Discop Istambul: Positive outcome

One of the biggest problems this year was the “last minute cancel” of some big distributors and pavilions. Due to this, organizers decided to relocate some stands, trying not to get notorious. Turkish distributors’ space was reduced and companies from other regions had the chance to have a less unequal presence.

Regarding the attendance to this edition, there are different opinions: according to the organizer, there were 709 executives during the three days, but general feeling was that the concurrence was less. ‘There were less people than other editions but I had meetings the whole day’, agreed one of them, while other highlighted that several meetings where cancelled at last minute’. Asian concurrence was the most affected.

Other outstanding news confirmed by Prensario is that two Turkish distributors have finally decided to organize their own “event” in Turkey for global buyers, including screenings, panels, parties and cocktails: one of them will be doing it on April/May and the other in June. 

Apart of the Turkish companies (ITV Inter-Media, Global Agency, Calinos, TRT, ATV, Fox Turkey, Kanal D and Eccho Rights) there where booth from Europe like RAI & Mediaset (Italy); from USA, A+E, NBCUniversal, Cisneros Media Distribution and Telemundo International (USA); from Latin America, Caracol (Colombia) and Indian companies (IndiaCast, Zee and Star TV), among others.

In terms of trends, the region is showing some changes. Even when the core business of most Turkish distributors is still the drama series, now they are betting in new type of contents like entertainment shows and TV movies. 

Up to date, the country exported over 70 productions in 75 different countries, showing an income of USD 300 million in 2015 vs. USD 45 million just five years ago. Turkish companies have realized that if they want to keep growing in the international market, their programming offer must evolve, especially because the duration of its series and the costs (average of USD 150,000 and USD 600,000 per episode).

In the MENA region and Turkey, foreign series --from Latin America and India-- started to recover slots. According to Nitin Michael, deputy VP of content distribution of Zee Entertainment (India), many of his meetings showed interest in their series as ready made and scripted formats. Latin American companies trust their fiction product can return at once to Turkey.

Sales news? ITV Inter Medya confirmed that “Endless Love” will be premiered in Mega (Chile), Georgia and Indonesia, and it will launch four new game shows next MIPTV; pubcaster TRT presented the 33 TV movies from the TRT TV Films project, which will be broadcasted on TRT1 and distributed as a package by TRT Sales; Calinos, the sale of The Girl Named Feriha to Caracol (Colombia) and Albavision (USA) in Latin America, and two big distributors confirmed the launch of showcases with panels, screenings and cocktails for global buyers. 

Rodrigo Cantisano, from Istanbul