In 2007, at the launch of Kanal D, Begum Dogan, president of the channel, said that they have great expectation from the TV, aiming to be, in 2-3 years, one of the leaders on the TV market. At that moment, Kanal D’s owners were convinced the victory will be fast, but they needed more time than expected to make their way on Romanian market.

Three years after launch, the Turkish TV was up a few places in top TVs, but still on 5 th-6th places when it came of audiences. The jump to the first places came later, last year, when Kanal D attacked with Suleyman and it worked.

Start with football

At the beginnings, Kanal D project was joined by 2 international players, Dogan (75%) and Ringier(25%), with the last withdrawing from the venture a while after.

Ringier came with a strong image contribution and promo for Kanal D; the new TV was promoted in all trust’s products such as Libertatea and TVmania.

In the 1st year, Kanal D tried to win the market with football, after it got the broadcasting rights for a few games in League 1, after TVR didn’t paid on time the money for those games.

In the audience rankings, football games were the most watched program that year on Kanal D.

In top 10 programs at Kanal D in the first year were also “Nora pentru mama” (Daughter in law for mum), but also Winner’s hour by Mugur Mihaescu and I love Rumania, a humoristic series.

Most watched shows during Kanal D’s 1st year are available here.

After being #11 in its first year, Kanal D jumped on 3rd

Kanal D ended 2007 as the TV ranking 11th in audiences top, with a daily average of 56,000 viewers per minute.

In the next 3 years, the station got a gradual increase of audience and ranked 6-8 in audiences top.

A notable increase was posted by Kanal D in 2011, when it went up on the 3 rd place at national level and on 5th at urban level in audiences top. In 2013, in the first 2 months, Kanal D ranks 3 rd, after Pro TV and Antena 1, both on national and urban level .

The audiences for Kanal D in its 6 years on the market are available here.

Suleyman’s attack

There is no doubt that Suleyman the Magnificent was the locomotive of the station in 2012. The series was the revelation of last year’s end, managing to overrun the shows it competed with. Under Suleyman’s domination, Pro TV moved its “Bet with Life” series on Wednesday evenings, as on Mondays it was always behind Kanal D’s series.

Suleyman even managed to surpass one time also Pro TV’s “Voice of Romania”.

The series was the most watched Kanal D program last year, with an average of 1.4M viewers per episode, from which 900,000 living in urban areas

Translation provided by AdHugger