TV MEA October 2014

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OCTOBER 2014

MIPCOM EDITION

Content Sales to Africa / MBC’s Sam Barnett

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CONTENTS FEATURE

Continental Dilemmas

6 AFRICAN ALLURE

Distributors are finding demand for a cross section of genres, including telenovelas, U.S. reality shows and entertainment formats, from buyers across the African continent.

As the Ebola epidemic continues to plague Western Africa, aid workers are not just battling insufficient medical facilities—they are also trying to win the information war.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Editor Mansha Daswani Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Managing Editor Joanna Padovano Associate Editor Joel Marino Assistant Editor Simon Weaver Online Director Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Cesar Suero Sales & Marketing Director Faustyna Hariasz Sales & Marketing Coordinator Terry Acunzo Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV MEA © 2014 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvmea.ws

Falsehoods about how the disease is spread, its symptoms and what people should do if a loved one becomes ill are all seen as factors impeding the containment of the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The media, as we know, cannot always be relied on to spread facts you can rely on—especially in countries where news platforms are censored by the government. Sudan, for example, has placed an outright ban on reports about Ebola in the country. In Sierra Leone, a non-governmental organization that organizes workshops for aspiring filmmakers is making its own content in an effort to battle disinformation.

WeOwnTV has partnered with the Sierra Leone Film Council for a series of public-service announcements that are being made available to local TV and radio stations. Sierra Leone is among the Western African nations that has been most affected by the Ebola outbreak.

WeOwnTV has built its organization on the idea that content can play a central role in social change. The process of getting content to the end user in under-developed communities, however, is proving to be a significant challenge across Africa.

A recent report from research firm Ovum issued a warning that the impending analog TV switch-off in many sub-Saharan countries could leave many without access to TV signals. A lack of awareness among consumers, insufficient government funding for digital TV infrastructure and a lack of set-top boxes means that many countries, including Nigeria and South Africa, are simply not ready for the ITU-mandated 2015 deadline for the digital switchover. However, Ovum reports, many countries are planning to go ahead with pulling the plug on analog anyway. This would mean homes across sub-Saharan Africa losing access to TV reception.

Content sellers are negotiating the myriad challenges presented by African TV to the best of their abilities, and many are finding a wave of new opportunities as broadcasters show a demand for everything from Latin telenovelas to entertainment formats to American reality shows. We take a look at what’s selling well across the continent in this edition.

We also interviewed Sam Barnett, the CEO of MBC Group, the Middle East’s most dominant channel operator. He tells TV MEA about how the broadcaster is luring in viewers with high-quality Arabic-language content. —Mansha Daswani

6 INTERVIEW

12 MBC’s

Sam Barnett

The head of the Middle East’s biggest broadcasting group talks about serving audiences across this diverse region and the importance of Arabiclanguage content, which is starting to find slots overseas.

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Caracol Television Fugitives / Made in Cartagena / The Sweetest Love Caracol Television’s most successful title in Africa to date has been Love Her to Death, a telenovela about a wealthy woman who has to start from the beginning after her husband runs away with her best friend and takes all their money with him. “It is a story of self-improvement and how to believe in love again after such a betrayal,” says Berta Orozco, the company’s sales executive for Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Orozco adds that telenovelas have been a strong proposition for the market in Africa.

“Most of our telenovelas are family-oriented and this is a concept that suits African channels very well. We also have some productions that have a touch of humor and this is a new concept for telenovelas, especially in Africa.” While classic telenovelas, such as The Sweetest Love, have been successful in the region, Orozco has also noticed that the appetite in these markets is becoming broader. She points to the success of the series Made in Cartagena, which is filled with action and drama. At MIPCOM, Caracol Television will be offering up the series Fugitives, about a happily married father who winds up in jail for a crime he didn’t commit and escapes in order to prove his innocence. Further series highlights include Shot of Grace, about an aspiring actor who finds himself serving as a double for a powerful drug lord.

“According to our experience, telenovelas are very much appreciated in Africa.”

