Rapid TV News

Murdoch’s Mid-East visit is telling

Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 10-03-2010

Rupert Murdoch has spent a day or so in the steamy 90% humidity of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. His visit, to speak at a media event organised by twofour54, the high-profile creative operation that’s backed by an Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, is no accident.

Mr Murdoch is firmly backing local growth for his own channels in the pan-Arab region of some 335m Arab speakers. He is also now closely involved with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Rotana film-to-music empire. News Corp last month bought 9% of Rotana for $70m, and has an option to double this investment.

"To be frank, Rotana does not really need our financing. We are partnering with Rotana for something more ambitious: to tap into Arab talent and ultimately produce original Arab content for market both here and abroad," Murdoch told the 550 delegates.

He also highlighted the futility of local censorship, still rampant in print media. "In the face of an inconvenient story, it can be tempting to resort to censorship or civil or criminal laws to try to bury it. This is not only a problem here," Murdoch said, citing legal restrictions in France. "In the long run, this is counterproductive."

News Corp’s own titles, The Sunday Times and The Times have both been banned lately by the UAE. They are not alone, and the world’s mainstream publishers frequently find that a critical article on Dubai or the UAE can easily lead to a ban.

The cited counter-productivity extended to even his own speech, where (probably unknown to Mr Murdoch) the event’s organisers did not allow journalists or news photographers entry into the hall, restricting the press to a separate television feed. He did not take questions.

Murdoch told delegates that Arabs' creative talents "remained constrained by arbitrary boundaries," and said the region needs fewer regulations and more incentives to encourage investment by the media private sector.

One of the major challenges for Murdoch – and Alwaleed – is that the region’s pay-TV operations are still struggling to gain any real traction, and this follows on from some 17 years of heavyweight investment and matching losses. Indeed, it may be too late to do much about pay-TV especially given the now rampant piracy in the region. More likely, at least in the short to medium terms will be an effort by Rotana and others to ramp up the ad revenues they receive during commercial breaks. These are miserable at the moment, and even a 10%-20% uplift would put most mainstream Gulf broadcasters well into profit, and from that profitability will come greater innovation and creativity.

© Rapid TV News 2010