At this year’s Dubai International Content Market, we caught up with Pelin Koray, Senior Sales, Acquisition and Strategy Manager at Inter Medya, to talk about the company’s busy agenda at DICM, the momentum behind Halef, and the growing appeal of their mini-series and vertical drama slate in the MENA region.
How has DICM 2025 been for your company?
Pelin Koray: DICM was pretty effective and hectic for us. It is not the biggest market, but it is well-organized and packed. We had the chance to reconnect with the existing buyers and meet new partners. We would expect to see more regional channels, but I would say it was definitely effective. We had the chance to follow and be updated on the latest trends, such as micro dramas, and recent production and distribution activities in the region.
What were your highlights at this year’s edition, and how do you think these dramas connect with audiences in the MENA region?
Pelin Koray: For this year’s market, our main target is to finalize the deal for our latest drama hit, Halef, which has been launched at MIPCOM. We have offers on the table as of right now, and we hope to finalize the deal in the MENA region soon. As a love story evolved around the social differences of modern and rural life, we can say that the genre is highly appealing to audiences.
We also had efficient meetings with existing as well as new digital platforms that operate in the whole MENA; besides our long-running dramas, we discussed our mini series streaming on local VOD platforms in Türkiye. We own the biggest mini series catalogue with more than 20 titles, and these series are composed 8-20 episodes. We also represent BEIN/TOD’s titles such as The Ivy (Sarmaşık Zamanı) and Dreams and Realities (Hayaller Hayatlar). Since they are mostly family-safe content available with Arabic dubbing, they are perfect fits for Middle Eastern digital platforms. Similarly, our movie catalogue is pretty extensive, and they are also available with Arabic dubbing, and we had a chance to discuss the movies with our potential partners.
We are also happy with the feedback and the interest we received for our very first vertical drama, Boardroom to Bedroom, which has already been dubbed in several languages, including Arabic and Neutral Spanish. For our verticals, besides the potential licensing, we are also open to discussing with production companies for potential adaptation of the existing stories.
