More than a series crisis: The table of capitalism

In one of his poems, Brecht says, “Those who take the largest share from the table teach us to be content.” The table is important: Who got how much to eat, how was that table prepared, what was used, who left the table hungry, who complained even while eating their fill, and what did the table actually say to whom? All these questions came to my mind while thinking about the recent series crisis. 

According to what we read in the news, because series production costs have risen significantly and advertising revenues have decreased, television channels have demanded discounts from production companies, and they in turn have demanded them from famous actors. Some of those famous actors have objected to the discount request. What were we saying about the order of shares at the table? This is the main issue. In that case, let us both elaborate on the subject and start talking about the reality that the order of shares points to.

If you wish, let us start with the television channels.

 According to 2026 data, it is stated that advertising prices on national channels vary on average between 5,000 TL and 250,000 TL depending on the channel and broadcast time. 

So, what does this number tell us?

 Let us now try to answer this question with examples.

It is evening, you have prepared your tea or coffee; you are watching your favorite series. And right at one of the most exciting parts of that series, the commercials begin. Important companies from all sectors pay for their promotions not by the minute, but by the second. We mentioned above that the price range for advertisements is quite wide. Let us assume, as an average calculation, that television channels receive 65,000 TL per second for advertisements during this time slot. 

I think the calculation is clear.

650 thousand TL in advertising revenue in 10 seconds!

If the commercial break is 20 minutes in a series that lasts nearly two hours, this number reaches 78 million. 

The answer to the question, “Why are series not shot like series, but rather each episode like the length of a feature film?” is hidden right here. Because it is not just images flowing from the screen, but a fortune. While this fortune falls to some people there, all that is left for us is to watch repetitive scenarios. When this is the case, the hours stretch, the characters in the series get into absurd situations, and the knots never seem to be untied.  

Now let us compare our example with the minimum wage figure.

As you know, the minimum wage in our country is 28 thousand TL.  A worker works for a month and only receives this amount. However, in the series time slot, someone earns this money in 0.43 seconds. 

In other words, the gross advertising revenue a television channel earns in less than half a second (0.43 seconds) is equivalent to the net monthly (30-day) salary of a minimum wage earner. 

Again, a single 10-second evening prime-time advertisement is worth almost two years of a minimum wage worker's salary.

Look, I am talking about ten seconds. 

This must be the class divide that seconds reveal.

Let us also look at the hours, if you like.

While the gross labor of a minimum wage earner for 1 hour is worth 146.80 TL, even the lowest 1-second advertising price in the daytime slot of television channels (5,000 TL) corresponds to approximately 34 hours (4.5 working days) of the worker's labor. 

I do not think there is a need to mention days or years. 

I am talking about a sector where 20 minutes amounts to millions. The equivalent of 20 minutes is 2,778 minimum wage earners. Almost the population of a district. 

What was Fikret saying, 'Han-ı Yağma' (The Feast of Plunder). That is the order you know.

If television channels are at one end of the table, production companies, famous actors, and the script team that follows are at the other. In this wheel of fortune where the cost per episode of a series reaches 30 million, it is stated that 30 to 40 percent of the earnings go to producers, 5 to 10 percent to screenwriters, and 20 to 30 percent to famous actors. You do the math. 

Companies and famous actors who earn millions per episode are one thing, but the set workers trying to make ends meet are another.

Damla Kırkalı, General Secretary of the Cinema TV Union, one of those workers, described this situation somewhere as follows: “When it comes to behind-the-camera workers, they say ‘There is no budget’ and payments are made far below the base wages announced by the relevant associations and organizations of the teams. Many rights violations such as payment per episode instead of weekly payment, working without insurance, and long working hours are also committed. Therefore, the gap between actors and set workers, who work for approximately the same number of hours, becomes even more striking.” 

Behind the glittering screens, the seconds flowing with wealth, and the television and production companies complaining about costs these days, there is such a reality. While those who work heart and soul while the table is being prepared, those who give their labor and time to this work are treated almost like pariahs, it falls to those who eat their fill but are still not satisfied to complain about the table.

This is the morality of capitalism, the manifestation of the type of human the system creates.

It is not stomachs that do not know how to be full here, but souls.

Capitalism is the name of the order where some leave the table hungry while it is overflowing.

That is why what we are talking about is actually not a series crisis, but an ideological crisis.

Look, there is no place for the justice of sharing, human dignity, conscience, or loyalty at that table.

Veteran cinema actress Saadet Gürses describes this situation with these simple sentences:

“Unfortunately, in cinema, they always cast their own favorites; they have a 40-year-old woman play the mother of a 42-year-old, but they keep the cycle turning that way, they never give us roles. It is always the same circulation, unfortunately. The people who play in all the series are the same. For God's sake, let someone come out and say, 'Let this girl earn a few pennies too, let this girl shoot a film or two.'

Saadet Gürses has acted in films with master artists such as Hülya Koçyiğit, Türkan Şoray, Tarık Akan, and Kemal Sunal in her time. The number of films she has appeared in is close to two hundred. Gürses was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1997. That is when she fell into a debt trap. Because no one gives her work. Because there is a kind of cartel in the capitalist cinema and television market. What followed were difficult years, days of struggle. What followed was disloyalty, what followed was turning one's back. What followed were calls for help made in tears..

“I cannot explain my troubles,” says Gürses. “I beat a very serious illness, I am afraid of getting sick again. I have already had a heart attack, I live with a stent. The doctors said 'sadness is forbidden,' but it is impossible not to be sad, everything is sadness.”

Gürses is not a singular example, of course. We are faced with many Yeşilçam examples who were abandoned to poverty, left high and dry, and whose doors were never knocked on for a single day. Yet millions and billions are turning at the same table. 

At the same table, the voice of truth hits us in the face.

In one of his writings, Erich Fromm explains the production logic of capitalism as follows:

“At the root of production activity lies the expectation of profit from capital investment rather than the real needs of people. Since radio, television, books, and medicines are produced according to the profit principle, people are generally directed toward consumption patterns that dull their souls and sometimes even impair their health.”

This is the real crisis created by capitalism, starting with the “series sector”: dulled souls, consumption patterns that impair health, millions alienated from themselves… All these “diseases” flow from the screens of capitalism, poisoning millions of people, including actors, producers, and viewers. For as Scott said, “The soul killed by money is more than the body killed by the sword.”