MBC TV chief says Arab media outfits will need to tailor-make content as competition heats up

Sam Barnett pointed out that material with a wide appeal was still necessary, specialist programming was growing in importance.

Arab media providers will increasingly have to develop tailored content for specific markets in addition to content that appeals to a pan-regional audience to increase market share, according to MBC Group’s chief executive Sam Barnett.

Speaking yesterday before the launch of the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Mr Barnett said that regional broadcasters such as MBC faced increasing competition in large markets such as Egypt from local channels.

“Pan-Arab content still works, but recently we’ve seen increased interest in local content. There’s an increasing number of local competitors, so one of the challenges for major media companies is how they respond to that,” he said.

Increased competition from local Egyptian channels was one of the key factors behind MBC’s decision to launch MBC Masr [Masr is Arabic for Egypt], the group’s 12th channel, in October last year.

“The key shows we’ve put on MBC Masr have done very well. The Voice did very well, Arabs Got Talent is currently doing well, and we’re continuing to find ways to improve the local productions,” said Mr Barnett.

While he conceded that 2013 had been a difficult year for the channel because of the instability in Egypt, the country remains one of the group’s key growth markets over the next 10 years.

MBC will focus its localised content offerings on the Egyptian market in the coming 12 months, Mr Barnett said, although he declined to rule out the launch of other localised channels.

The quality of content specifically developed for the Middle East has increased significantly in the past five years, said Mr Barnett.

“Previously we had to purchase in a lot of international content for many of our channels, but now we’re looking for more and more of our channels to make more and more of our content locally,” he said. “There’s been an increase in quality of local content both in the terms of production values and the scripts, so we’re at a very interesting point right now at MBC.”

Such improvements include an ever greater volume of content developed in high definition (HD), he said.

“We’ve been broadcasting in HD for the past two years now. When we started we had to up convert much of the material we broadcast, but now the vast majority of content is produced in HD.”

Among other things, this year's Abu Dhabi Media Summit will focus on the evolution of traditional media offerings in the Middle East region and beyond, especially in light of increased ownership of smartphones.

Such a trend is particularly pronounced in the UAE; this week the country's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority announced that the country's smartphone penetration figures already reach three out of four residents.

Although MBC continues to develop its technology offering to be able to deliver its content over web browsers, tablets and smartphones, satellite TV still has a healthy future, said Mr Barnett.

“While other platforms will emerge I believe satellite TV will be around for a long time,” he said. “I think family television-watching is an established habit for this part of the world, and one that will continue.”

He noted that content delivered over satellite TV was not subject to the same national regulatory controls as that delivered over mobile networks,

“Satellite TV is not regulated in many of the countries that it goes into, whereas mobile networks clearly are,” he said.