TTVNews celebrates its first 20 years, inviting friends and industry colleagues to share their personal experiences over the past two decades. Sibel Levendoğlu, sales manager for the Americas and US at Kanal D, answers “where were you 20 years ago?”

This 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of TTVNews, a big reason to celebrate for the group which is consolidating itself as one of the go-to media platforms in the audiovisual industry in Latin America.

And to mark the occasion, we’ve invited friends and colleagues to share their experiences, challenges and lessons learned over the last 20 years in this industry.

This time, Sibel Levendoğlu, sales manager for Latin America and the US at Kanal D, answers “where were you 20 years ago?”

Where were you 20 years ago?

20 years ago in 2004, I was working at Hilton Istanbul as a receptionist, I totally changed industries as you can see.

About the growth of the industry this time, all the OTT and streaming platforms are a big part of this growth, because they allow producers and broadcasters to broadcast their content on these platforms. Social networks such as Instagram and Tiktok that allow content viewing have also been important; I think they are all an important part of the growth.

We can also add the advances in technology such as artificial intelligence that play a part in the growth of the industry, as they help us understand user preferences and the content that adapts to those preferences in the future.

TTVNews has been very helpful for us in this industry because it’s very important to be there, to market your content, to express what’s going on and tell people what’s happening. This type of outlets are very important for the market to grow.

What was your first industry event?

My first international market when I started working in this industry was Miptv in Cannes in 2011. It was very exciting for me because I was just starting to work.