Indonesian free-TV broadcaster SCTV has greenlit a local version of Turkish daily drama Elif following ratings success with the first two seasons of the original series.

The deal is the first announced by Swedish distributor Eccho Rights under new Asia Pacific head Nixon Yau Lim after the exit of Gary Pudney to join Keshet International.

The local version is being produced by SCTV sister company Screenplay Productions. Production is scheduled to begin later in November for broadcast in January 2016.

SCTV’s general manager for acquisitions, Banardi Rachmad, says the Turkish series “turned around our daytime programming and had such an unforeseen impact on our audiences. We now want to remake the show to give it more of a local flavour in order to widen the appeal of the show here in Indonesia”.

Elif, produced in Turkey by Green Yapim for Kanal 7, more than doubled SCTV’s audience share when it aired earlier this year.

The series is the story of a girl whose mother sends her away to live on a farm to protect her from her dangerous stepfather. Only the head of the household staff knows where Elif comes from, but not even she knows that Elif is the daughter of the son of the rich farming family. As time goes by Elif’s secrets start to unravel.

This article first appeared in ContentAsia eNewsletter 221, published on 16 November 2015