UnderstandingTurkish TV Sector

2016

Part 1

Distribution

TV Distribution

Content

• Overview

• TV Penetration Statistics

• Turksat

• Digiturk

• D-Smart

• Cable TV

• IPTV

• Terrestrial

• RTÜK

Part 1

Overview

• Turkey is a Free To Air market dominated by satellite

• Technical penetration is easy (Having a feed on Turksat 42 quickly makes the

channel available to >%75 of the market)

• But gaining a meaningful reach is difficult due to crowded FTA offering

• Turksat is asymmetrically dominant due to above facts

• Securing a place in Digiturk is a must for channels to extend their reach especially

towards operator’s high income subscribers

• Carriage is not a revenue source for national TV channels, on the contrary it’s a cost

• Only value added international content (sports, documentary, movie, adult, etc) has

carriage revenue potential

• (Analog) terrestrial has dropped to a “commercially negligible” level in recent years

• Contrary to many neighboring markets, Cable TV is very weak in Turkey

• IPTV and OTT is not growing up very quickly due to lack of sufficient fiber

infrastructure and expensive broadband fees

• Thanks to the eye popping penetration rate of smart phones in Turkey, TV on mobile

has potential

71%

18%

9%

2%

FTA Satellite

DTH

Cable + IPTV

Analog Terrestrial

TV Penetration by Number of Households (2016 Q2)

Total TV Households ~ 21.000.000Free To Air (via Satellite) ~ 15.000.000

DTH (Satellite PayTV) 3.850.000

Cable + IPTV 1.850.000

Analog Terrestrial (as primary TV in HH) ~ 450.000

Source: BTK Report 2016

Paid

Cable and IPTV• Cable Total: 1.150.000 (Turksat A.Ş.)

• Digital Cable: 850.000

• Analog Cable: 300.000

• IPTV Total: 700.000

• Tivibu: 400.000

• Turkcell TV+: 300.000

DTH – Paid• DTH Total: 4.300.000

• Digiturk: 2.700.000

• D-Smart: 1.000.000

• Tivibu DTH: 150.000

Distribution Platforms by Number of Households (2016 Q2)

Free To Air via Turksat• FTA Total: ~15.000.000

By Satellite

Turksat 42°E: ~16.500.000

Eutelsat 7°E: 2.400.000

Source: BTK Report 2016 Satellite

Türksat A.Ş.

Facts

• Virtually covers all of the households in Turkey; and >75% of which are already

active watcher

• Fully owned by Turkish Treasury

• Hot point (42°East) for Turkey

• Carries more than 600 TV channels

• Largest teleport operator – Uplinks many local and thematic channels

• Covers Europe, Near East, and some part of Africa with different beams

• Sole (operational) cable tv operator in Turkey – Digital cable under KabloTV brand

• Last frequency reallocation was made on September 2014

• Current financial status: Virtually immortal (public money)

https://www.turksat.com.tr/tr/uydu/turksat-uydu

Digiturk

Facts

• Largest pay TV (DTH) platform

• Around 3 million subscribers

• Holds TV rights of Turkish Super League until 2022 season

• Pays around 500 mio $ per year for football rights

• Acquired by Bein Media Group from Qatar recently

• Basic package price (2016Q1): 22 TL/month

http://www.digiturk.com.tr/

D-Smart

Facts

• Secondary TV (DTH) platform

• Around 1 mio subscribers

• Mainly a packager of Turksat FTA feeds – lower operating costs

• Recently lost rights for European football (CL & Europa league)

• No solid distinguishing content

• Owned by Dogan Media

• Basic package price (2016Q1): 27 TL/month

https://www.dsmart.com.tr/

Cable TV

Facts

• Only Turksat runs a network (10 other licencees available but none operational)

• Less than 5% penetration

• Analog is being gradually replaced by digital network

• Teledunya (digital cable) has been rebranded as KabloTV in 2016

• Basic package price – analog (2016Q1): 13 TL/month

• Basic package price – digital (2016Q1): 15 TL/month

https://www.turksatkablo.com.tr/

IP TV

Facts

• Very small user base but growing

• Mainly driven by tri-play campaigns of telcos

• Tivibu: Turk Telekom’s (Leading telco) IPTV Platform

• Recently acquired European Football rights

• Recently launched DTH option

• Has a mobile version on GSM (after Avea – TT merger)

• Turkcell TV+: Turkcell’s (Leading GSM Operator) IPTV Platform

• Has a mobile version on GSM

• Vodafone: Might have intention to launch an IPTV platform in close future

• Has a premature mobile version on GSM

• Basic package price – Tivibu (2016Q1): 29 TL/month

• Basic package price – Turkcell TV (2016Q1): 15 TL/month

http://www.tivibu.com.tr/ http://turkcelltvplus.com.tr/

Terrestrial

Facts

• Percentage of “solely Analog Terrestrial watchers” is below 2% according to last

establishment survey (around 10% of households have AT as secondary source)

• Major TV channels still keep their AT networks up and running in spite of high

OpEx.

• Digital terrestrial regulation is still kept on hold by the authority

Digital Terrestrial

• The “digital terrestrial license tender” which is a prerequisite for digital

switchover was made in 2013 but failed

• Meanwhile due to decreasing penetration of terrestrial, TVs have gradually

lost their appetite for a new tender and started to lobby for assigning of

licenses without a tender

• Anten A.Ş., a consortium company set by major TV stations, has been still

waiting for the new tender in order to take action for the foundation of

consolidated digital terrestrial infrastructure

• Nevertheless Radio and TV regulator (RTUK) still seems to be persistent

about the license tender

• Telecommunication regulator (BTK) has recently allocated upper fq band to

4G

http://www.antenas.com.tr/

RTUK on distribution

• Radyo Televizyon Üst Kurulu is the main regulatory authority for broadcasting

• The supreme commission has 9 nine members each of which are assigned by

political parties based on the percentages of their seats in the parliament

on Distribution

• Apart from its duties regarding regulation of content and advertisement, it

also has power on Turksat by law

• RTUK enforces TV channels which are “targeting Turkish citizens in Turkey

via Turksat” (law statement), to hold a license from RTUK

• Consequently RTUK keeps pressure on Turksat to prevent non RTUK

licensed Turkish (targeting Turkey) channels

• The main two reasons of prevention is political orientation and improper

advertisement schemes of the channels

• Recently (2016 Q1) Turksat has blocked around 90 non-licensed or foreign

license holder TV channels (generally local or small broadcasters)

www.rtuk.org.tr

Thank you!https://tr.linkedin.com/in/ozyurekli

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