Word: channell
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This is all part of a reality show, after all, and every reality show needs its epiphany. Al-Emam is part of the team developing MTV Arabia, a channel for the Arab world that will make its debut on Nov. 17, and Al Helm is the local version of the popular MTV show Made. Al Helm, however, is more than just youthful wish fulfillment. "It's very powerful and unusual for an Arab man to admit failure like that on TV," al-Emam says. And in Saudi Arabia, MTV's largest market in the Middle East, the episode quietly subverts...
With its careful mix of aspirational glamour and boundary-pushing, the new channel is crucial to MTV's global expansion: in its target markets in the region, 65% of the population is under 25. Connecting with those young people means more than just promoting pop culture, says Abdullatif al-Sayegh, 35, the CEO of Arab Media Group (AMG), which holds the MTV license in the region. "We are not introducing a music channel," he insists. "We are introducing a platform for youth, where we can bring up a lot of issues and solve them...
Beamed from Dubai, MTV Arabia targets 15-to-35-year-olds from Bahrain to Cairo. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the channel's most important market for advertising but also the most conservative, so K.S.A. 2.0, as the youngest MTV executives call it, is the default setting for how far is too far. The launch team, a mix of Saudis, Palestinians, Emiratis, Iraqis and Lebanese, decided on a 60-40 split between music videos and reality programming...
While MTV may have popularized the music video, in the Middle East it is chasing its clones. Competitor Rotana has four Beirut-based music channels, financed by Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal. Melody, out of Cairo, is controlled by Egyptian telecoms magnate Naguib Sawiris. Mohammed Yanez, MTV talent and music director, says his channel will be different. Sure, there will be stars like Elissa, Nancy Ajram and Amr Diab, but Yanez wants a little less melodrama. "We are always weeping in Arabic music," he complains. He plans to mix it up with Arab hip-hop, a genre that...
...channel is just the start for MTV. The launch will swell its reach to 36 million households that get MTV Arabia via satellite, up from 200,000 who now get MTV on pay TV, and MTV will earn an estimated $10 million annually for 10 years in licensing fees from AMG. MTV also has deals with AMG and its parent, TECOM Investments, both controlled by the ruler of Dubai, to launch an Arabic version of Nickelodeon kids' channel next year. A Comedy Central channel, film co-production deals with Paramount (a unit of MTV's parent, Viacom) and a Nickelodeon...