar experienced this era as an independent distributor who also knew the market as a buyer. He recalls, “We woke up one day and saw how successful sales were. Imagine how prices rose in these initial years, from $1,000 to $250,000, a trend that lasted until 2013–2014 when a quota ban came from the Middle East region.” Global Agency CEO İzzet Pinto refutes the idea that dizis are overpriced: “If one compares the actual prices of the dizis to sales in the initial years of the market, they do look high. Nevertheless, if one considers that each dizi episode is long enough to be cut into half, its rate is reduced by 50 percent. Assuming the income to be earned from reruns, the overall pricing is reasonable.”12 Disguised Impact of Distribution 165 Dizi sales also witnessed changes that came with the transforming geopolitical context in the Middle East. For instance, a crisis emerged in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, with the 2013 coup in Egypt.13 Turkey’s changing political stance toward some Arab countries led to a direct ban of dizis on MBC. Egyptian and Saudi opposition to Turkey drove this move—justified on the grounds of “cultural differences” in the depiction of lifestyles—and greatly affected Dubai-based regional broadcasting. Many distributors believe that the recent ban on Turkish content is also related to controlling Turkey’s rapid rise as a new regional soft power. They maintain that the ban will be lifted simply because regional audiences continue to demand Turkish content. This sudden change in the Middle East market led Turkish distributors to revise their sales strategy. After losing MBC as an intermediary, they decided to sell directly to individual companies in the region. This was indeed a significant shift, and one that required new investments. To begin, they needed to dub the dizis into Arabic and edit them in keeping with Arab culture, a service that MBC had provided. Distributors needed to rapidly develop these postproduction skills. As newcomers to the Middle East market, they also faced many other challenges. Difficulties emerged in collecting revenue from the individual companies because of the different styles of doing business between Turkish and Arab companies. While selling their own products through their own avenues, they lacked the contacts for barter that local broadcasters like MBC maintained. Today, some Turkish distributors resent what they see as the mismanagement of distribution policy in the MENA region. When their initial problems emerged with the Arab networks, they note, there had been fierce competition between different Turkish distributors that grew mostly from differences in approach among broadcasting networks and individual companies. Distributors see sales as their exclusive domain. An anonymous distributor notes, “The world of broadcasting—that is, the networks—this is another world. As distribution companies, we are merchants of a bazaar; we see, read the situation quickly, and respond to it right away.” He also criticizes what he sees as the networks’ uncooperative attitude: When we approach the top executives of the networks as independent distributors, they see our move as an opportunity to gain the upper hand in the distribution processes in the market. As large corporations, they have the power to lose an extra $1,000,000 just to keep us outside the game. We don’t. However, this also shows that their management has a narrow vision; they do not think much about their own long-term interests. And perhaps this is so because as the acting managers or directors, they too they have a short life in their jobs. These positions change quickly in the broadcasting world. Given their own insecurities, they cannot engage in long-term strategies and usually focus on saving the day. 166 Arzu Öztürkmen The owner of Calinos, Fırat Gülgen, also strongly opposes the networks’ foray into distribution: Distribution is not the networks’ business; no one has understood this. Producers produce, networks broadcast, distributors sell. … This is how it goes in all parts of the world. Now anybody who grabs a business bag goes out and says, “I will sell the dizi.” Independent distributors call the networks “institutionals,” meaning they operate through elaborate layers of bureaucracy. Ahmet Ziyalar notes that while independent distributors share a gentlemen’s agreement, networks barely cooperate. Many see the broadcasters as threatening to lower the market prices of dizis. Others, like Şenay Filiztekin-Turan, head of drama acquisitions at Global Agency, interpret price lowering as a necessary concession when approaching new markets. Tension between broadcasters and distributors goes beyond drama content and often concerns sports broadcasting. This is also a domain that is often regulated through government interference. As the gatekeepers of their own territory, both parties may develop conflicting approaches to the market. In many cases, while networks want to lead and determine the characteristics of mainstream and video distribution, distributors bypass them through their own strategies, like bundling services or pricing policies. Several governments across Europe discuss the necessity of regulatory intervention to decrease tension and promote cooperation regarding public disputes and threats of blackout in their media industries (Donders and Evens 2014). Recent scholarship on broadcasters and distributors also concerns how changes in viewing habits alter the longstanding interactions between these parties (Sandvig 2015). Nevertheless, traditional distribution patterns seem to prevail. In the United Kingdom, despite the higher penetration of broadband Internet, the rapid adoption of connected devices, and the increased competition for audience attention, television consumption patterns have proved resilient (Michalis and Smith 2016). Sharing Revenues: Rising Conflicts of Interest between Distributors and Producers A survey of different industries reveals that the interrelation between producers, networks, and distribution displays particularities. Strong industries that have long dominated the unidirectional flow of content now face challenges in controlling the distribution of new national content. The relationship between distributors and producers is generally interdependent. Both parties have their own financial and aesthetic concerns and may develop conflicting interests and emotions along the way. While producers budget the creative process, distributors invest in creative promotion. Disguised Impact of Distribution 167 In the case of Turkey, the sales of dizis increased when production companies were primarily producing for domestic consumption. Dizi distributors remember the aura and pace of these early days and recount a journey where producers developed more interest in distribution processes. Welcoming the additional revenue that the sale of dizis generated, they soon began adding “foreign sales revenue” in their forthcoming production budgets. Whether independent or network-affiliated, distributors gradually became important actors in decision-making mechanisms. Bringing professional knowledge collected from “the field,” distributors began to be consulted in the early stages of the project design and pitch processes, particularly on casting. They also underlined how distribution also raised the technical quality of dizi production. Özlem Özsümbül, who sold Gümüş to MBC as the head of sales and acquisitions at Kanal D,14 asserts that shooting techniques had to evolve after this first sale. Because the sound recording included music, dialogue, and effects in a single channel, the network financed three months of technical revisions: “Thereafter, dizis began to be shot in such a way that one would not face such discrepancies and inconveniences. Using multi-channel sound recording began to be a new criterion that came with the distribution processes.”15 As the relationship between producers, network directors, and distributors changes, tensions may emerge. Convincing producers to grant distribution rights for a promising dizis is not an easy task. Ahmet Ziyalar of Inter Medya states that this requires serious preparation for a negotiation in which producers wield power over distributors. Nevertheless, distribution has its own particularities. As one distributor put it: Looking from the outside, they have no idea of the promotion expenses in the beginning. We expend a great and continual effort in these promotions. We purchase advertisements in magazines, prepare giant flyers to be posted all over, throw big parties at the markets, and open and maintain well-decorated, captivating exhibition stands for their dizis. Over the years, distributors acquired this expertise through physical labor. Özsümbül, for instance, remembers how she strolled through other stands, collected their flyers, and examined them in detail afterwards. In the early years, such global market knowledge and networking skills impressed senior managers in Istanbul. The physical labor also involved finding better spots in the marketplace. As favorite spots would already be taken by established companies or national industries, Turkish distributors opened their stands wherever they could. In time, they scooped up vacated spaces for better venues and discovered unused areas for promotion. Özlem Özsümbül recollects how she impressed her boss by hanging flags with characters of Kanal D productions on the top of the Grand Café at MIP: “He was literally shocked … I had re-invented the display platform with a colorful new visual impact.”16 168 Arzu Öztürkmen Developing New Strategies for Larger Markets Distributors of Turkish dizis worked hard to transcend the established