Eccho Rights rejigs Turkish drama sales & acquisitions with Handan Özkubat promotion

Handan Özkubat

CJ ENM-owned distributor Eccho Rights has reshuffled the sales and acquisition division for its Turkish content by promoting Handan Özkubat to a new role.

Özkubat, who was previously director of Turkish drama, takes up the newly created role of head of sales and acquisition with a remit covering all Turkish content and responsibility for overseeing all of the distributor’s business activities in Turkey.

She will be fully responsible for all Turkish client accounts, both in broadcast and production, with the Istanbul office now acting as the exclusive representative within Turkey for the scripted format catalogue of Eccho Rights’ South Korean mother company CJ ENM.

Handan will continue to oversee the strategy of the digital and YouTube-focused team, which oversees monetisation of the company’s Turkish drama on the platform internationally.

Özkubat said: “I have a wonderful team in the Istanbul office that is allowing us to expand greatly, and not just on sales of ready-made content – we expect to have 10 new script adaptations in development in the next year and we are also growing other areas of our business such as digital rights management, which are crucial in the modern day.”

Fredrik af Malmborg, MD of Eccho Rights, added: “Handan has played a major role in developing our business in Istanbul which has been an instrumental part of our tremendous growth in the past decade. It is only natural that she takes on a more comprehensive role at the head of our Turkish business now.”

Eccho Rights, which was acquired by CJ ENM in late 2018, sells more than 17,000 hours of Turkish content each year, including Elif, Brave And Beautiful, Insider and Ezel.