TV MEA MIPCOM 2018

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TVMEA

WWW.TVMEA .WS

OCTOBER 2018

MIPCOM EDITION

African & Arabic Content / OSN’s Martin Stewart

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CONTENTS

Paying the Cost

FEATURE 6 GOING GLOBAL Spotlighting the increasingly global aspirations of producers and distributors across the region.

This year’s World Cup was more than just a battle for goals—it also became a political minefield in the Middle East as the strained relationship between Qatar and the rest of the region had a very direct effect on footy fans.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV MEA © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvmea.ws

Saudi Arabians were jubilant that their nation had qualified for one of the world’s most-watched sports tournaments. The problem was, the rights for the World Cup were held by Qatar-based beIN, which has been blocked in Saudi Arabia since last year as part of a broader diplomatic crisis in the region. (The UAE and Egypt, among other countries, have cut ties with Qatar, claiming it supports extremist groups.)

Without access to beIN, Saudis turned to beoutQ, a pirate channel that has become known for delivering topflight sports rights—without paying for them. In recent months, some of the world’s biggest sports organizations, including FIFA, the Premier League and La Liga, have been trying to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to shut the channel down. As of press time, it’s still available. The kingdom denies that it is supporting the illegal destination, but beIN claims to have proof of the Saudi government’s involvement. “The evidence is irrefutable,” Sophie Jordan, beIN Media Group’s legal counsel, told The New York Times. “On a daily basis it is carrying out—in broad daylight—a mass-scale theft of highly valuable intellectual property rights.”

BeoutQ is not the only platform enabling rampant piracy in the Middle East, creating a challenging environment for companies like OSN, the region’s dominant pay-TV provider. In this edition of TV MEA, OSN CEO Martin Stewart discusses how his organization and others are working to address the issue. He also reveals how OSN is meeting consumer expectations with its authenticated OSN Play service, its standalone OTT platform and new pricing tiers to make sure that the platform is accessible to a broad range of socioeconomic groups.

Not being adequately compensated for content is also a pressing issue for producers across the region. As economic challenges put a squeeze on broadcaster budgets, producers are eager for new funding models, and many are pursuing opportunities in the global market. This edition features a report on the international ambitions of several Middle Eastern and African producers and distributors as they look to export their storytelling to the rest of the world.

—Mansha Daswani

INTERVIEW

10 OSN’s Martin Stewart The CEO of MENA’s leading pay-TV service discusses the platform’s approach to servicing its customers across all the devices they are using with flexibile subscription packages and a focus on top-flight content.

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DISCOP Johannesburg November 14-16, Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg, South Africa DISCOP Johannesburg has been working to keep pace with the rapidly changing audiovisual landscape in Africa. “The biggest change is the growth of intra-regional content trade and the co-production business across sub-Saharan Africa,” says Patrick Zuchowicki, CEO of DISCOP. He adds that another important change is the rising number of pay-TV subscribers.

Also top of mind, according to Zuchowicki, is the emergence of a mobile-based content distribution B2C marketplace, “which will fast impact Africa’s media and entertainment industries, more so than anywhere else in the world, given the penetration of smartphones and the current number of mobile subscribers.” There’s going to be a focus on international co-productions, as well as on regional production and distribution partnerships between neighboring countries.

DISCOP Johannesburg

“There are more and more local production companies creating homegrown content that resonates better with local audiences and advertisers.”

—Patrick Zuchowicki

Fremantle

My Brilliant Friend

The Greatest Dancer / My Brilliant Friend / The Yard A co-production with Syco Entertainment, The Greatest Dancer aims to find the best dancer in a country. The format was originally commissioned by BBC One in the U.K. “Considering the resounding success of shiny-floor prime-time shows across the Middle East and Africa, the resurgence of the dance genre and the fact that Syco/Fremantle co-productions have all been global hits, The Greatest Dancer will resonate with buyers across the region,” says Anahita Kheder, Fremantle’s senior VP of distribution for the Middle East, Africa and Southeastern Europe, International. “It is a format that is full of warmth, heart and great surprise challenges.” Also being highlighted for the MEA region are My Brilliant Friend, a drama based on the best-selling book of the same name, and The Yard, which explores female friendships in prison.

“Some promising developments in the media sector in the Middle East mean we can look to further grow our commissioning success.”

