The Lasting Appeal of Turkish Entertainment

Strategic Argument and Areas of Debate

The rapid internationalisation of the Turkish entertainment industry has evolved into a formidable instrument of value-based public diplomacy, triggering a deep geopolitical contest for cultural hegemony across the Muslim world where traditional Gulf powers are attempting to aggressively curtail this soft power expansion to preserve their authoritarian regional orders.

Executive Summary

The sustained global popularity of Turkish television dramas serves as a central pillar of Turkey’s public diplomacy, projecting a unique synthesis of Islamic conservatism and modernity that resonates deeply across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. This cultural ascendance has positioned Turkey as a formidable regional power, directly challenging the geopolitical influence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have retaliated with politically motivated broadcasting bans executed by the Middle East Broadcasting Centre. Endorsements by political figures such as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan further cement state-sponsored programmes like Diriliş: Ertuğrul as strategic assets in the broader ideological competition over Islamic leadership and regional alliances.

Analytical Framework and Key Drivers

Privatisation and Production Competition: The proliferation of private television channels in 1993 ended the monopoly of Turkish Radio and Television (TRT), forcing independent production companies to fiercely compete for advertising revenue and driving high-budget productions that necessitated the pursuit of international export markets.

Neo-Ottoman Cool and Delocalisation: Turkish dramas strategically blend Islamic traditions with secular modernity while employing universal melodramatic narratives, allowing them to transcend the limitations of the cultural proximity theory across diverse global markets from the Middle East to South America.

State Sponsorship of Cultural Exports: The Turkish government actively subsidises international trade show participation and orchestrates diplomatic outreach through platforms like the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019, amplifying the geopolitical reach of private media enterprises.

Gulf State Political Retaliation: Hegemonic actors including the Middle East Broadcasting Centre and Egypt’s Dar Al-Iftaa weaponise censorship and issue religious edicts to neutralise Turkish cultural influence during periods of acute diplomatic tension.

Strategic Assessment & Empirical Findings

• By 2013, Turkey successfully exported over 100 drama series to more than 80 countries, generating $100 million in foreign revenue, with individual episodes commanding prices between $15,000 and $150,000.
• The broadcasting of Gumus across 20 nations in the Middle East and North Africa culminated in a final episode viewership exceeding 85 million individuals in 2008.
• The historical drama The Magnificent Century achieved unprecedented global penetration by 2013, securing an audience of over 200 million viewers across 50 countries.
• Turkish television export revenues experienced exponential growth, reaching $180 million by 2014, driven by both state-funded content and private channel syndication.
• Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates orchestrated a $40 million counter-narrative production titled Mamalik el-Nar in 2019, which struggled critically, securing an IMDb rating of only 5.5/10 from 824 votes.
• In contrast, the Turkish public broadcaster produced Diriliş: Ertuğrul with a budget of $44 million in 2014, successfully broadcasting it in over 60 countries and achieving an IMDb rating of 7.7/10 from 20,635 votes by May 2020.

Geopolitical Trajectories & Policy Risks

• The escalating ideological warfare between Turkey and Saudi Arabia poses a severe fragmentation risk to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Saudi Arabia’s willingness to use economic leverage to enforce cultural boycotts, as seen during Pakistan’s withdrawal from the Kuala Lumpur Summit, highlights the vulnerability of cash-strapped nations caught in regional power struggles.
• Turkey’s continued reliance on the entertainment sector to project its middle-power status faces acute regulatory constraints within authoritarian Gulf markets. The sudden removal of Turkish content by the Middle East Broadcasting Centre demonstrates the strategic vulnerability of exporting soft power into regions where media consumption is tightly controlled by adversarial state entities.
• The weaponisation of religious authority, demonstrated by Egypt’s Dar Al-Iftaa issuing fatwas against Turkish television series, risks radicalising cultural consumption across the Middle East. This institutional hostility forces Turkish cultural exports to depend heavily on alternative distribution networks to bypass state-sponsored censorship.

Critical Policy Questions & Responses

Question 1 How does the international proliferation of Turkish television dramas alter the balance of soft power between Turkey and Saudi Arabia?

Answer: The expansive reach of Turkish cultural narratives directly challenges Saudi Arabia’s historical dominance over Islamic soft power, which has traditionally relied on well-funded religious propagation. By presenting an appealing synthesis of modern governance and Islamic values, Turkish media undermines Saudi ideological hegemony, prompting Riyadh to retaliate through coordinated regional broadcasting bans.

Question 2 What strategic vulnerabilities did the 2008 financial crisis expose within Eastern European broadcasting networks that Turkey subsequently exploited?

Answer: The economic downturn severely constricted local media production budgets across Eastern Europe and the Balkans, forcing regional networks to seek high-quality, cost-effective foreign programming. Turkish production companies aggressively filled this vacuum, establishing a durable cultural footprint in culturally disparate markets by offering premium melodramatic content at highly competitive syndication rates.

Question 3 Why has the cultural proximity theory proven insufficient to explain the global export trajectory of the Turkish entertainment industry?

Answer: While cultural alignment facilitated initial expansions into the Middle East and Central Asia, Turkish producers strategically embraced narrative delocalisation to eliminate alienating cultural specificities. By focusing on universal themes and shared cross-cultural genre structures, Turkish media successfully penetrated fundamentally distinct markets such as Brazil and Poland, transcending regional ethnic and religious affiliations.

Question 4 What are the geopolitical consequences of Pakistan’s fluctuating endorsement of Turkish cultural products like Diriliş: Ertuğrul?

Answer: Pakistan’s domestic broadcasting decisions reflect a volatile strategic dependency on conflicting regional powers, attempting to balance ideological alignment with Turkey against vital economic reliance on Saudi Arabia. The eventual state-sanctioned broadcast of Turkish historical dramas by the Pakistan Television Corporation in 2020 signals a critical recalibration of Pakistani public diplomacy towards Turkey’s value-based geopolitical framework.

Key Actors and Systemic Dynamics

• Turkey → Expands influence through → Turkish entertainment industry
• Turkish entertainment industry → Competes with → Middle East Broadcasting Centre
• Saudi Arabia → Constrains → Turkish television export revenues
• Recep Tayyip Erdoğan → Coordinates with → Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan
• Diriliş: Ertuğrul → Accelerates → Turkish soft power
• Egypt’s Dar Al-Iftaa → Undermines → Neo-Ottoman cultural narratives
• United Arab Emirates → Supports → Mamalik el-Nar
• Organisation of Islamic Cooperation → Is affected by → Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019
• Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) → Enables → State-sponsored historical dramas
• Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) → Responds to → Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan