Turkish ministry to support TV series promoting family life

ANKARA

Turkish Family and Social Policies Ministry has announced plans to support TV series that promote family life and which are aimed at children. 

The ministry commenced talks with the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) on the issue and is working to determine the criteria regarding the support, daily Habertürk reported May 23. 

The issue came to the fore with a recently issued state of emergency decree, which said that TV productions and series that support children and youth’s physical, mental and moral development, as well as those which promote the unity and continuity of the family, would be encouraged. 

The support will be provided with 20 percent of the administrative fines imposed on TV channels and radio stations by RTÜK in the previous year. 

Speaking about the issue, Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya said they hoped to watch TV series as a family altogether with the new regulation. 

“I hope that the producers make TV series in which family values are protected from now on with this support. God willing, we will be able to watch TV series as a family,” Sayan Kaya told daily Habertürk. 

According to RTÜK’s citizen notifications report, the media watchdog received a total of 16,881 complaints regarding TV series in 2016. Some 5,282 of the complaints said the TV series in question were “against the principle of the protection of family, public morals and moral values.”