—Berta Orozco

The Sweetest Love

FremantleMedia International The Returned / Threads / Made in Italy with Silvia Colloca The International Emmy Award-winning French series Les Revenants is the basis for The Returned, a new drama highlight that FremantleMedia International (FMI) is hoping to sell into the Middle East and Africa (MEA) this year. The plot centers on a town where those who have died are mysteriously alive once again. “With no memory of their deaths and no awareness of the time that has passed in their absence, the Returned struggle to reintegrate into a world that has changed without them,” says Anahita Kheder, FMI’s senior VP for MEA and Southeastern Europe. Also on the company’s MIPCOM slate is Threads, a fashion competition featuring tweens and teens. “Lifestyle titles have historically always done very well in the MEA region, and given that Threads comes from the same team behind Project Runway, the quality and pedigree of the show will speak volumes,” says Kheder. “It has real potential as a show for MEA audiences, not least because it appeals to, and will attract, younger audiences.” Made in Italy with Silvia Colloca is a culinary travelogue that watches as the titular food blogger embraces her Italian roots. “From picture-postcard backdrops of piazzas, Roman ruins and villages perched on mountains to the ancient traditions of seaside fishermen, this is not just a cooking show; it’s a visual feast for any viewer,” adds Kheder.

“We’ve expanded the remit of our Dubai office, which is now a hub for tape and format sales, ancillary and sponsorship activity across MEA.”

—Anahita Kheder

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Scripps Networks UK/EMEA Food Network / Travel Channel / Fine Living Scripps Networks UK/EMEA’s programming strategy focuses on investment in local talent and original long- and short-form content combined with the best lifestyle programming from Scripps Networks’ extensive library. One of its recent original programming successes is Siba’s Table, presented by Siba Mtongana, a local chef from South Africa. The show has been one of the most popular series on Food Network across EMEA, and it was the first Scripps Networks UK/EMEA commission to air in the U.S., launching on Cooking Channel in April 2014. The company recently announced two new commissions for Mtongana: a second season of Siba’s Table and Siba in the Kitchen (working title). “We are also finding success by adapting popular formats for regional tastes,” says Jon Sichel, the managing director of Scripps Networks UK/EMEA. “Chopped South Africa was an original commission that performed well for us on many fronts. It allowed us to feature our local talent, including Food Network chefs Siba Mtongana and Jenny Morris, in a homegrown version of one of Food Network’s most successful series, and it enabled us to take a popular program format and adapt it for local audiences. We are learning from this success and exploring ways to build on it in the MEA region. When we find local talent who appeal to our viewers, we build partnerships with them on a number of levels.”

“Distribution and brand-building will be priorities in MEA for the year ahead.”

—Jon Sichel

Siba’s Table on Food Network

Televisa Internacional Until the End of Time / I Don’t Trust Men Anymore / My Heart is Yours Televisa Internacional’s telenovelas continue to find audiences throughout Africa, where numerous titles are dubbed into English, French and Portuguese. “The trend we have been noticing is that the demand for our content continues to increase,” says Douglas Welch, the company’s director of sales for Africa. “For that reason, the biggest challenge we face at this time is without a doubt continuing to meet the region’s insatiable appetite for Televisa’s content.” The company heads to MIPCOM with a roster of new programming to meet this demand. The classic telenovela Until the End of Time sees destiny bring together the head of a chocolate empire and a racecar driver.

In I Don’t Trust Men Anymore, a woman who is harassed by her employer and then falsely imprisoned for murder seeks to find the son taken from her once she’s freed, along with getting back the man she lost. On the lighter side, the comedy My Heart is Yours follows a dancer who must take an additional job to survive, becoming a nanny to the seven children of a wealthy widower. “Audiences crave a good story, and Televisa’s are universally regarded as some of the best in the business,” Welch says. He adds, “This is a very exciting time to be working in the television industry in Africa.”

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Televisa Internacional’s Wild at Heart.

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Distributors are finding demand for a cross section of genres from buyers across the African continent.

From the scorching desert of the north to the snow-covered mountains of the south, Africa’s media industry is as diverse as the continent’s terrain.

