by Thinus Ferreira

Following the massive success of eMedia’s Afrikaans-dubbed Turkish telenovelas on its e.tv and eExtra channels, M-Net is ramping up its own dubbing efforts and is adding a Turkish telenovela block to kykNET & Kie (DStv 145) from July. 

More work are coming for Afrikaans actors and Afrikaans voice-actors, with M-Net’s Afrikaans division that is ramping up its dubbing efforts, starting with two Turkish telenovelas for kykNET & Kie from July: In die Ysterhand se Greep and Kind van die Noodlot.

In mid-2017 FOX Networks Group Africa – since folded into Disney – started adding English-dubbed Turkish telenovelas to the then FOX Life channel on DStv and StarSat. 

FOX Life found little success and viewers, but the genre exploded when e.tv took a swing later that same year and added Turkish telenovelas for its e.tv-packaged channels on eMedia’s Openview free-to-air satellite service.

These Afrikaans-dubbed Turkish telenovelas have been so successful over the past five years that they’ve spawned a whole new cottage industry of Afrikaans-language dubbing with new work for South African actors and voice artists, and successfully lifted ratings for e.tv and its Openview channels.

In April, Droomverlore on e.tv lured 1.66 million viewers (4.3 ARs / 19.2 share) as the channel’s 13th most-watched show of the month, a phenomenal achievement for a foreign dubbed show, and one dubbed into Afrikaans.

The ratings success of the Afrikaans-dubbed Turkish telenovelas is hard to ignore, with kykNET now also setting up its own content pipeline for this content.

“kykNET
is very excited to bring two top international telenovelas in Afrikaans to
kykNET & Kie,” says Waldimar Pelser, M-Net director of kykNET channels.

“These
two series, produced in Turkey and dubbed locally, are packed with gripping
storylines. The dubbing of such big series also creates dozens of job
opportunities in the Afrikaans TV industry for talent behind the screens and in
front of the microphone.”

“The addition of these two Turkish series is part of a bigger renewal for kykNET & Kie which will also include various exciting and new locally produced shows.”

“We want to offer our viewers the best of both worlds – international glamour in Afrikaans, as well as local stories and entertainment anchored in Afrikaans communities,” Waldimar Pelser says.

kykNET will start off with In
die Ysterhand se Greep known as Asla Vazgeçmem in Turkey.

In the story, Yiğit is a
successful businessman who doesn’t believe in love and is responsible for an
accident that leaves his wife, Iclal, in a coma for years. 

“Denying her
existence is the only way he can cope, and their small son, Mert, believes his
mother is in heaven. Then Yiğit meets Nur, and they fall in love. Unaware of
Iclal, Nur agrees to marry him. But on the day of
their wedding, Iclal wakes up,” the show’s logline reads.

The second Turkish telenovela of 148-episodes is Kind
van die noodlot, known in Turkey as Belahan Jiwa Kahraman.

According to the official description, “Kahraman Yorukman are
super rich, but they don’t have any children. Their family rejects them because
of this, and Defne starts looking for an alternative way to give her husband an
heir. She decides to hire a surrogate mother to have a baby for them”.