—Anahita Kheder

SPI International

Board Stories on Fast&FunBox HD Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad

FilmBox / FightBox / DocuBox SPI International operates a slew of channels across the Middle East and Africa, its flagship being FilmBox. The channel offers movies and TV shows in multiple languages, either dubbed in regional languages or subtitled. “Our martial arts channel FightBox and documentary channel DocuBox are quite popular in the region,” says Berk Uziyel, CEO of SPI International. The sports channel FightBox features several live matches each week, while DocuBox boasts a wide range of documentaries. Further channel highlights from across the bouquet in the MEA region include Fast&FunBox HD, dedicated to extreme sports. “SPI works actively with digital partners in order to reach its audiences via all available mediums,” Uziyel says. “Viewers will be able to see SPI/FilmBox content on new digital platforms in the coming months.”

“We operate tons of channels across the Middle East and Africa.”

—Berk Uziyel

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Micromedia Marketing’s Pamper Me with Love.

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Mansha Daswani spotlights the increasingly global aspirations of content distributors in the Middle East and Africa. his September, filming kicked off in Morocco on a new six-part crime series for Channel 4. Baghdad Central, from Fremantle’s Euston Films, is tapping into Moroccan production facilities to create Baghdad circa 2003, as the Iraqi capital faces chaos following the U.S. occupation and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. The much-anticipated drama is one of many series and films benefiting from production incentives and unique locations across the Middle East and Africa. But in all the headlines about American and European producers opting to film in the region, the vibrant local content-creation sector often gets overlooked.

For Arabic-language and African content producers and distributors, there has perhaps never been a better time to make an impact on the global stage. Of note, Image Nation Abu Dhabi worked with U.S. producers Walter Parkes and William Finkelstein on the Arabic-language legal drama Justice. Amazon is said to be in talks with Anonymous Content and pan-Arab broadcaster MBC Group’s O3 Productions for a series about Muammar Gaddafi. MBC, meanwhile, has just enlisted NBCUniversal veteran Peter Smith to lead the brand-new MBC Studios, focused on creating premium content in the region. And Sony Pictures Television has entered into a development deal with pan-African network EbonyLife that kicks off with a series inspired by the Dahomey female warriors of West Africa.

“Ever since our launch in June 2013, our vision has been to change the narrative about Africa and to tell our stories from our perspective,” says Eunice Omole, chief strategy officer at EbonyLife Media. “We were tired of being portrayed in perpetual crisis—war, famine and corruption. Since deciding to change that narrative, we have created more than 5,000 hours of programming and currently have several projects in development. We have invested in the creation of quality programming and the development of our people and their ideas. It is this ethos that has given us the opportunity to

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partner with an organization like Sony Pictures Television.

Now we have the opportunity to bring the fascinating story of the Dahomey warriors, and many others like it, to audiences around the world. It has been hard work getting here, but that’s what we are known for at EbonyLife.”

OUT OF AFRICA An organization with pan-regional reach, EbonyLife is headquartered in Nigeria, a country that is widely seen as Africa’s most prolific content producer, with a movie business that has earned the nickname Nollywood.

“Nollywood films, especially made-for-TV movies, are churned out largely for local pay-TV channels and also distributed outside of Nigeria,” says Ijeoma Onah, the founder of the Nigerian International TV Summit (NITV), which aims to put the country’s content sector in the spotlight.

“Content produced by Nigeria is consistently sustaining [the African] television business because there is a huge demand and appetite for it—despite the quality flaws, which, of course, are being tackled,” Onah continues.

“Nigerian stories resonate with Africans everywhere. In Francophone Africa, in South Africa, in East Africa where in some cases English is not the dominant language or even well understood by locals, Nigerian content in the original English version is consumed by viewers who understand only French, Zulu and Swahili. We have seen the dubbing business soar because Nigerian content is being dubbed into French and now Swahili in increasing volumes. One Nigerian telenovela, Taste of Love, has been sold in over 20 countries within and outside of Africa.”

International expansion for Nigerian content is crucial, Onah explains, with shrinking ad expenditures and an increasingly competitive environment putting a squeeze on production budgets. “The way forward for TV producers is international collaborations,” Onah notes. “Nigerian content is the most commercial, exportable and acceptable content by Africans and the diaspora.”

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EbonyLife’s Fifty: The Series is a follow-up to a hit Nollywood film.

Onah adds, “Right now we are at a point where we need international partners to produce locally and tap into the huge international commercial value of Nigerian content wherever Africans are found and want to be catered to in terms of their programming needs.”

That view is backed by Shileola Ibironke, managing director and CEO of Micromedia Marketing, which produces and sells a range of African drama series. Its catalog includes the aforementioned Taste of Love, which Ibironke executive produced. “Nigeria [is home to] prolific content producers that tell relatable stories that are Africa-focused, and these resonate deeply in the continent,” she notes.

“The global content landscape has opened a network of distribution channels across Africa and other continents,” Ibironke says of new opportunities for her company. “We are pursuing co-productions as we have the vision to distribute Micromedia content globally and not just within a specific geographical area.”

On the heels of the Sony pact, EbonyLife is also pursuing further international collaborations, Omole says. “We have invested hugely in the development of scripted and unscripted formats with an African twist. We see this as a great opportunity to pursue co-pro alliances internationally for titles with an African perspective and a global outlook.

The world craves freshness, newness and the alternative.

We believe this is what sets us apart. We have been very successful in Nollywood and are now looking to produce features with a broader appeal that resonate with the black diaspora and beyond.”

OVER THE TOP In addition to operating a channel on the continent, EbonyLife has rolled out a global VOD platform, EbonyLife ON. “This service has expanded our reach dramatically beyond satellite TV platforms,” Omole notes. “Now, anyone with an internet-connected mobile device can watch our content, no longer constrained by TV schedules or expensive monthly subscriptions.”

Indeed, the emergence of OTT has created a wealth of opportunities for niche Africa-focused platforms outside of the continent. That’s an area that AfricaXP has specialized in, creating and distributing branded channels, including Trigger on DSTV and a portfolio of services on MTN Ghana, among other platforms.

“OTT obviously presents great new opportunities to reach small minorities worldwide, bypassing traditional barriers to entry like licenses and infrastructure—so international digital platforms are a big focus for the distribution of African content worldwide,” observes Craig Kelly, the company’s founder and CEO. “If the content is of sufficiently high standards, then selling to mainstream African American channels and platforms is a growing opportunity,” Kelly notes. “But content must be made with this audience in mind. It is also important to differentiate between African content and international content made in Africa that can be marketed and sold into the mainstream. There are increasing opportunities for this.”

Kelly concedes that there are challenges in globalizing African programming. “In Africa, broadcasters have low budgets because the GDP is smaller than the U.K. or France and the market is highly fragmented with 54 countries and thousands of different languages. Outside Africa, the challenge historically has been the niche nature of the content.

Opportunities have been limited and budgets small. OTT has made more space.”

EbonyLife has been focused on delivering made-inAfrica stories with high production values and distinctive storytelling, including The Governor, Fifty: The Series—a follow-up to the Nigerian blockbuster hit movie—and the continent’s first procedural legal drama, Castle & Castle. It also adapted Desperate Housewives for the region.

FORMAT FLAVOR While producers are indeed creating and developing their own content, format adaptations, especially in the unscripted space, remain a vibrant business in Africa and the Middle East.

Adapting international ideas has become a core specialty of Lebanon-based Imagic, which has made versions of MasterChef and Got Talent, among other formats, for regional broadcasters.

“Dealing with pan-Arab broadcasters, participants and audiences, we needed to understand and cater to all sorts of cultures, languages, sensitivities, budgets—and constantly cross borders for casting, production, post-production, etc.,” says Imane Mezher Gibran, senior project manager at the company, which has a regional production pact with Endemol Shine Group.

“This has given us experience in different territories, and our productions benefited from that. So today we can move easily

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from one territory to another, and we can also be extremely reactive to different challenges. We have faced economic challenges, war challenges, time challenges, responded to really crazy deadlines. We can pretty confidently say we have been through almost every imaginable (and sometimes unimaginable) issue one can think of!”

With the expertise Imagic has built regionally working with global format owners, Gibran says she is keen to encourage “international broadcasters to Fremantle’s new Channel 4 series Baghdad Central is filming in Morocco. consider production in our part of the products, as they match almost any international high proworld. Lebanon, Egypt and the Gulf countries are multilinduction value. So my advice would be for international progual and can cater to different productions very easily.” ducers to try producing here, with our local studios and She is also open to discussing international collaborations, means of production. They would be very happily surprised, mainly in the form of production hubs for large-scale formats. production-wise and budget-wise.”

