Broadband provider CenturyLink has donated and installed high-speed broadband to the hospital ship Mercy, which pulled into port in Los Angeles Friday (March 27) to provide hospital beds and care there during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The ship is being used to house other patients at hospitals expected to have all they can handle dealing with COVID-19 patients during the Pandemic. 

At press time California had the third-most recorded cases of the virus after New York and New Jersey. 

CenturyLink is providing a 1 gig ethernet connection free for one year, connecting the Defense Information Systems Agency's Air Station with the ship. 

“When the military reached out to us about providing dockside connectivity to the USNS Mercy with two days’ notice before it arrived in Los Angeles, we quickly put our network expertise to work to make it happen,” said Ed Morche, CenturyLink’s president of enterprise and government markets. 

The ship is providing 1,000 extra beds and almost as many medical personnel, as well as a dozen operating rooms. 

FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave CenturyLink a shout out in a tweet Sunday (March 29).

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The Turkish TV boom has made its way to Hemisphere Media Group’s Pasiones pay TV telenovela network.

Mercy, a hugely popular soap opera known in Turkish as Merhamet, debuted May 3 at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT). Cast members include Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Özgü Namal and Ibrahim Celikkol; dialogue is dubbed into Spanish.

The soap aired in Turkey from February 2013 to March 2014. It tells the story of heroine Narin, who overcomes the abuse of her alcoholic father, the disparagement of her mother and brother and the challenges of growing up in a poor Turkish town in order to follow her dreams and go to law school in Istanbul. Once there, she is overwhelmed by the big city’s fast pace and harsh environment, but soon finds comfort when she moves in with a wealthy girl. However, happiness is challenged by betrayal and violence.

“In recent years, Turkish dramas have become a sensation throughout Latin America, and interest in these high-quality drama-packed productions continues to grow among Latin American audiences,” Hemisphere president and CEO Alan J. Sokol said. “We pride ourselves in bringing our viewers the best novelas and dramas from around the world, which is why we are extremely excited to be the first network in the U.S. to air Mercy.”

MundoFox, now RCN-owned MundoMax, has seen success in primetime over the last 18 months with two Turkish soap operas: Suleimán and Sura y Seyit, Amor en Guerra. Azteca, meanwhile, added Kaçak at 10 p.m. weeknights at the start of 2016.

The international market for Turkish soaps heated up in 2013, with Latin America a particularly strong market. El Sultán enjoyed a major marketing push in 2014 for Chile’s Canal 13. The lineup addition came after Thousand and One Nights became a ratings success for rival Chilean network Mega, leading to the addition of two more Turkish imports — Ezel and What is Fatmagul’s Fault.

From Chile, Turkish telenovelas dubbed into Spanish were soon added to networks in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Ecuador.