Why Summer 2023 Dizis Are Struggling — Day 28/30

First of all I know I’m almost at the end of the challenge and I still haven’t written about Ya Çok Seversen which is my favorite dizi of the summer. But before I come to that I need to address something that has been bothering me. Just yesterday I read an article which really made me think about why dizis including Ya Çok Seversen are having a hard time with ratings. Maybe Ya Çok Seversen is the one that surprised me the most because of Kerem Bürsin’s star power.

In the article I read, which you can find here (and read using Google Translate) it says, one of the main reasons summer dizis are not successful is because the writers are mostly millennials but the actors are mostly Gen Z and they don’t understand and therefore can’t act the emotions written in the scripts. The writer of the article also gives an example from Kerem and Hafsa’s age gap saying Kerem is a millennial whereas Hafsa is Gen Z. I know that there has been some discussion about this but we should really be over these kinds of age gaps.

I don’t completely disagree with the article, it is probable that the writers need to update their language and a lot of situations and plots but this is not the reason for summer dizis failing in my opinion. I think for the most part dizi actors both female and male are used to classic dizi scripts. When it comes to viewers, Gen Z hardly watches any dizis, they mostly watch globally acclaimed series. To be honest it’s mostly people over 40 that watch dizis (in Turkey). At least that’s what I’ve witnessed so far.

I think the main reason this summer’s dizis are not doing well is because they started out really late. That’s a consequence of last seasons’ dizis ending too late, partly because some of them were forced to wrap up as a whole as they were not renewed for another season. Therefore when the summer dizis started, people had found themselves other things to watch. I think too much competition is also a downside. On average as a Turkish woman I have the patience to follow 1–2 dizis per summer. I can’t keep up with so many.

Last but not least, I think as viewers our expectations have raised a bit and we really look for better stories, better casting, better productions. If TV channels want to keep putting out new dizis in summer, they should start the summer season as soon as June starts. Maybe putting out dizis from different genres could also help. We’ve had our fair share of rom-coms, haven’t we?

Let us not forget that summer is the season people are out and about and don’t prefer to stay at home and watch TV. The dizis keep airing but now viewers know they can catch up with them on Youtube or other online platforms. This brings us again to how desperately we need an update on the current rating system. I am hoping TV channels and production teams are taking lessons from their failures during this summer.

For the risk of infuriating some of you, I also need to add, none of the dizis that came out so far this summer are memorable. Ya Çok Seversen and Ruhun Duymaz are cute but again, needed to start much earlier. Also, summer dizis, for the most part, lack the marketing budgets of autumn/winter dizis. That is also one of the reasons people don’t even hear a new dizi is starting.

At the end of the day, the saturation with rom-coms in Turkey is real. For the sake of earning more money I think productions want to keep making more dizis and TV channels want to keep airing them one after the other without any strategy whatsoever. For starters, when choosing days they don’t consider well enough who they are up against. In the end, things don’t end up as planned and when viewers are not interested in their half baked projects, the results are saddening for those who believe in the stories and want to keep watching.

Just the other day I read that Esra Dermancıoğlu criticized the movie Aşk Taktikleri (on Netflix) by saying we are constantly and only watching young people fall in love but middle aged or older people fall in love too. Also she complained that dizis have become a runway. I can’t help but agree with both of those statements. I love Demet Özdemir to bits but that movie (other than the wonderful styling and make up) was super forgettable. I didn’t even watch the second one, I wasn’t tempted because the chemistry wasn’t chemistrying enough for me.

To conclude, we need better stories, better productions and hopefully someday shorter episodes. If you can’t give us shorter episodes, than you have to work harder for our attention. I will not stand for watching the same stories over and over. I will not stand for actors who can’t act and who are cast only because they look good. We need versatility. We need chemistry. We need surprises and twists in the stories.

Am I asking for too much? What are your thoughts? What do you think about summer 2023 dizis? I know I said nice things about some but you agree that they are like soap bubble? I mean I basically wasn’t tempted to keep watching any of them. I would love to hear your thoughts! See you tomorrow on day 29!