Editorial
PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Nick Snow nick. snow @ advanced-television. com
MANAGING EDITOR
Colin Mann colin. mann @ advanced-television. com
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Chris Forrester
chris @ forrester-solutions. com
PUBLISHING ASSISTANT
Nik Roseveare
nik @ advanced-television. com
ART EDITOR
Steve Overbury steveoverbury @ yahoo. co. uk
CONTRIBUTORS
David del Valle- Madrid Pascale Paoli-Lebailly- Paris Branislav Pekic- Rome
INSIGHT ASSOCIATES
3Vision ABI Research Ampere Analysis Caretta Research Decipher Media Consultants Futuresource Consulting MIDiA Research Omdia Parks Associates PP Foresight SNL Kagan
Strategy Analytics
SALES DIRECTOR
Sanjeev Bhavnani
sanjeev @ advanced-television. com
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www. advanced-television. com
Inside information
In this issue Chris Forrester brings us his latest annual‘ Tour d’ Horizon’ of the MENA media landscape. It is a story where the long-term characteristics fall into ever starker relief. There are still significant and expanding hubs of local production making wildly popular local drama and other content. There are still Gulf states with vaulting ambitions for attracting the world’ s film and TV production players. Top level sport, movies, and some drama, remains in high demand – unfortunately, via pirate providers.
What will be the trends? There’ s some reason to be optimistic that, particularly through streamers, there will be increased international co-pros, both to supply local audiences and to introduce Middle East stories and storytelling to the rest of the world. Increased cultural encounters via drama and actuality programming would be an unalloyed good.
Gulf state media facilities. What can you say? There is undoubtedly some sovereign competition here( sovereign wealth fund, at least), that isn’ t entirely to do with a rational assessment of the demand level. But that’ s the way Gulf investment is and, sometimes,‘ if you build it, they will come’, but not that often. The heavy discount to Hollywood will see production migrate. But there is a downturn in production anyway. And – particularly now that the Oscars Academy has said creative AI won’ t bar you from winning – the amount of physical production is bound to decline. Unfortunately, some of the Gulf’ s lavish investments are bound to become solutions in search of problems.
Piracy remains a huge drag on the region in terms of pay-TV and premium streamers. It is hard to calculate the losses, not least because it is facetious to suggest that content currently stolen would otherwise be paid for at the sticker price. The problem is that a retail price that makes a business model work for providers, is simply too expensive for the normal household incomes of the area. The situation isn’ t going to change until that gap closes.
Editorial
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ISSN 1477-8092
Inside
The Wrap 4-7 Cover Story 8-15 Preview 16 Company contribution 18-19 Company contribution 20-21 Company contribution 22-23 Preview 24 Research 26
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