Eccho Rights’ Handan Özkubat Talks Turkish Dramas – TVDRAMA

While the Eccho Rights slate features dramas from around the world—from Australia to Mexico, Spain to South Korea, the U.K. to the Nordics—Turkish series have been a particular bright spot for sales. The company recently secured a string of deals on the Turkish drama hit My Home My Destiny, including a U.S. agreement. It also licenses these scripted series from Turkey as formats for international adaptations. Ezel, for example, was remade in India for Disney+ Hotstar. Handan Özkubat, director of Turkish drama at Eccho Rights, talks to TV Drama Weekly about this vibrant sector of the business.

TV DRAMA: Telenovelas have a cost of between $50,000 and $100,000 per hour. Turkish productions have a cost of $200,000 to $600,000 per hour. How do you continue to amortize costs with global sales, considering the competition?
ÖZKUBAT: Right now, all around the world, production costs are increasing. It is not only happening in LatAm and Turkey, it’s also happening in America, Western Europe and Asia. The cost that you gave, between $200,000 to $600,000, is for 120-minute episodes. Per hour, it comes to between $100,000 to $300,000. We still do really well. This is also happening because of the quality of Turkish series productions. We have a great volume with Turkish series. The number of episodes is, most of the time, over 100. This gives us leverage for international sales and the storytelling that we are doing. This is something that international buyers are looking for. It is still profitable.

TV DRAMA: Much of the success of Turkish dramas is due to the fact that they remain very popular in key markets such as LatAm, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. How have they continued to adapt to various changes in the content business, ensuring they remain profitable?
ÖZKUBAT: We know what the clients want. Our focus is on rom-coms and dramas such as I Am Mother, which is a more female-oriented, female-empowering story. That’s what our buyers are looking for right now. Free-TV channels are our core clients right now. For streamers, they are mostly interested in crime, thrillers, etc. That’s not our target audience at the moment. Also, some of the streamers have started to shift and change the way that they do series. We have started to see this effect at Disney+, Netflix and Max. Because of the crisis in the world globally, especially after the pandemic, people would like to believe in fairy tales; people need hope. This is what Turkish dramas give. [Viewers] can watch something that still gives them hope and happiness. Even though there is a shift from free TV to streamers, it is profitable.

TV DRAMA: Every time I speak or talk to a Turkish executive, they tell me that they grew up watching Latin American telenovelas. Today, a high number of these melodramas are still being produced in the region. How are Turkish dramas competing with those local titles?
ÖZKUBAT: [LatAm is] the birthplace of telenovelas, but we call Turkey’s series Turkish dramas. [They are] a bit different [from] telenovelas. We make sure things are outdoors, as opposed to in Latin America, where most of the shooting is done in the studios. The way that our actors and actresses [work] is different. The way that we do the production is different, and it gives the audience that feeling. It is more realistic and more alive, and it creates a great world for each drama series. It ends up a very high-class premiere. That’s why [they are] still getting more attraction than local series, even though we slot them in the telenovela slots.

TV DRAMA: The foray of Turkish dramas into key markets paved the way for their arrival in territories like Spain, Italy, Africa and France. What is the importance of continuing to conquer new territories?
ÖZKUBAT: More territories mean more sales and profits for everyone. We are trying to open new territories for Turkish drama. We are the only company in the market right now that has made sales to Sweden and Finland, and our sales are doing well. We weren’t expecting that kind of result for the Nordic region. The Economist published an article about Turkey becoming the third-positioned country in exporting [scripted shows] worldwide after the U.S. and the U.K. The Turkish series Golden Boy was the most exported series in the world in 2023 and [so far in] 2024. It looks like there will be many more new territories opening for Turkish drama. We are already working on it.

TV DRAMA: What is the current state of business in the U.S. Anglo market? I ask specifically about this territory because we know about the success of Turkish drama all over the world, but we don’t often hear what’s happening in the U.S. Anglo market.
ÖZKUBAT: For the last five years, we have started to sell Turkish drama format rights in the U.S. We did optioning; we are waiting for the commissioning. We have started to get great demand from the U.S. for format rights. This may be because of the strikes, but I think with [that demand], ready-made is going to be sellable and watchable in the U.S. market as well.