The Turkish group is currently present in Cannes with an array of productions for the international market, most notably from their formats catalog, with the ever-green Exatlon, joined by other jems such as Cash Kitchen, My Style Rocks, Power of Love and Muscles and Brains, which was present at the market.
Always eager to expand their catalog’s presence around the world, Turkish distributor and producer Acun Medya has once again travelled to Cannes for a new edition of Mipcom, where the group is armed with an impressive catalog of titles ready to meet new buyers.
And this has been a busy Mipcom for the company, where they’ve made announcements such as a new local version of MasterChef that they’ll be producing in Germany for Sport1, or the launch of Muscles & Brains, a brand new competition format, launched alongside Talpa Studios, and which stands as just one of many fun titles Acun Medya is presenting buyers in Cannes.
“Our only mission is to make our audiences happy”, summarized Ebru Atasav Tahrancı, CEO of Acun Medya, who spoke to ttvnews about the latest additions to the company’s catalog, the success of its formats, their hopes for the current Mipcom, and more.
Exatlon has been such a huge success: What are the latest achievements that you would like to highlight for the format?
Exatlon will be on air soon in new territories. For us, Exatlon Germany is one of the top priorities these months. We have acquired 50% of Sport1 in Germany. We are very happy to be partners with Highlight Group which we share the same vision, and enthusiasm and our aim is to make Sport1 a sports and entertainment channel and bring it among the leading channels of Germany. We started our programming with Exatlon and we are very happy and excited about it. We hope it will repeat the success and have a big contribution on Sport1 ratings elevation in near future.
You are in a unique position locally with TV8, programming non-scripted titles against the world-known Turkish dramas. How did that strategy develop and what makes it so successful?
When we acquired TV8 nearly ten years ago and decided to turn it into a just entertainment channel, we had the motto that our only mission is to make our audiences happy and we would be the happiest channel of Turkiye. With that mission we chose our way to program only entertainment and reality shows, and we didn’t choose the line of producing dramas as you mentioned there were a lot of channels doing only dramas. And as we grew in that vision, we distinguished more with our specific programming. We are globally producing almost 5000 prime-time hours, so it grows like a snowball itself, with all the formats and creative ideas having a huge environment to grow, in 15 territories and brings us more success I think.
What new formats are you currently presenting at Mipcom 2024?
As always Exatlon is top priority for us, as it is a very strong format that can even change the rank of a television channel in the market. As we produce daily and very long seasons, the success triples.
The Acun Medya activation at Mipcom 2024
We are presenting a new cooking show to the market called Cash Kitchen, which we worked years on, and we believe it will also be very successful. Not only does the format have great elements in it, but it also has a very unique set design and a unique technology of shooting. This is the surprise we are bringing to Mipcom 2024. We also had a great collaboration with our long-time partners Talpa Studios, and we are together presenting Muscles and Brains to Mipcom which we produced in our hub together in the Dominican Republic and soon will be on air in Holland and it’s a project that we are proud of. And last, we want to produce our long-term formats, My Style Rocks and Power of Love, also for new territories and so it’s also one of our priorities in Mipcom 2024.
Are you also distributing comedies, like the ones available in Exxen? Related, what are the expansion plans for the platform?
We are not yet distributing but Exxen is for us a new home of creating new ideas and trying new things which most of them turns out to be great success. At Exxen every season new comedies are born , and grow so we are very happy, waiting for the right moment to introduce them to our global audiences. We are soon planning to expand Exxen to new territories, our priorities are Germany and Greece.
What can we expect from the production and distribution arm of the company after acquiring a 50% stake in Germany’s Sport1?
Our vision for Sport1 is too big, we really dream to make it a leading channel in Germany. We want to write the same success story that we managed in Turkiye. As I mentioned we started with Exatlon and we will have great surprises that we will introduce in Cannes and a great lineup is coming with very important formats to Sport1. To make this happen we will use everything in our power regarding production and creativity and we will produce great programs for Sport1 audience. Like we did ten years ago , we want to make our audience in Sport1 happy, and Hopefully we will witness together how Sport1 grows into a leading channel in Germany in the coming years.