“These would generally allow us to share production costs and therefore optimize the production budgets for everyone.

But Middle Eastern budgets, in general, are lower than the ones in Europe and much, much lower than ones in the U.S. For many involved in the African and Middle Eastern conSo when we are discussing hubs abroad, even through cost tent business, the key opportunity is in convincing producsharing, the budgets often end up too expensive for broaders and platforms around the world that they should be casters. We also sometimes consider the option of moving our looking to the region for compelling ideas. productions to other parts of the world, but in the end, it turns NITV’s Onah is bullish about the prospects for that out we have very competitive rates and great production country’s production sector. “Very soon we will begin to values here in the Middle East, making the productions locally see international commissioning for Nigerian drama easier and more cost-efficient. We are very proud of our end series and local production in Nigeria by key global TV players. The conversations have already commenced and we are quite positive that such collaborations will definitely have an impact on production quality, which has limited the commercial value of Nigerian content.”

She is also optimistic about the prospect of pan-African colFormats remain a large part of the laborations. “Nigerian stars are very popular outside Nigeria as production sector in the stories continue to travel across territories. We are now Africa with looking forward to a fusion of Nigerian and East African and adaptations of South African casts in local and cross-cultural productions.” shows such as “Research indicates that viewers want to see stories that My Kitchen Rules reflect their everyday lives; content that is relevant to South Africa for MNet. them,” EbonyLife’s Omole says. “We do this in the most stylish way possible, with our bouquet of drama, talk, reality and lifestyle programming. Viewers know quality and we have seen rising demand for our products in the United States, U.K., Canada, Guinea, France, Australia, Ireland and Italy. We have a treasure trove full of stories; it’s our passion, vision and purpose to take these stories to a global audience with the highest quality and the best entertainment value possible. Our dream is to continue to create premium content and to give audiences around the globe the opportunity to join our world and share our story.”

Still on the horizon is what impact the global OTT players will have on the local content sector. Regional players like icflix are already investing in originals, and Netflix’s first Arabic-language scripted investment, Jinn, which is set to film in Jordan, premieres in 2019.

NEW VIEWS

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OSN has been moving quickly to stay ahead of the trends in media markets across the Middle East and North Africa. The pay-TV giant is bolstering its authenticated TV Everywhere service, OSN Play; upgrading its standalone OTT offer, WAVO; investing heavily in Arabic-language content; and delivering a steady stream of top-end Hollywood shows, within days of their U.S. premieres. It has also restructured its subscription packages to offer greater flexibility to consumers of all economic backgrounds. Focusing intently on the end user and delivering the best customer proposition have been the mandates of CEO Martin Stewart since he arrived at the platform in 2016. Stewart, who previously worked at Sky in the U.K., tells TV MEA

By Mansha Daswani about how OSN is reinventing itself for the future.

TV MEA: When you took on the post of CEO at OSN, what were some of the key strategies you felt you needed to put in place to better position the company in a changing media environment?

STEWART: From a big-picture perspective, I didn’t think we were obsessing enough about the customer. The media industry globally, and in the Middle East especially, is a fastchanging one. We needed to be much more in tune with what our customers were thinking and feeling and experiencing. So that was the first big mindset change. The second one was around the need to be obsessed from a digitization point of view—not just in terms of how we serve our customers with product, but also how we interact with them, how we communicate with them and within our own organization how we can be much more joined up and agile and data-centric in how we make decisions. The third thing was the need for partnerships, especially in our region. It’s still quite a fragmented industry, and that fragmentation has meant that we haven’t managed to fulfill the potential that the region has as a whole to deliver a big, successful, profitable media economy. We needed to find ways to work better with people in order to service clients’ everchanging needs.

TV MEA: Tell us about how you’re positioning WAVO. How has the platform been received so far?

STEWART: If you join us as a DTH subscriber you’ll get access to OSN Play, which is our on-the-move companion subscription. We recently added more live-streaming channels, taking the total number of live-TV channels up to 60.

WAVO is our standalone OTT offering for $9.99 [a month].

We launched WAVO last summer. What happened in the first year was very pleasing to us, but we decided we needed to do a big technical overhaul if we were going to be able to fulfill the potential of the great content we have. So we took the decision to pause while we did that, which was a difficult decision to make. It was the right thing for us to have done. That’s what we’re focusing on at the moment.

