Turkish television drama

Turkish drama is a type of television series in the Turkish language made in Turkey. These dramas reflect Turkish culture and considered by some to be the country's most well-known economic and cultural exports. They have seen significant growth since the 2000s, and Turkey had surpassed Mexico and Brazil as the second-largest exporter of television series after the United States by the mid-2010s. The television industry has played a crucial role in increasing Turkey's popularity in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North Africa.
Turkish series are chiefly produced in Istanbul, following the liberalization of private television in Turkey in the 1990s. Turkish television channels producing dramas include TRT, Kanal D, Show TV, Star TV, ATV, Now, TV8, and Kanal 7. The Turkish television series market is characterized by intense local competition; out of the 60 series produced annually in the country, almost 50% do not run for longer than 13 episodes due to the strong competition among local channels, which results in the high quality and popularity of the longer-running productions. Each episode of a Turkish drama is typically between 120 and 150 minutes in length, excluding advertisements. However, this does not apply to internet platform series.
Çalıkuşu was the first Turkish TV series to be exported internationally in 1986 to the Soviet Union. Turkish television shows are almost always available in multiple languages, dubbed or subtitled to accommodate the target country's language. The success of Turkish television series has also boosted tourism, as visitors are eager to visit the locations used in their favorite shows. The sudden and massive international popularity of Turkish TV dramas since the 2000s has been widely analyzed as a social phenomenon.

Leading actresses in 2000s

In the 2000s, Turkish series are more popular than Turkish cinema. New actresses usually graduated theatre department and acting teacher. Their careers continued in Turkish series. Even though there wasn't social media in the 2000s, leading TV actresses are more popular than cinema actresses. They founded in Actors Syndicate.

1950	1951	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959
				Melek Baykal		Oya Başar	Zuhal Olcay		Demet Akbağ
1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969
		Hatice Aslan	Aydan Şener		Vahide Perçin				Meltem Cumbul
1970	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979
Berna Laçin	Janset Paçal	Gülben Ergen	Şevval Sam	Pınar Altuğ	Sanem Çelik	Nurgül Yeşilçay	Ahu Türkpençe	Özgü Namal	Songül Öden
Sibel Can	Gülse Birsel	Binnur Kaya	Dolunay Soysert	Ebru Cündübeyoğlu	Fadik Sevin Atasoy	Özge Özberk	Canan Ergüder	Selma Ergeç	Çağla Şıkel
	İclal Aydın	İnci Türkay	Hande Ataizi	Şebnem Dönmez	Ayça Bingöl	Zuhal Topal	Ceyda Düvenci	Doğa Rutkay	Evrim Akın
			Arzum Onan	Ece Uslu	Hasibe Eren		Yeşim Büber		Aslı Tandoğan
			Özlem Conker	Başak Köklükaya					Şebnem Bozoklu
									Tülin Özen
1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
Demet Evgar	Vildan Atasever	Gamze Özçelik	Ezgi Mola	Aslı Enver	Melisa Sözen	Pelin Akil	Damla Sönmez	Ezgi Eyüboğlu	Burcu Biricik
Burçin Terzioğlu	Deniz Çakır	Melis Birkan	Yıldız Asyalı	Pelin Karahan	Elçin Sangu	Zeynep Çamcı	Sinem Kobal	Ecem Özkaya	Selin Şekerci
Nehir Erdoğan	Gökçe Bahadır	Özge Borak	Aslıhan Gürbüz	Berrak Tüzünataç	Seda Bakan	İrem Sak	Merve Boluğur	Cansu Tosun	Farah Zeynep Abdullah
Rojda Demirer	Filiz Ahmet	Büşra Pekin	Selin Demiratar	İpek Yaylacıoğlu	Gülçin Ergül	Gonca Vuslateri	Ezgi Asaroğlu	Hazal Filiz Küçükköse	Yasemin Allen
Begüm Kütük	Tuba Ünsal	Begüm Birgören	Naz Elmas	Funda Eryiğit	Yasemin Özilhan	Özge Özpirinçci	Merve Sevi		Ayşecan Tatari
Nur Fettahoğlu	Sezin Akbaşoğulları	Yasemin Hadivent	Saadet Aksoy	İpek Karapınar	Hande Doğandemir	Özlem Yılmaz	Öykü Çelik		Berna Koraltürk
Nergis Öztürk	Azra Akın	Tuğçe Kazaz	Bade İşçil	Müge Boz	Sinem Öztürk	Yıldız Çağrı Atiksoy	Hande Soral		Burcu Özberk
Cansu Dere		İpek Özkök	Meryem Uzerli	Ekin Türkmen	Ceren Moray	Gülcan Arslan	Aslıhan Güner		Başak Parlak
Burcu Kara		Çiğdem Batur	Hatice Şendil	İpek Erdem		Açelya Topaloğlu	Özge Gürel		Begüm Öner
		Tuba Büyüküstün	Belçim Bilgin	Birce Akalay		Fahriye Evcen			Fulya Zenginer
		Bergüzar Korel		Beren Saat		Selen Seyven			Ceren Hindistan
		Nesrin Cavadzade				Selen Soyder