prejudices. In the beginning, it was not easy to trespass Orientalist boundaries. Özlem Özsümbül recalls how her Western buyers were surprised to see dizis’ production quality, depicting modern lives and contemporary issues with beautiful actors: “They had no idea of Turkey after all. and they approached Turkish productions as “low-calibre content.” In time, they too discovered and began asking “Is this really Istanbul?” or “Is he really Turkish?”17 With the Arab ban on Turkish dizis in the early 2010s, distributors began to approach the LATAM market, which required new investments, such as hiring native-speaker salespeople and establishing friendships with Latin American journalists. Following the opening of the first exhibition stands in 2013, distributors had to wait three years to sell their first dizis in the LATAM market. A few dizis penetrated, followed up by others, making the Latin American market more enthusiastic than previously imagined (See Falcon Castro 2018 and Aslan 2019). The Latin American success encouraged many distributors to move into other regions, like Southeast Asia and Africa. Turkish distributors’ success in reaching these markets had another impact: Global companies, like Sequoia, Red Arrow, Mediaset, Netflix, and Iflix, began consulting Turkish distributors, on the basis of their “regional expertise” in markets where Turkish content was successful.18 Today, thanks to distributors of Turkish dizis, foreign content also travels in markets it could not access before. Hidden Heroes of Television Markets: The Invisible Labor of the Distributors Although the dizi industry in part owes its growth to the financial support from successful distribution, distributors are the least-known social players of dizi industry. To a great extent, many actors, writers, directors, editors, or cinematographers are unaware of their labor and entrepreneurial efforts. While other social players are connected to one another through bonding and dependency relations, producers or network executives are the only ones who know their distributors by their names. Recently, actors and their agents began to consult them to reach out to global fans and foreign press for promotion purposes in different countries. However, in the global television market, many Turkish distributors are well-known figures. They regularly receive invitations to serve as jury members in such venues like Emmy International, Seoul Festival, or MIP Screenings. Ironically, their own approach to this invisibility in the dizi world differs. Şenay Filiztekin-Turan of the Global Agency appreciates the growing interest and recognition in the eyes of dizi producers and writers. Ahmet Ziyalar expects more cooperation from actors and their agents for promotion purposes. Likewise, Özlem Özsümbül is proud of the fact that their labor Disguised Impact of Distribution 169 contributed to the establishment of new professional communities. She states: “Going to MIP is now coming home.” They all also notice the rising interest coming from the state. Many state officials, ambassadors, and ministers note how the success of the dizis emerges in their diplomatic encounters. Since the 2010s, different state institutions or NGOs approached distributors to learn how they could cooperate or benefit from this rapidly rising industry. The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce has been a pioneer in this respect, representing Turkey’s official participation in global fairs. Turkey’s Union for Exporters also approached dizi industry players in the early 2010s. Since 2015, cooperation with the Ministries of Culture and Tourism, Economy and Development enhanced, leading to a new communication mode between the state and the industry. Conclusion Global television markets are sites of competition and negotiation. Nevertheless, they also offer a platform where a sense of collegiality emerges. The social players of the dizi world have all different stakes in this rivalry and congeniality. Producers compete for casting, writers for projects, and actors for leading roles. Distributors also compete for getting the best content from the producers and sell more than their next-door stand. Nevertheless, their work transcends the domestic realm. They work on the frontier, where solidarity becomes a necessity in making “national moves.” In contrast to many other countries, Turkey’s dizi industry grew on its own, without substantial state subsidies. Usually, the national pavilions gather a country’s leading companies in the global market space. This way, they display an image that makes a “national impact” on the participants. In the case of Turkey, leading distributors paved their way independently. They learned in time to acknowledge one another’s presence and began to pay courtesy visits to each other’s stand. As one distributor put it, “sharing