Tension with Armenia affects airing of TV show

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Kenan İmirzalıoğlu. Hürriyet photo

As Turkish dramas gain a greater audience in neighboring countries, complications arise due to broadcasters’ fears of possible reactions from locals, especially in countries with which Turkey has a history of political tension.

Similar fears have affected the airing of the Turkish show “Ezel” in Armenia, although the Turkish TV show is known to enjoy huge popularity throughout the Arab world, particularly in the United Arab Emirates. Armenia’s leading TV channel, Shant TV, has purchased the script rights to the show and produced its own TV series featuring local actors and actresses who are striking for their similarity to their Turkish peers, namely Kenan İmirzalioğlu and Cansu Dere.

This is the very first Turkish TV show to be broadcast in Armenia, and the first episode reportedly broke ratings records. The reason the producers did not simply purchase the broadcasting rights and save themselves the trouble of producing the show from the scratch was due to fears about the unpredictable nature of the potential audience response to the show’s Turkish origin, reports say. The TV channel’s owners were allegedly hiding the fact that the show was originally a Turkish production because they feared it would not receive a good audience response if the audience was informed of the truth.

Ay Yapım is known to have sold the script rights to another of its widely praised TV shows, “Aşk-ı Memnu” (Forbidden Love), to an American channel, which is known to have recently begun airing its production based on the script.

Actress slams Turkish shows

As if to justify Shant TV’s secrecy about the origins of their version of “Ezel,” an unemployed Greek TV actress, Nikoleta Karra, recently slammed Greek channels for airing Turkish shows instead of Greek Cypriot ones, daily Hürriyet reported.

The Turkish TV series “Sıla” particularly drew Karra’s ire, sending her to Twitter to complain. “’Sıla’ in the morning, ‘Sıla’ in the afternoon. ‘Sıla’ 24 hours a day. Enough! We’ve made so many shows in Greek Cyprus. Why won’t the Greek channels air Greek Cypriot shows?” the actress tweeted. Greek actors have been working for Greek Cypriot channels for some time now due to the difficult financial situation in Greece.

Turkish shows are among the most popular TV programs in Greece, and presently five Turkish TV shows are aired in the country, including “Sıla.” Another Turkish show entitled “Lale Devri” (Tulip Era) is set to hit Greek screens on July 25. k HDN