Quality TV, Turkish Television History, and the Transformation of Sıfır Bir

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Turkish television has undergone a transformation in recent decades due to the rising global popularity of Turkish series; the proliferation of viewership; and the introduction of cable, digital, online, and OTT (over-the-top) platforms. The result has been increasingly higher-quality TV content. This article traces the history of Turkish television with a look at how the Turkish television-series market has evolved into one which produces globally marketed content and how the discourses on quality TV informed such developments. The article also demarcates the history of television in Turkey into three different phases by underlining major changes and by proposing a novel periodization. Then, the contemporary rendering of “quality” is illustrated through a six-season-long, hit crime drama series, Sıfır Bir: Bir Zamanlar Adana’da (Zero One: Once Upon a Time in Adana, 2016–2019). The article argues that while the first two seasons of the series illustrate an independent, low-budget Web production based on a true story, after a transitional third season, the final three seasons feature an institutionalized “quality” drama on a national OTT platform at the expense of its earlier authenticity and naturalism.