In Hard Times, Gov’t Spends $53 Million on Big-Budget Prophet Moses and Salman Series
Some 2.7 trillion Tomans (over $54 million, at anexchange rate of 49,250 Tomans/$1) from the public budget, listed under miscellaneous headings, have been allocated to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) for the production of a television series about the life of Prophet Moses and Salman, Iran Open Data research shows.
In the previous budget bill of 1401, a total of 700 billion Tomans ($14.2 million) were allocated, under temporary budget lines, to a TV series titled “His Eminence Moses and Salman”. This number was raised to 2 trillion Tomans ($40.6 billion) in the1402 budget bill.
These expenditures are part of the 7.24 trillion Tomans ($147 million) allocated to IRIB under the “Quantitative and Qualitative Development of High-Quality Film and Series Production” temporary budget line. A specific budget line has been created for this TV series in the past two years.
The overall budget estimate for this TV series are unknown, but some members of Parliament have mentioned the figure of 4-10 trillion Tomans ($81 million-203 million). The producer of this series, Mahmoud Rezvani, hasdenied the accuracy of these estimates without providing further explanation.
Series production began six years ago, in 1396, with Farajollah Salahshoor as its director. After Salahshoor's passing, Ibrahim Hatamikia took over the project.
IRIB officials arehopeful that this series will be ready in the next 5 years. This suggests that the high production expenditures will also be included in future annual budget lines.
Budget for series in the year 1400
One trillion Tomans ($20.2 million) is a significant portion of the budget. It is three times the budget of the Student Affairs Organization, 2.2 times the budget of the National Emergency Organization, twice the budget of pharmaceutical and infant formula subsidies, 1.3 times the budget of the Atomic Energy Organization, and 1.1 times the budget of Sharif University of Technology.
How many high-budget series could be developed with this budget?
This particular TV series budget is very large, not only in comparison with other budget lines, but also compared to the customary spendings of television series production.
Two trillion Tomans is approximately $40 million, if we round up the exchange rate to 50,000 Tomans per dollar. Last year’s 700 billion Tomans is approximately $20 million, at last year’s exchange rate of 39,000 Tomans per dollar. That means, so far, about $60 million have been given to IRIB for the production of this series.
This is while,according to estimates, the production cost of high-budget Turkish series ranges from $200,000 to $600,000 per hour. In other words, the budget allocated to this television series is equivalent to the production cost of 100 to 300 high-budget Turkish episodes, but it is likely a 60-episode series.
For example, the production cost of the first 25 episodes of the popular Turkish series “Magnificent Century” in 2011 was less than $5 million. This is a twelfth of the budget allocated to the “His Eminence Moses and Salman” television series.
