Non-technical innovation and consumption proximity shaping the export success of Turkish TV series

This dissertation study focuses on innovation, the development of products or services through the use of new ideas, methods or technologies, and has three aims. Firstly, it is important to predict the role of non-technical innovation in promoting and branding the Turkish TV industry in the international market. Secondly, it is necessary to predict the impact of consumption proximity (historical, aesthetic, traditional, diplomatic, political, and geographical proximity) that enables Turkish TV series to reach a wider audience in target countries. The third issue is whether non-technical innovative factors will continue to contribute to the success of Turkish TV series in the coming years, and identifying the most effective non-technical innovation in this success. Two separate cross-sectional datasets were used for the purpose of the study. The first dataset, prepared for the first two objectives of the study, includes 256 series and the 158 countries to which they were exported from 2001 to 2023, with the year 2021 being held constant. The findings obtained from the Logit regression analysis conducted using the Stata package program indicate that variables such as director, screenwriter, producer, music, genre, and distributor (distribution), which are classified as non-technical innovation, have a generally positive and significant effect on the probability of TV series export. However, the analysis revealed that nontechnical innovative factors, such as historical series, also have a positive and significant impact on the export potential of the series. Contrary to expectations, the variable of geographical proximity, which constitutes the second main purpose of the study, yielded a negative and significant result. Political proximity was negative but significant, while diplomatic and traditional proximity were positive but not significant. However, historical and aesthetic proximity were found to be higher, positive, and significant compared to other types of proximity. Finally, various machine learning models were analysed using the open-source Python programming language, to determine whether Turkish series will continue to be exported in the future, and which non-technical innovative factors are more effective in exports, regardless of whether they are exported or not using the 779 Turkish series. It has been determined that Turkish TV series will continue to be exported in the coming years, with distributor companies playing a leading role.