The majority of the 54 countries in Africa still face political and economic obstacles, but an increasing number of them, led by South Africa, have established television markets and growing economies. And not just in free TV—the growth of disposable income is also fueling the development of pay TV. The second-largest continent on the planet is also broadly divided into large language and cultural swaths, with Arabic, English, French and Portuguese among the numerous languages spoken across the continent. All of this adds up to lots of challenges—but mostly opportunities—for companies selling TV and film product to Africa.

The region’s annual TV content wholesale business is valued at more than $500 million—twice as much as four years ago. These figures come from Basic Lead, the company that organizes DISCOP Africa, the annual market where much of the continent’s annual buying and selling of TV programming is conducted. This year’s market, which will unite more than 2,000 delegates from some 90 countries, is slated to take place November 5 to 7 in Johannesburg.

HOT SPOTS South Africa has the most advanced media industry in Africa, but distributors are spotting numerous other promising countries. “We’re seeing new platforms emerging throughout the continent as economies continue to grow and adapt,” says Michael Lolato, the senior VP of international distribution at GRB Entertainment, which represents a large slate of reality and factual programming, plus an increasing number of scripted titles. Lolato has been noticing growth in Angola, Mozambique and parts of East Africa.

Electus International, the company that sells The Hero, Candid Camera and many other shows around the world, mainly conducts business with pan-African and South African outlets, including M-Net, e.tv, SABC and Discovery.

“However, there are new opportunities slowly opening up in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria,” says John Pollak, the presi-

dent of Electus International. “Additionally, there are new channels emerging that are not only buying for a specific country, but for a territory group that speaks the same language and shares a strong cultural identity. We see this as a great opportunity, as these buying groups can pool resources to license top-tier content that in the past would not be as available to them.”

The Filipino distributor GMA Worldwide “continues to explore all possible African markets regardless of where they are in the standings,” says Roxanne Barcelona, the company’s VP. “We always aim to build relationships with new partners while reinforcing our ties with our current clients year after year.”

Televisa Internacional, the distribution arm of the world’s largest Spanish-language content producer, is active in nearly all of the key markets in English-, French-, Portuguese- and Arabic-speaking Africa, according to Douglas Welch, its sales director for Africa, who is seeing an increased demand for the company’s content in both freeand pay-TV arenas.

Broadcasters in Portuguese-speaking countries—including Mozambique’s Soico Televisão (STV) and Angola’s Televisão Pública (TPA)—are the most regular African partners for the commercial arm of the Brazilian broadcaster Globo, which produces content in Portuguese.

“More recently, Globo has also seen interest from new players such as TCV, a public channel in Cape Verde, and also in French-speaking Africa, where we have Côte Ouest Audiovisuel as a big partner,” says Raphael Corrêa Netto, Globo’s executive director of international business. He adds that the company has licensed its productions in Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Cameroon and Congo, among other markets.

“Our biggest clients are the English pay-TV channels, which cover most of the continent, and they have their big audiences in countries like Kenya or Uganda,” says Berta Orozco, sales executive for Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East at Colombia’s Caracol TV Internacional. “We also have very good clients in free TV in

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GRB Entertainment’s recent deals in Africa include licensing the Tyler Perry comedy Love Thy Neighbor to M-Net.

Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.” She notes that the company has new clients located in Tanzania, Namibia and Zambia. “The market for telenovelas is always increasing,” she adds.

While the demand for content is strong, the logistics of selling to African broadcasters can be daunting. “A constant challenge for GMA Worldwide is providing quality English-dubbed material versions of our titles,” says Barcelona. “It is demanding work, but it helps expand our library and also helps us grow as a company.”

FORMAT FIX One of the main obstacles frequently faced by Electus is producing local adaptations of formats using African broadcasters’ limited budgets. The best way to approach this is by carefully choosing the right partners to collaborate with.

“Working with strong channels and smart producers allows us to intelligently and systematically bring African versions of our shows to life,” says Pollak.

For Globo, “the main challenge is to develop a product with high production quality, which allows people to identify with it and create connections with the story being told,” says Corrêa Netto.