Production

In 2010, a season of Turkish TV series was 30 to 35 episodes long. One 90-minute episode took 6 days to make. When TV series are broadcast, the next 3 to 4 episodes were shot concurrently. Actors and workers were on strike. So a Turkish TV series generally has 2 crew concurrently. In 2016, a season of Turkish TV series was 35 to 40 episodes long. It is between 120 and 150 minutes in length. Actors and crew members complained.
Each series roughly consists of 40 episodes that last about 130 minutes, which translates into 5,200 hours of domestic TV content broadcast yearly. Meric Demiray commented that as a screenwriter, "it was wonderful until about 10 years ago. Then I had to write a 60-minute episode per week, as opposed to today's 130-plus minutes. It has become a very mechanical and uninteresting process, just a question of keeping the melodrama going."
After TMSF took over many channels. Media focuses polarize, increase tension in society. Former leader of the Republican People's Party Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said "Freedom of press, thought and expression is one of the most important obstacles in the reactionary and totalitarian regime that is intended to be established. Because it is impossible for the enemies of the Republic and democracy to succeed without taking over the independent and opposition media. For this purpose, the government has tended to take over the media and create a partisan pool media from the first day. Everyone live in a semi-open prison."
Journalist Nevşin Mengü said "Series consist desing society of government. It isn't criticism. They also try to design for dissident."
According Turkish University Women Association, 8 out of 11 TV series contain oppression and violence against women. Despite the Turkic warrior women culture of Central Asian. Series has by repeatedly portraying polygamy like normal, the learned helplessness of female characters, dirty competition and intrigues between men and women, gender inequality, cultural bigotry and neighborhood pressures, patriarchal mentality and male-dominated culture, the acceptance that violence is in men's nature, and the prevalence of social violence within the plots. It normalizes the episode by supporting it with tense, intriguing scenarios that will increase its impact, and by interrupting the endings with exciting events that will connect the audience to the series. Some even legitimize it and it has been noted that it acts as a role model by instilling a violent communication style on vulnerable audience groups who do not have the chance to interpret these contents correctly.
Veteran actor Şevket Altuğ said "The contents of the jobs offered to the Turkish society have changed. So I can't be in any TV series with the current content. Let them accept it as criticism, and give it some credit to my old age. People kill each other with guns and rifles in all the work done. All men have beards. In our time, the beard was left off if necessary. I cannot be in this environment. We tried to teach society 'love, tolerance, tolerance, living together and solidarity' in our work. If I encounter such a scenario, I can still play despite my age. But I don't think I will encounter it."
Watching TV by people who do not have a rating device at home does not affect the rating data. The rating results announced in Turkey are affected by approximately 4,350 households in the Audience Measurement Panel and the guests coming to these households. Viewings made in households other than these households or in public spaces have no effect on the audience measurement results. Turkey has world's largest illegal refugee population.
Actress and screenwriter Gülse Birsel talked about the changing rating system in the country after the phenomenon sitcom series Avrupa Yakası, Birsel emphasized that the viewers who were included in the Ab group, which measured the viewing rates of TV programs years ago, were selected very carefully with the following words: "The television audience, the measured television audience anymore, is not the audience that watches Avrupa Yakası or even Yalan Dünya. That audience is no longer measured in ratings. There is such a dramatic difference that I can't even think about it right now and believe it. In the AB group measurement on the Avrupa Yakası, both mother and father had to be university graduates. You had to go to the theater a certain number of times per week or month. You were supposed to go to the movies. It was such a difficult thing to enter the AB group, I mean there were cultural criteria, sociocultural criteria and so on. Currently, I think you can enter the AB group if you have a dishwasher at home. Then the intelligence of television, the stories it tells, your development as a storyteller and your development as an actor come to a halt. Television is moving towards things that are a little easier to understand."
In 1997, Iconic actor and director Kartal Tibet said "I can't understand the rating system. I definitely don't believe in the rating system."
Fırat Albayram actor and one of the most followed YouTube channels in Turkey. He said "Years later, people ask about the series on the street. The series which no one watched according to the rating system, was actually watched a lot. This also reveals that the rating system is extremely corrupt."
Actor Selim Bayraktar said "I think the ratings have lost credibility. The most accurate measurement is on the street. When I walk outside, I see and experience what the rating is on the street. I probably met 10 people in 100 meters and they asked me about the series."
Demiray added: "With the increase of the episodes' duration and consequently the amount of working hours, the industry has lost its most experienced professionals who refuse to work in such conditions. Wages have not grown much either". To get a sense of proportion, it suffices to think about the process of developing a cinema script, which takes about two years and at least seven weeks to shoot 120 minutes of edited footage.
Cagri Vila Lostuvali, 10 years in the business and four as a director, adds: "To deliver one episode per week our crews work up to 18 hours a day. This job eats up our entire lives." According to Şükrü Avşar, one of the leading Turkish TV shows producers and director of Avşar Film, some episodes need between 15 and 20 days of work to get satisfying results.
Approximatively 36 episodes of different series are shot each week. According to actor Yılmaz Erdoğan the length of episodes is the first weakness of the market. Another weakness is that many series do not last long due to the lack of audience. Therefore, Turkish TV series market has not yet reached maturity.
File:AKALAY.jpg|thumb|Birce Akalay is the lead actress of Siyah Beyaz Aşk
File:Tuba Büyüküstün.jpg|thumb|Tuba Büyüküstün is the lead actress of Brave and Beautiful and Rise of Empires: Ottoman
The average season length of a Turkish drama is around 35-40 episodes. New episodes are filmed 6 days a week to keep up with the demanding production schedule, and crews can work up to 18 hours a day.
Episodes are generally much longer than those of Western series, with 60% of series running between 120 and 180 minutes per episode including advertisements. When Turkish series are run in other markets such as the Balkans and southeastern Europe, episodes are usually split into shorter segments, usually not exceedingly more than 60 minutes.