Turkish quiz show halted after corruption question

Show presenter Ali İhsan Varol, who tests contestants' vocabulary skills, asked one of the contestants on Dec. 17 what a person who takes bribes is called, and accepted “yiyici” as the answer to the question -- a Turkish word that directly translates as “someone who is constantly eating” and has become a euphemism to refer to corrupt officials. The move led to the ban of the program on the channel.

Comedian Yılmaz was among those who reacted to the decision via Twitter.

“The most decent TV program ceased being broadcast. I once volunteered to be a contestant on the show. It was my favorite. I condemn the decision," Yılmaz wrote on his Twitter account.

The episode following which the alleged ban took place was broadcast on Tuesday evening last week, the day when the corruption scandal -- which came as a bombshell in the Turkish media -- broke.

A total of 52 people were taken into custody as part of the probe jointly carried out, in İstanbul and Ankara, by the financial crimes and anti-organized crime departments of the İstanbul Security Directorate on that day, Dec. 17. The sons of Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan and Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar are among those detained. Other detainees included the mayor of İstanbul's Fatih district, Mustafa Demir, Turkish construction mogul Ali Ağaoğlu, Emlak Konut General Director Murat Kurum, Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Aslan, Iranian businessman of Azeri origin Reza Zarrab and bureaucrats from the Environment and Economy ministries.

The quiz show maintains relevance by addressing major incidents that rock the country, with a particular way of conveying its views. The show, which was at that time broadcast on the Bloomberg-HT channel, touched on the Gezi Park protests in its own unique way and made the protests a theme during one competition while tension was still high in many parts of the country. Host Varol asked competitors what "must be done to decrease tension?" The correct answer was one of the protesters' main demands of the heavy-handed police in İstanbul and other cities: "Withdrawal."

Indeed, one episode of the quiz show included questions only on the Gezi Park protests, showing its support for the protests by doing so. One of the questions asked which word was the most suitable name for a TV channel, the answer to which was “Public.” The answer to the question referred to the name of a channel established first by the country's main opposition party, Halk TV, which was highly praised by Gezi Park supporters given that it was among the few TV channels which showed the extent of the events during the protests, as the mainstream media ignored the events.

The quiz show, which moved to Show TV following the halting of its broadcast on the previous channel, allegedly shifted channels due to its low ratings. But figures later showed that the program's ratings were relatively high on the day it was broadcast, which raised doubts among the public leading to questions over why in fact the show shifted channels.