Arabian Appeal

May 2, 2011 World Screen
This article originally appeared in the MIPTV 2011 issue of TV Middle East and Africa.
 
An Arabic proverb states, “If a wind blows, ride it”—major Western companies are riding the potential of Abu Dhabi’s growing media scene.
 
Last November, the city of Abu Dhabi hosted the tense, all-important final race of the year’s Formula 1 Grand Prix championship. It was a truly glittering occasion, with kings and presidents present, plus an impressive array of celebrity faces at the spectacular Yas Marina complex. Also present were Phil Kent, the chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System, and Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s president and CEO, as well as other VIPs from the world of TV.
 
They, like every other visitor to Abu Dhabi, must have been amazed at the investment made on the brand-new racetrack. They might have been told about plans for building extensions of Paris’s Louvre and New York’s Guggenheim Museum, each designed to draw new visitors to the oil-rich capital city of the United Arab Emirates, justifiably described by Fortune magazine as the “richest city in the world.”
 
Dauman and Kent both held discussions with the production facility twofour54, the latest addition to Abu Dhabi’s imaginative investment portfolio. Turner Broadcasting is active at twofour54—it has an animation training academy for Cartoon Network, which was announced at MIPTV 2010 and launched last September, as well as a major CNN news bureau. Viacom’s MTV Networks International is busy at twofour54 with its Comedy Central Studios Arabia joint venture. Wayne Borg, twofour54’s COO, explains that, as with other international broadcasters, “there is already the firm basis of a relationship. When Mr. Dauman was in town we had further discussions on how collaboration might evolve, and they continue. I’d say watch this space because both sides are very positive.”
 
Borg says that the VIP visitors left the discussions wholly recognizing the concept. “We can tell them, of course, but there’s not a PowerPoint [presentation] on earth that can present the breadth and imagination of Abu Dhabi’s scheme for the future.”
 
Dauman and Kent are not the only media executives interested in Abu Dhabi. “Everyone’s looking at this region,” continues Borg. “Historically it is an area that they haven’t focused on and now they are starting to see its potential. High-profile events like the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix just help us showcase what we have on offer here in Abu Dhabi and the region generally. The vitality, the dynamism here is fantastic, and a huge willingness to achieve and get things done. A fresh visit is sometimes needed just to show what has already been achieved in order that impressions are not outdated.”
 
Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corporation, along with his son James (the company’s chairman and CEO for Europe and Asia), visited Abu Dhabi last March. They were shown the city’s breathtaking development plan for 2030, which anticipates an Arab “supercity” of some 3 million people. A key component in this master plan is twofour54. “You have set a high bar for your ambitions,” Murdoch told delegates to a high-level media conference. “By unlocking the creativity of your people, you can diversify your economy [and] provide millions of jobs for a rising generation,” he said.
 
Indeed, Murdoch’s statements embraced the complete vision for twofour54. Abu Dhabi recognizes that new skills have to be developed in the region’s youngsters; that is a firm part of twofour54’s brief via its skills and training academy, called tadreeb, which in the past year has seen more than 2,000 people attend various courses. Borg explains that while short vocational courses are available, and have been very popular, the overall strategy is to place talented youngsters into scholarships and internships with twofour54’s content and production partners. “We now have more than 100 companies working here and more than 1,000 people on site,” Borg says. “All of our partnerships, including this latest Cartoon Network agreement, add to the twofour54 ecosystem. The training academy is raising standards and producing talented individuals who are able to fill the new jobs being created. Cartoon Network is one of the world’s most recognizable brands and will provide tremendous opportunities for talented young Arabs to create animation relevant for the region.”
 
Borg says that in its first year of operation the training academy saw 55 courses delivered by the likes of the BBC, and around 30 percent of participants were from outside the region, proving the overall need and the difficulties of acquiring new skills in the Middle East. Moreover, demand for skills, and now Abu Dhabi’s supply, has meant a near-explosion of new facilities being provided, not least the addition of two dozen new post-production suites, plus an additional pair of all-HD studios added to the five already in place.
 
Television is booming in the Middle East, but the sector needs investment in training, new locally produced programming and the hundred-and-one craft-based skills that flow from broadcasting and new media. Today, excluding Israel and Turkey, there are more than 600 channels transmitting mostly on free-to-air networks supported by advertising or premium-rate tele­phony income. That growth, especially with HDTV and 3D developments, continues. Indeed, Abu Dhabi is also backing a new satellite operator, Yahsat, which will launch this spring to provide extra transmission capacity for the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.
 