TV MEA: You’ve partnered with Netflix. Why was that alliance important, and how is it progressing?

STEWART: We have relationships with many great content suppliers and I don’t want to be disrespectful to any of them,

but there’s no doubt that Netflix is a hugely successful studio.

It’s redefined the meaning of scale, it’s redefined the approach that people have to creating content by being incredibly local, it’s taken the HBO model and globalized it. And I think the content they produce is incredibly interesting and attractive.

They partner that with a very good technical service, but their focus is not on their platform, it’s on their content. That makes us natural partners because we want to bring great content to our customers. If you want to get the best in global entertainment and local entertainment, you should be able to come to OSN and fulfill that aim. So partnering with Netflix helps us toward that target. We know that a lot of our customers are going to like Netflix content, so we’re just making it easier for them to access it as part of their subscription with us. And it gives Netflix access to our customer base, which is a benefit to them. I think it’s a win-win.

TV MEA: Is Netflix integrated into your set-top box? And how does billing for the service work?

STEWART: At the moment, because we’re still rolling out our new set-top boxes, it’s just a simple add-on for our customers. With our new box coming out shortly, it will be an app on the box and you will be paying us as part of your subscription, and then we’ll pay the money to Netflix. Ultimately we hope to develop the relationship so that through one EPG and one remote control, you’ll be able to search for Luke Cage or Jessica Jones or The Rain or whatever, and then you’ll go to the part of our box that has that and you’ll enter the Netflix interface to consume it. We’re very excited about the relationship with them because they are investing in making some globally attractive content. It’s an important partnership for us.

TV MEA: Shortly after your arrival at OSN, I recall you unveiling new pricing and packages. Can you tell us about the thinking behind your offerings to subscribers and how you’re giving them flexibility in their choices?

STEWART: Our legacy is our strength, but it’s also something that has held us back from fulfilling our full potential. Over the history of OSN it’s been a very high-priced premium product, appealing to the higher end of potential customers.

And that was great for its time. But the world has moved to a point now where people have access to content online in

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OSN has a long-term output deal with NBCUniversal that covers series such as New Amsterdam.

a way that they never did five years ago. And that means that people’s perception of value changes, so you need to be able to offer a great service with great content at a great price. We had to recognize that our pricing only suited the pockets of a relatively small portion of our region’s potential customers. We’re trying to find ways to evolve our pricing and maintain our premium base and our premium positioning. We are the home of entertainment in the region, and that means we should be able to attract a good price for a good service with good content. But we also need to be able to sell subsets of that content at different prices. We have to recognize that everybody loves what we’re trying to sell, but they can’t all necessarily afford it. In a world with very strong free to air and very high levels of availability of pirate product, you’ve got to take that into account when you’re pricing for the broader market. And salaries in the GCC countries are not reflective of the salaries in the rest of the region. We’ve been trying to make our content as accessible as possible, and we’ve still got a ways to go. We haven’t finished how we’re evolving our offering.

TV MEA: How important is local Arabic-language content investment for OSN? And content for the Indian and Filipino demographics in the region?

STEWART: We’ve been extremely successful by having multi-decade relationships with international content providers—whether they are Western or Filipino or South Asian companies—and local Arabic production companies.

So we have four sets of relationships. Two realities have been important to us. One is that the market is dominated by, frankly, some irrational legal competition where people are distorting the market by the prices they’re paying. They’re not making a profit; they’ll never make a profit. And that hurts the broader economy in the medium and long term because it doesn’t create sustainable businesses. And then, of course, you have the astonishing levels of piracy that you see in this region that you don’t see anywhere else in the world. With that type of a market situation, it’s important for us to have something that is ours, that is unique to us, and that means original Arabic-language content. The content we’ve funded

and financed goes onto our Yahala channel group—those channels get 40 percent of all of our viewing, despite being only 15 percent of the total content. So Arabic language is unsurprisingly hugely important in a market that is dominated by Arabic speakers! We’re also working with South Asian content providers, particularly Star India. We’re doing exciting things with them that will be along the lines of exclusive original content. We hope to build on that. It’s really the pattern that almost all incumbent broadcasters around the world are following.

You can’t just rent things anymore and expect to be successful. You’ve got to have something that gives you a differentiator, and original content is an important part of that, along with great service, great pricing and the ability to have great partnerships.

TV MEA: I know Ramadan tends to be a key viewing period.

Do you focus your originals around that time of year?