A new complication facing the majority of the players in the African television industry is the 2015 deadline to shut off analog terrestrial television signals. There is some concern that not every country will be ready for the

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impending switchover, which is mandated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). And if analog signals are discontinued before everyone is fully prepared to go digital, many viewers in the region could find themselves unable to watch TV. “A major technological switch like the analog/digital changeover is a challenge in any market,” says GRB’s Lolato.

“While there are many benefits to the change and the mandated deadline, should the switch happen before the adequate preparation is in place, broadcasters risk seeing a negative impact in advertising revenue and/or subscription revenue if a high number of viewers lose access to television during that time.”

But if executed successfully, the digital switchover will signify a big step forward for African TV. “This is a very exciting time to be working in the television industry in Africa,” says Televisa’s Welch. “While the transition currently taking place may at times seem like a difficult hurdle to overcome, it also represents a wealth of new opportunities for the region and the television industry as a whole.”

THE POWER OF NOVELAS Televisa is a major worldwide supplier of telenovelas. What audience doesn’t love intrigue, passion and romance?

African viewers respond to the universal themes in Latin American novelas just as enthusiastically as audiences in other countries do.

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“While the response to our latest releases, such as Lo que la vida me robó (What Life Took from Me) and Corazón Indomable (Wild at Heart), has been extremely favorable, there continues to be a demand for our classic hits, such as Rubí and Marimar, throughout the region,” says Televisa’s Welch. Many of Televisa’s novelas deal with universal emotions, but, as Welch notes, they “also stress the importance of family, loyalty and hard work; themes that really hit home with African audiences.”

FAMILY APPEAL Caracol’s Orozco agrees. “Telenovelas are very much appreciated in Africa. Most of ours are family-oriented, and this is a concept that suits Africa’s channels. We also have some productions that have a touch of humor; this is new to telenovelas, especially in Africa.” The company’s most successful titles in the region include Made in Cartagena and Love Her to Death.

Globo has also done brisk business in the region. Among its best-selling telenovelas in Africa are Trail of Lies, Side by Side, Tangled Hearts and Brave Woman—all four were picked up by STV in Mozambique. Brave Woman is also headed to TPA in Angola and TCV in Cape Verde. Globo’s shows, in addition to appealing to broadcast clients in Africa, are doing well on Globo’s own channel, TV Globo Internacional, which reaches more than 200,000 subscribers on the continent.

“The audience in Africa, as well as around the world, is looking for quality content that deals with universal themes such as love, revenge and family,” says Corrêa Netto. “Globo is recognized internationally for producing telenovelas with these characteristics, so we trust that our stories are capable of creating a dialogue with the public, regardless of its culture, through engaging narratives and great talent in the cast.”

Electus International has observed that American programming is in demand among the major channels in the region. “Unlike a lot of other markets, big prime-time enter-

tainment series from the U.S. have continued to rate with access and prime-time audiences in Africa,” says Pollak.

“The U.S. version of TNT’s The Hero launched in January and performed well for M-Net, which also aired ABC’s Bet on Your Baby and launched NBC’s Food Fighters this year.”

Increasingly, Pollak has noticed that networks across the continent are willing to make their own local versions of formats.

Africa’s Portuguese-speaking territories have been particularly fruitful clients for Globo, which lists Trail of Lies as one of its best sellers in the region.

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Caracol TV Internacional has seen strong demand for novelas like its own Made in Cartagena across the African continent.

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Asian dramas like GMA Worldwide’s Until Forever have landed on African screens.

“Even though finished tape is still the most sought-after form of content because of the higher costs and risks associated with producing an original series, broadcasters are getting more aggressive about producing locally,” he says. “We have been approached several times by broadcasters interested in adapting our brand-friendly series such as Bet on Your Baby and Food Fighters. Thanks to our deep relationships with brands and retailers, and our knowledge and experience in working with local producers, we are able to both license the finished tape and have in-depth conversations about local series at the same time.”

African channels are also looking to fill their schedules with other types of programming. “We’ve been seeing tremendous interest throughout the region for scripted content, characterdriven docu-soaps and factual series that feature engaging characters and high stakes,” says GRB’s Lolato. The company has been enjoying success in Africa with the scripted series The Haves and the Have Nots and Love Thy Neighbor. “Familydriven celebrity docu-soaps like Braxton Family Values, Tamar & Vince and The Houstons have also been incredibly popular,” adds Lolato. “We are also seeing an uptake of some of our grittier ‘real-life’ series such as Police Women of Dallas as well as automotive and racing programs.”