At least one new channel will come—a Sky News-inspired “Sky News Arabic.” The 24/7 service, a fifty-fifty joint venture of the British pay-TV giant BSkyB and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp (ADMIC), was announced a few weeks after Murdoch’s visit. The new business will be based at twofour54’s Abu Dhabi facilities.
 
SKY-HIGH AMBITIONS
Adrian Wells, previously Sky News’s head of international news, has been appointed to work with the ADMIC team to launch the new channel, and a director of news will be named later this year to lead the venture on a permanent basis. “The joint venture with ADMIC provides Sky News with an opportunity to enter the large and fast-developing MENA marketplace with the support and expertise of a respected local partner,” Sky said in announcing the channel.
 
Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the chairman of ADMIC and of the new venture, said, “The new channel will be an important, independent voice for the Arab world, providing accurate and in-depth reporting of all the interesting developments in the region. We intend to set a new standard for broadcasting in the Middle East and North Africa by combining the best practice, expertise and reputation for impartiality of global news leader Sky News with our regional knowledge and the world-class infrastructure offered by Abu Dhabi and the twofour54 media zone.”
 
Borg, speaking about the Sky News Arabia scheme, and CNN’s existing presence within the twofour54 campus, said both operations were very important in their own way, and are a testament to where Abu Dhabi sits within the region.
 
The bigger question perhaps is whether this Sky News deal is a natural extension of News Corp.’s increasingly robust commitment to the Middle East. News Corp. is already extremely active via its partnership with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Rotana channels, and its FOX channels have widespread distribution throughout the region.
 
As Murdoch noted in his speech, the tele­vision market is still young in this part of the world. “The potential, however, is huge,” he pointed out. “If you want higher-quality television, you need a transparent market that helps ensure that people receive a fair price for the value they create.”
 
It was the Abu Dhabi Media Corporation (ADMC) that picked up the tab for the March 2010 talk-fest co-chaired by Rupert Murdoch. In February of this year it was announced that ADMC’s CEO, Edward Borgerding, was stepping down immediately. CFO Frank Mooty was appointed acting CEO. It will be interesting to see how this extremely ambitious company, with interests in print, radio, free and pay TV, films, gaming and content creation, now moves forward. But the initial signs are that the powerhouse company has barely missed a beat. The deals still come fast and furious. For example, February saw ADMC announce a new division, Karkadann Games, to tap into the fast-growing gaming sector.
 
“ADMC is a sister company, and is a disseminator of content, while our role at twofour54 is a facilitator for the industry,” explains Borg. “We do not ourselves produce content, nor are we a broadcaster. Our role is to help develop the ecosystem which will allow a sustainable industry to emerge here in Abu Dhabi. We are also broadcast agnostic and will happily work with broadcasters and producers in the market and on any platform. We rent out studio space to all comers here in the region and internationally. Today, we are based partly within the ADMC compound, but that will soon change as part of the wider plan.”
 
ADMC’s $1 billion joint venture with Warner Bros. for movies and video games is reported to have slowed, with just one film made (Robert Rodriguez’s Shorts), while a $100 million package of films with National Geographic Entertainment is making more steady progress. In December 2010, ADMC announced it would be making Djinn, a horror flick, as part of a comprehensive production slate including Peter Weir’s The Way Back and Jodie Foster’s The Beaver.
 
LOCAL FLAIR
Borg explains that twofour54 will also take an investment position, via its funding and investment arm, ibtikar, when a project makes sense. One demonstration of this is the co-production deal with the U.K.’s 3Line Media on Driver Dan’s Story Train. “We used Driver Dan and its inherent IP to kick-start animation here, and we’ll [invest] strategically when necessary,” he says.
 
Today, twofour54 is operating from two significant facilities: its brand-new Khalifa Park business park suite of buildings, as well as the ADMC compound downtown. The overall plan calls for a totally new training, production and creative campus to be built out of town. Borg says that potential sites have been identified, and a decision will be made later this summer, following the usual due diligence studies. “The plan for the purpose-built campus and precinct is proceeding well. As to the overall vision, we are well out of the gate. The number of companies looking to locate here continues to grow almost daily. We have now contracted to take a 10-story office block for extra production offices. Four of our five buildings are at full capacity, while forward bookings for the studios are very healthy indeed.”
 
Borg continues, “Our industry is changing, and fast. We know this. People might just as likely talk to us about helping them produce an iPhone or iPad app as well as an online presence for this or that project. We have set up AppsArabia just for this purpose. But from a commercial perspective we just want to reach out to the creative community and show them what we can do. Basically, as we all know, it’s about raising everyone’s game and producing the best content possible that can connect with audiences.”