STEWART: We had a pretty good Ramadan lineup—between the things that we bought or financed and our partners, we had more than 25 shows for Ramadan this year. But that is a bit of a drop in the ocean compared to the total number of shows that go out [during that period]. We make sure that we have something, but we’re not expecting to try and win the Ramadan battle; that’s a losing proposition. Anything we put out, we look to broaden the viewing windows throughout the year. Our Ramadan shows will go onto box set, binge-watch, catch-up services through the summer. I know viewership during Ramadan is extraordinarily high, but it’s impossible for everybody to watch all the content that’s been produced. It deserves to be watched, so we immediately put it into rotation on our other on-demand or catch-up services and our OSN Play service. A lot of socalled Ramadan content will actually be properly enjoyed outside of Ramadan anyway.

TV MEA: You mentioned box sets and catch-up—how do you approach windowing titles so they reach as wide an audience as possible?

STEWART: We are at the mercy of the content owners. We have to negotiate as many of these rights as we possibly can.

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TV MEA: Sports is the main reason for the high cable subscription fees in the U.S., so the skinny bundle is becoming more popular. Do you offer the ability for consumers to pick and choose what services they want?

STEWART: Effectively, the pricing we put in place last year provided people with the ability to buy subsets: the general entertainment pack, the movies pack, the sports pack or buy them all. That was a break from the past when you had to buy everything.

Turkish series, such as Inter Medya’s Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters (Fadila Khanum Wa Banatha), are very successful for OSN.

Ideally, I’d like to have completely unfettered rights so we can test different ways of promoting shows. You can run it on a weekly basis or a daily basis and get different results. It depends on the popularity of the show and whether people are prepared to wait and stick with it.

TV MEA: How are you battling the piracy problem?

STEWART: OSN and MBC jointly set up the MENA Broadcast Satellite Anti-Piracy Coalition, which has expanded its remit beyond just satellite to all forms of piracy. Most of the industry has now come together in a pretty coordinated action. The thing that is lacking is a proper regulatory framework to grow the media market to its full potential. That’s not just to the benefit of the region’s only privately owned media company— that’s us—it’s for the general betterment of the whole economy.

[The industry is] losing hundreds of millions of dollars through having a very subpar media economy. The reason for that is the lack of a proper regulatory framework that governs both the protection of IP throughout the region and rigorous enforcement of any such framework. And [the industry needs] an appropriate competitive framework that defines and governs the behavior of anybody who wishes to play in the market.

Unless we have a properly regulated, competitive framework, the media economy will not reach its full potential.

TV MEA: What are your key growth initiatives over the next 12 to 18 months?

STEWART: We’re very excited about the reboot of the technical side of WAVO. We’re excited about the partnership with Netflix. We’re looking very closely at the possibility of increasing our Arabic-language content. I hope that the situation in the region, economically and geopolitically, begins to ease a bit, but those are matters beyond our control. All we can do is keep trying to focus on providing the best content that we possibly can, either through acquisition, creation or partnering; make sure our service is the best it can be; and make sure the pricing is as appropriate as we can get it for the pockets of the people who live here.

And we’ll keep lobbying governments and content providers about the need for a sustainable business model for the economy as a whole if it’s going to prosper in the long run. Whether it’s legal overbidding or pirate theft, neither of those two things is going to create a long-term and sustainable economy.

TV MEA: You mentioned market distortion earlier, with some companies paying inflated prices for content. I know that has been the case particularly in the sports space. Are government-backed incumbents still driving up costs or has there been some modulation?

STEWART: No, it’s gotten worse, by a multiple. It’s not just sports; it’s all forms of content. If you’re a content owner, you’re having a great time, but it certainly doesn’t help the region. And it doesn’t help consumers because it isn’t sustainable.

TV MEA: How do you approach the acquisition of sports rights?

STEWART: Sports is a niche business. We have a very good lineup of cricket, golf, rugby, fight sports, motorsports, cycling and American college sports, all of which appeal to certain audiences, fanatically so in some cases. It’s not the main driver of our business. And to be honest, we are very simple about how we make decisions. We endeavor to be a datadriven business; we work out what rights are worth based on what we can see in the market, and what that opportunity is.

They are straightforward decisions. If I’m paying $100 and the bid is $300, you can make that decision pretty easily.

The Arabic-language production Layali Awjini aired during Ramadan.

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