Discovery Makes Mideast Investment

SILVER SPRING: Discovery Communications has purchased Takhayal Entertainment and its affiliated companies in Dubai and Egypt, including the flagship food-based network Fatafeat.

The move grows Discovery’s reach in the Middle East and North African TV market. It also gives Discovery access to a wealth of cooking recipes and shows and to the company’s production facility.

Fatafeat is the number one food network in the Middle East. It currently reaches around 55 million households throughout the region. The in-house studio contains around 700 hours of programs, with around 150 to 200 added each year.

Mark Hollinger, the CEO of Discovery Networks International, said, “Discovery’s guiding principle has always been to customize our strategy on a region-by-region and market-by-market basis to build the strongest global nonfiction media company bar none. The acquisition of Takhayal, the premier company for cuisine and culinary programming in the Middle East, significantly strengthens our portfolio in this important region and adds content in a genre that has proven popular with our viewers around the globe, including on Real Time in Italy and the U.K. and on TLC in Poland, Latin America and India. Takhayal’s executives, such as Youssef El-Deeb are exceptionally smart and creative and we look forward to working with them to leverage Takhayal’s strong position in the Arab-speaking world and take Discovery’s female-targeted lifestyle content even deeper into the marketplace.”

“We have had great success with our TV brand Fatafeat, which has become one of the leading TV channels in the Middle East since it launched five years ago, and our slogan ‘Al Hayat Helwa’ (Life is Wonderful) which has been the driving force across our business, and we are excited by how the rich expertise of Discovery will enable us to take the business to the next level. We are very honored to become part of Discovery Communications,” said Youssef El-Deeb, Takhayal’s CEO. “The core expertise of our team is its great creativity and dedication, and this combination has enabled us to achieve very clear brand positioning and stand out amongst the hundreds of Arab TV channels as the leading lifestyle brand across the Middle East.”