Aydın Doğan becomes only Turk in Variety500

ISTANBUL

Doğan Group Founder and Honorary Chairman Aydın Doğan has become the only Turk to enter Variety500, an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global $2-trillion entertainment industry.

Updated annually, the Variety500 reflects the accomplishments of its members over the previous 12 months. They were selected by Variety’s editorial board, which conducted extensive research for its selections.

The 500 people on the unranked list “have distinguished themselves across a wide range of industry sectors from film and TV to music and gaming, in jobs from CEOs and directors to agents and actors,” according to Andrew Wallenstein, the co-editor-in-chief of Variety.

On its website, Variety gave information on the Doğan Group and praised Kanal D, which is one of Doğan Group’s TV networks.

“Doğan Group is comprised of five national newspapers and three national TV stations, plus magazines and radio stations. Doğan’s TV networks include Kanal D, which rapidly rose in the ratings following its 1993 launch and has since managed to consistently rank among the country’s top three networks,” the U.S. magazine said, adding that Kanal D has been instrumental to driving the Turkish TV boom.

“Kanal D has been instrumental to driving the Turkish TV boom, thanks to shows such as female empowerment drama ‘Fatmagül,’ an international megahit and one of the country’s most successful drama series ever,” it also said, referring to the series “Fatmagül’ün suçu ne?” (What is Fatmagül’s Crime?), which was about the issue of rape.

Variety also characterized Doğan Group as “Turkey’s leading TV entertainment content company.”

“Led first by its founder, and subsequently by his daughter Arzuhan Doğan Yalçındağ, the Doğan Group has basically become Turkey’s leading TV entertainment content company. They are also a big TV news provider thanks in part to their 50/50 joint venture with AOL Time Warner, which led to the launch of CNN Türk,” it added.

Doğan shared the list, which indexes the 500 most influential individuals working in the global entertainment business, with many world-famous names, including Google founder Larry Page, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Fox TV founder Rupert Murdoch, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and singer Lady Gaga.

An overwhelming majority of the names on the list were from the United States, with 362 people entering the list of 500.

The U.S. was followed by Britain with 28 names, China with 20, France with 16, Germany with 15, India with 12, Italy with eight, Spain with six, Mexico with four and Qatar with four figures. There were one or two names from the remaining countries.

There are names from the cinema, television, music, technology and gaming industries on the list, which weren’t listed based on any ranking.

Some 209 producers, 179 executives, 122 artists, 39 backers, 38 moguls and 25 dealmakers entered the list.