1001 episodes
Turkish telenovelas are thriving in Latin America
Many viewers prefer epic love tales to gory local narco-dramas
Sherezade, a young widow, needs cash to pay for her son’s leukaemia treatment.
She accepts $150,000 in return for sleeping with her boss Onur,
a balding misogynist who advises his friends not to trust women because
“perfidy fills them like the weave of their beautiful garments”.
Unexpectedly, the pair fall in love. But—plot spoiler—it takes two failed engagements,
one divorce, the appearance of illegitimate children,
a miscarriage caused by poisonous tea,
a few assassinations and one suicide for the couple finally to commit to
one another in episode 179 (the son survives, too).
When the Turkish soap opera “1001 Nights”,
loosely based on the classic collection of Middle Eastern folk tales,
first aired on Chilean tv in 2014,
it broke viewing records. Mega, the ailing broadcaster that bought the rights,
was the only channel to make a profit that year.
It has bought the rights to 26 other Turkish shows since then,
and remains one of the country’s most popular channels.
The largest market for Turkish shows used to be the Middle East.
But recently Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia
have boycotted or banned Turkish shows because of the country’s embrace of
the Muslim Brotherhood and its support for Qatar
(the relative freedom of Turkish female characters does not help, either).
Latin America has filled the gap. Turkish production companies say
that a third of revenue from foreign sales comes from there, more than any other region.
Somewhat conservative themes resonate with many Latin Americans.
“We like big families, big dinners, and we value things like respect for elders,”
says Ozlem Ozsumbul of Madd Entertainment, a distributor
From Ecuador to Mexico, prime-time slots are now filled by Turkish shows.
“Kara Para Ask” (Black Money Love) counts Lionel Messi,
an Argentinian footballer, as a fan. In 2018 Venezuela’s dictator,
Nicolás Maduro, visited the set of “Dirilis: Ertugrul” (Resurrection: Ertugrul),
where he tried his hand at blacksmithing, wore a traditional hat,
and is said to have compared himself to the show’s hero,
the father of the founder of the Ottoman Empire.
But the biggest fans of Turkish telenovelas are señoras of a certain age.
They like them because they are less raunchy and gory than local shows,
with their gun-toting drug lords. It takes 28 episodes
before Sherezade and Onur share their first kiss,
which even Argentina’s leading conservative newspaper complained lacked “fervour”.
Norma, an 82-year-old in Buenos Aires, likes Turkish shows because
“they are so decent, so romantic.” Her carer, Karina,
adds: “Argentine telenovelas are too extreme, on the first date they already have sex!”
They watch Turkish shows every day from 4pm until Norma goes to sleep.
It also helps that, in contrast to Turkey, where dramas are shown once a week
and can run for over two hours, in Latin America these shows are
chopped up into shorter chunks. This makes them far easier to watch;
it also helps boost the ratings of the tv channels,
which can spin out the tales over hundreds (if not thousands) of episodes.
The formula may feature few besos, but it brings in plenty of pesos.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition
under the headline "1001 episodes" (Nov 6th 2021)