interview
ŞEKİB AVDAGİÇ, PRESIDENT OF ISTANBUL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (ICOC)
“The brands driven by TV series create a huge value together with other sectors” By YOLDAŞ ÖZDEMIR
I
COC has been working for many years to promote Turkish content more effectively all over the world. It takes part in international content fairs and works in different countries to promote Turkish content. We talked to ICOC President Şekib Avdagiç about ICOC’s work with the Turkish content industry. The success of our TV series around the world is an important source of pride for all of us, what can you say if we were to define this success more clearly? Turkish TV Series spreads the Turkish Word on screens in all around the world. As you know, the first international success of Turkish TV series started in 2006 in Middle Eastern countries. It soon followed with the Balkans, Latin America and Western Europe with Spain, Italy and France. I would like to underline the socio-geographical aspects of this spread. A course starting from geographically closer towards culturally closer and then to all around the world. More importantly, Türkiye ranks second in the global TV drama export sector. Our TV series attract great interest on national channels and digital platforms in nearly 160 countries. To summarize, in the past 17 years, Turkish content has reached all corners of the world and has become a choice brand. This is a great success story for our country. Today, 25 percent of the content exported globally is of Turkish origin. Two important features of Turkish TV series sector are behind this fact: We boast potential and skills to meet the global needs while producing the TV series content. So, the Turkish ability to produce goods meeting the global needs is also reflected in the contents sector which I believe is the most delicate field. Secondly, the increasing popularity of these TV series show that the stories of Türkiye can find meaning not only in Türkiye but also in the world. These sto-
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