information” is the marker of market solidarity, which distributors learned in time after many “petty competitions.” For example, they encourage one another to try new markets, as each new market is a new zone of sales for everybody. One should also remember that because selling strategies require certain behavioral characteristics, distributors must develop skills of diplomacy. Despite the many conflicts or contradictions that may arise, they are flexible merchants who find pragmatic solutions. Attending global markets also creates different regional clusters and communities. Distributors naturally develop close and friendly relations with their customers, by regularly corresponding with them throughout the year. Global markets bring about a physical reunion, which both parties enjoy before sitting to trade new content. Organizers of global markets have noticed that Turkish sellers have brought liveliness to their events over the last decade. They often refer to this as a new energy as a “Mediterranean spirit.” Özlem Özsümbül believes that Turkish participation has “fueled a 170 Arzu Öztürkmen rather stagnant market. With the coming of Turkish dizis into the picture, competition heated up, and the inertia of the MIPTV and MIPCOM changed into liveliness.”19 When COVID-19 hit Turkey in mid-March of 2020, many producers closed their sets, and networks could only broadcast what remained in their hands. MIPTV 2020 was cancelled due to concerns related to the coronavirus, depriving many participants of their face-to-face meetings. The course of distribution, however, continued full force because of the strength of the network that distributors had established over the years, thus proving once again how central their presence is in the dizi industry. Acknowledgments Research for this chapter was supported by Boğaziçi University Research Fund, for the project BAP 18B09P3, entitled “Culture of the Television Business Markets: A Sector Ethnography of MIPCOM and MIPTV.” The author would also like to thank İTO, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, for accrediting her participation at television markets, and the members of the İTO-Executive Committee for the Film Industry for their friendship and cooperation. Notes 1 The hit dizi Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne? was, for instance, a product of Kanal D and Ay Yapım; Kiralık Aşk was created by Star TV and Ortaks Yapım. With growing authoritarianism, following the 2011 elections, mainstream networks have changed hands from liberal to pro-government owners (Star in 2011, ATV in 2013, Kanal D in 2018), a situation that has increasingly constrained such collaboration. 2 The concept of activism here is very different from “circumstantial media activism” (see Sartoretto 2016). 3 For a recent review of the experiences of three anonymous distribution companies, see Aytaç and Üner (2021). 4 For the repertoire of imported television series, see Öztürkmen (2018) and Erguvan and Işıklar Koçak (2020). For an account of the development of the video industry, see Ergun (2017). 5 Russian Turcologist Apollinariya Avrutina reminds us of the impact that the 1986 version of Çalıkuşu had on Soviet audiences developing a keen interest in Turkish culture and literature (see ANKA–Dünya 2014; Başlamış 2010). 6 Although broadcast on Kanal D, Yabancı Damat was directly sold by Erler Film, without using a distributor. Interview with Özlem Özsümbül, September 1, 2019, Istanbul. Özsümbül was the former head of sales and acquisitions at Kanal D who currently serves as the director of international sales at Madd Entertainment. 7 MBC is a Dubai-based broadcaster with an in-house production unit, broadcasting dizis via satellite after dubbing them in Arabic. 8 Interview with Özlem Özsümbül, December 25, 2017, Istanbul. 9 Interview with Handan Özkubat, May 2, 2020, Istanbul. Müge Akar also points to the issue of “packaging” as a sales strategy, combining various dizis, movies, and documentaries. Interview with Müge Akar, June 2, 2020, Istanbul. 10 Interview with Müge Akar, June 2, 2020, Istanbul. Disguised Impact of Distribution 171 11 Interview with Handan Özkubat; May 2, 2020, Istanbul. 12 Interview with Ahmet Ziyalar, November 14, 2017, Istanbul; Interview with İzzet Pinto, August 4, 2013, Istanbul. 13 For a review on Turkish response to the 2013 coup d’état in Egypt, see Yegin (2016). 14 Özsümbül left Kanal D in 2018, and currently serves as the Director of International Sales of Madd Entertainment. 15 Interview with Özlem Özsümbül, December 25, 2017, Istanbul. 16 Interview with Özlem Özsümbül, December 25, 2017, Istanbul. 17 Interview with Özlem Özsümbül, December 25, 2017, Istanbul. 18 Interview with Ahmet Ziyalar, June 2, 2022, Istanbul. 19 Interview with Özlem Özsümbül, December 25, 2017, Istanbul. 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