As we prepare to celebrate IAMCR's 2011 conference in Istanbul, Hakan Tuncel from Izmir University of Economics, Faculty of Communication, provides us with an overview of Turkey's vibrant media industry.
Until the late 80s, Turkish media consisted of a handful of publishing companies with newspapers and magazines and the public broadcaster TRT for television and radio. When in the 80s the country went through an economic transformation adopting free-market economics, in a sharp departure from the protectionist paradigm of the previous decades, the press had to undergo a dramatic change as well. All the major newspapers were sold to emerging businessmen with no previous interest in journalism. They simply wanted to have the backing of media in their dealings with the government when it was privatizing incumbent state monopolies. When the broadcasting monopoly was torn apart in 1990 in a de facto fashion, it was again these businessmen with banking, construction, energy and industrial interests that took the opportunity. The early 90s saw the formation of cross-media groups with print and broadcasting interests which became very influential. The media became part of a back-scratching game between government and business. For a media boss, prime ministers were just a telephone call away, and that proved helpful when bidding for government tenders or privatizations. This relationship meant a degeneration of journalism, which had hardly been up to the best western standards in the first place. The Dogan, Cukurova, Bilgin and Uzan groups were the prominent players of that era.
This only changed when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, in the aftermath of a major banking crisis that had taken the country to the brink of economic collapse the previous year. AKP leader Erdogan had no interest in following the path of his predecessors and compromising with the media owners. Instead he created his own trajectory and supported businessmen from his close circle to become media owners.
Turkish media owners as businessmen have always had a soft spot for the army. Putting out stories about the emergence of Islamist extremists and how they are aspiring to take over the country and turn it into Iran have worked in the past when they felt the economy was not going well for them. As recently as 1997 the army put its foot down and unseated the government in what was little short of a full military coup. When the AKP was rising to power the media conglomerates tried the time-tested formula, as Erdogan also came from a political Islam background, but his overwhelming success at the elections left them empty-handed. Though there is evidence that the military kept trying. A series of controversial lawsuits aiming to unveil alleged attempts within the military throughout the past decade to overthrow the Erdogan government are still under review in the courts, and many retired and serving generals are in jail awaiting judgment along with their alleged collaborators in the media.
As a result of Erdogan’s bypassing the former media establishment, new media groups emerged such as the Turkuvaz group. In 2008 Turkuvaz, owned by Calik Holdings, took over the Bilgin assets, which included the popular newspaper Sabah and a major television channel, ATV. Calik’s CEO is the Prime Minister’s son-in-law and the group has booming energy and construction businesses.
The major players of the previous era find it difficult these days. The financial crisis in 2001 was a major blow as most major media groups had banking interests. After many financial crimes in their banks were unveiled, the Uzan group was taken over by the state and sold to new owners, as well as the Bilgin group. The Dogan group is trying to downscale, though they are still the publisher of several dailies including the always influential Hurriyet. The group also owns the D-Smart satellite platform, and the popular Kanal D television channel besides several more television and radio stations. Dogan was investigated and fined almost $500 million on charges of tax fraud in 2009, only to be relieved by a series of appeals at the courts and a tax amnesty. But in the mean time, Aydin Dogan, the founder and chairman, had to step down from active management.
Cukurova is only still in play thanks to its Digiturk satellite platform and Show TV, although it’s far from its glory days. Its newspaper business has shrunk and it has sold some of its other media outlets. Cukurova also has the controlling share in Turkcell, the biggest mobile operator in Turkey.
This media structure, open to intervention from both the government and military, has created a tough environment for journalists in terms of press freedom. With little resistance from the media themselves, authorities have been keen to suppress or intimidate the critical voices. The legal framework helped, with justifications such as attempting to divide the nation, insulting “Turkishness” and breaching national security. Although there has been significant improvement since the EU candidacy and the related changes in the laws, still there are several dozen journalists who have been taken to court based on their writing and jailed, or awaiting trial in jail, though the government claims they are being prosecuted for non-journalistic activities.
Turkish media today
Hundreds of television channels, thousands of local and national radio stations, several dozen newspapers, a productive and profitable national cinema and a rapid growth of broadband internet use all make up a very vibrant media industry in Turkey.
Television is still the most influential medium reaching 18 million households. A majority of homes have a satellite dish and access to multi-channel platforms. The public broadcaster TRT and several small and big commercial broadcasters offer hundreds of television channels. But the majority of the audiences are shared among the five network-style channels, Kanal D, Show TV, ATV, Fox and Star. There is some international investment from Time-Warner, News Corp., Al-Jazeera and others but television remains mostly a domestic business.
The public broadcaster lost its monopoly in 1990 and has been trying to recover its viewership ever since, although it now has 14 channels in total. Its lineup includes the flagship TRT1 as well as news, sports, kids, music and documentary channels. The long and arduous debate on Kurdish language broadcasting ended when TRT started its Kurdish service, TRT6. TRT also runs an Arabic language channel aimed at the Middle East and another one in Turkic languages, designed to have a cultural impact in Central Asia.
Turksat, the national satellite operator, carries well over a hundred channels, some in HD. This obviously is the preferred alternative to the analogue over the air reception beset with interference problems. Also there are two digital subscription platforms on satellite, Digiturk and D-smart reaching around 2.2 million and 1.2 million households respectively. Cable television, although it has been available for the past twenty years, lags behind with 1.2 million analogue and 130 thousand digital subscribers. On top of those, Turkish Telecom has launched its IPTV service recently, called Tivibu.
All platforms now offer a mixture of national, local and major international broadcasts, lots of narrowcast thematic channels, especially news, sports and documentary channels, as well as movie packages and pay-per-view broadcasts. Digiturk is the market leader in terms of subscription platforms, thanks largely to the fact that it owns the rights to the Turkish premier soccer league matches.
Almost half the population is online and almost half of the 18 million households have a computer. Some 30 million people from Turkey are on Facebook making it currently the third highest user country in the world. Another popular online destination is the video sharing sites; YouTube alone takes up almost 10 percent of all internet traffic.
Turkish cinema has emerged as a very successful business in the past decade (see the accompanying Newsletter article by Deniz Bayrakdar). Movie admissions have topped 40 million in 2010, with more than half belonging to Turkish productions although only 66 of the 243 films screened were local. Even during the weeks with Hollywood blockbusters on screens, Turkish films have topped the box office charts. The increasing earnings from Turkish films have resulted in more local productions.
This mirrors the situation in television productions. After a bombardment of US sitcoms and series when they first started in the early 90s, commercial broadcasters have discovered that the audiences have an appetite for local productions. Prime time schedules are packed with Turkish drama, often melodramatic, as every year some 80-100 productions are commissioned by the channels.
The emergence of Turkish productions both on cinema and television has also resulted in sales to neighboring countries. Turkish dramas have proved a hit with Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Greek audiences and some of the players have turned into celebrities in those countries. Commentators argue the portrayal of contemporary Turkish women and their lifestyle in those series have created a yearning for similar status among female audiences, especially in the Middle East.
Hakan Tuncel
Izmir University of Economics
Faculty of Communication