For GMA Worldwide, family, romance and fantasy drama series dubbed into English have been the most widely requested types of programming in Africa. Titles recently sold in the region include Dyesebel, Dangerous Love and Until Forever.

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The general consensus among distributors selling programming into Africa is that the future of the continent’s television business is bright, with plenty of opportunities just around the corner.

WHAT’S NEXT? “Africa is a dynamic, changing and rapidly expanding marketplace, with many creative people launching amazing new original series and formats,” says GRB’s Lolato. “I believe that we will soon see Africa as the launching point for new original scripted dramas, comedies and neverbefore-seen formats. In addition, I think Africa will soon be a tremendous resource for co-production opportunities with networks and producers worldwide.”

Caracol’s Orozco notes that while ready-made telenovelas will continue to thrive across the continent, some producers have shown they are capable of developing high-quality local content for the region. “In this way, I see a chance for collaboration,” she says. “We have the know-how and good scripts, and, in fact, we have received some interest for the adaptation of our productions [recently], although nothing has been closed so far. Nevertheless, I reckon there is a good opportunity for Latin American drama formats in Africa.”

Hopes are high among distributors that the digital switchover in Africa goes smoothly so that viewers on the continent can continue to stay informed and entertained by the wide variety of programming that’s currently available to them.

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over such a great area in so many countries, there will be other opportunities to expand.

TV MEA: What investment has MBC been making in production facilities?

BARNETT: We have world-class production operations in Beirut and Cairo that make much of our non-scripted entertainment content, including many of the big formats. In the past this included Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and now we’re producing Arab Idol and Arabs’ Got Talent.

We’re also investing in drama production through O3 Studios. We have produced major series such as [Omar], the biopic of Omar Ibn Al Khattab [a companion of the Prophet Mohammed] and historical dramas such as The Palace [Saraya Abdeen], which was a hit this Ramadan. We’re also building the means to produce larger volumes of telenovela content, which remains extremely popular.

TV MEA: Are you using day-and-date premieres as a way to protect against piracy in the region?

BARNETT: Piracy is one reason for the decline in the viewership of international content. There are Internet downloads and pirated DVDs, but these are pirate dinghies. The aircraft

MBC’S SAM BARNETT

By Mansha Daswani

From its base in Dubai, MBC Group is the most dominant broadcasting group in the Middle East. Across its networks and several online and VOD platforms, it delivers general entertainment, kids’ and family content, movies, sports, news (under the Al Arabiya brand) and much more. CEO Sam Barnett tells TV MEA about the strategy that has enabled MBC Group to reach 120 million people across the region every day with its Arabic-language and imported content.

TV MEA: Tell us about the breadth of the MBC portfolio.

BARNETT: We broadcast 18 free-to-air TV channels across the Middle East. We’re the market leader in terms of the general entertainment, news, movies and kids’ genres. We also have a variety of thematic channels. We’ve just launched several sports channels to cover the Saudi football league. We have radio stations in Saudi Arabia. Our digital platform includes the premium Arabic video-on-demand portal, Shahid.net, and a variety of leading websites. We broadcast in HD. Across the Middle East, 120 million people watch one of our channels each day, and for the past 23 years, we’ve built a completely pan-Arab audience from Morocco through to Iraq and Oman.

In recent years, a combination of political changes, technology evolution and industry development has led to the growth of local channels with local content targeting subsets of the 22 countries in the region. We have responded to this development and in 2012 launched MBC MASR in Egypt to target the largest national audience in the region.

TV MEA: Do you have plans to roll out any additional channels?

BARNETT: The advertising market in the region has further to grow, and linear television remains highly popular. We’ll launch channels where there is an economic logic to do so and where we can compete successfully.

We’re looking closely at the success of our model for a local channel in Egypt. Clearly, with 350 million people spread

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carriers of the pirate world are the several dozen free-to-air channels that broadcast pirated movies across the whole region—sometimes while the same movies are playing in cinemas in the West. We are mystified why many studios have not launched even one legal case to defend their content. We assume it’s because they fear the complexity and expense of dealing in local courts—and that they’ve already cashed their money from us. Another reason for the decline is the improvement in the quality of Arabic content and the greater relevance of such content. We tried to use day and date on Western series as a means of boosting ratings, but it didn’t have a huge impact.

TV MEA: What potential do you see for the international export of MBC dramas?

BARNETT: As the quality of Arabic drama increases, it will undoubtedly find willing audiences internationally—and particularly where those audiences are linked culturally to ours.

As a pioneer of the shift up in quality, we hope to lead this export. We’re already selling major series to TV stations in Indonesia and Malaysia, and this will continue.

TV MEA: How are you working with advertisers outside of the traditional 30-second spot?

BARNETT: Many of the large formats that we produce are designed to be integrated with sponsors and their marketing messages. This integration can be as superficial as basic product placement “cup on table” and as complex as designing characters in dramas to represent “product values.” In a market that is evolving fast, the challenge is to sketch out the space that is both commercially attractive and creatively aligned. We have a great team that does this very well.

The 30-second spot remains important, though. In a market like Saudi Arabia, where people watch five hours of tele-

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vision a day and MBC has a 48-percent share [of viewing], we’ll be selling 30-second spots for a long time yet.

TV MEA: What are some of the ways you’re engaging with audiences outside of the linear channels?

BARNETT: Many of the brands we grow on TV have a life offscreen. We’ve recently taken Barney and Dora to Saudi Arabia for the first time for a series of sold-out live shows across many different cities.

Casting for our major entertainment shows also generates huge interest in the cities we visit. Last year’s winner of Arab Idol, Mohammed Assaf, had traveled from Gaza to Egypt and crossed the bridge to try and attend a casting session. He got to Cairo only to find he was too late to register. Luckily, he was given a ticket by a fellow contestant who heard his voice, and 13 episodes later, 92 million people saw him win the show.

As well as on-ground, we’re also very present online.

Shahid.net is the largest video-on-demand portal focusing on Arabic content, and we’re now generating 100 million media views a month.

TV MEA: You operate in markets that have seen political instability over the last few years. In times of social unrest, do you feel a greater responsibility to make sure MBC’s viewers are informed and engaged?

BARNETT: The news channel Al Arabiya launched in 2003 just prior to the invasion of Iraq. Since then and through the turmoil of the last 11 years, it has built a solid reputation for informing its audience on topics and in areas where there is often more heat than light. Those working for the channel take this responsibility seriously. The work they do is important, and it often upsets dangerous people. Protecting our staff from such dangers is a big responsibility for everyone.

TV MEA: What are MBC’s biggest challenges in the next year?

BARNETT: Our biggest challenge is tonight. Will our 120 million viewers stay watching or click the remote and disappear across to some of the 900 competing channels in our region?

We have a variety of plans over the next 12 to 18 months, but we forget at our peril what a huge ongoing fight we face.

We’ve just signed a ten-year contract to broadcast Saudi football. Another challenge will be to bring the international broadcasting quality, for which MBC is well known, to league and cup football in the region.

Viewing habits are changing as technology evolves and, while we are a content-based company, our product is always mediated by this technology. We face the challenge of keeping our best content accessible, packaged and attractive on any new platform that might emerge—and to do so as quickly as any of the competition.

Arabic-language content is at the heart of MBC’s success, with offerings that include, from the top, Arab Idol, the Ramadan drama Saraya Abdeen and The Voice: Ahla Sawt.

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TV MEA: What are your priorities for MBC through 2014 and into 2015?

BARNETT: We have four sets of priorities. First, maintain our ratings and grow revenues in our core market. We do this by controlling the best content. Second, grow the institutional backbone of our company so it can exploit new information and technology and reduce operating risk in a wildly difficult environment. Third, expand into new markets and take advantage of the tremendous potential in the Middle East.

Fourth, be lucky. It’s good to be lucky, and we’re always very thankful when we are.

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