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as The Bourne Legacy
as well as Mission
Impossible 4 have
helped spread the
message that Dubai can
deliver. “Our objective
is not simply to attract
high-profile movies
such as these but also to
boost the amount they
spend here.”
INITIATIVES. The
proof is that whether a
movie’s VIP element
might only be for a few
days, the ancillary
support and preshooting agenda might
take many weeks. “For
Bourne, they brought in seven heads of
department, and another 70 or 80 [were]
hired locally. For MI4 they had about 150
high-end staff but ended up with around 300
locals. The full crew was nearer 450 people,
and the shoot was for a month but with two
months prep. It was a great project for us.”
Dubai’s efforts to become a media hub are
in line with the city’s initiatives to boost
other segments of the economy, including
Internet, biotech and industrial businesses,
each designed to add value. Of course, the
year-round tourism business helps keep the
hotels busy and tens of thousands of staff
employed.
Al Sharif admits that as well as creating
the logistics to support the new ventures they
IPTV flourishes in Arab World
Fourteen service providers in nine
countries in the Arab World offered
IPTV services by October 2013, up
from eleven service providers in eight
countries offering IPTV by year-end
2011 according to findings from
research firm Arab Advisors Group.
As broadband adoption increases in
the region, several operators in the
Arab World have plans to implement
IPTV in the near future. In the GCC
(Gulf Cooperation Council) Arab states
– Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates –
FTTH expansion has triggered strong
demand for Triple Play services.
The report – IPTV in the Arab World
2014 – overviews the IPTV services in
the Arab world by October 2013. It
notes that IPTV is in its initial stage of
penetration in the Arab World, and is
24 EUROMEDIA
had to listen to their tenants/businesses. One
local grumble was that the Media City had
such explosive success that there’s wasn’t
enough shaded car parking! A problem
quickly remedied. “Film was not an original
thought, but it simply grew out of the
demand from the other aspects of media and
culture. But film demands its own special
infrastructure, not only in terms of buildings
but also in terms of freelancers, training and
the other skills.”
ADVANTAGES. Dubai has a number of
advantages, Al Sharif maintains, not least its
location. The city is “just three hours from
India, and within easy travelling time of just
about everywhere. To the Arab world we are
just a couple of hours away from Cairo and
still developing. Fourteen service
providers in nine countries in the
MENA region offer IPTV services. These
countries are: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia and the UAE.
The adoption of IPTV is flourishing
in the GCC countries in particular; by
September 2013 Saudi operator STC
managed to increase its IPTV
subscription base by 76% over the
corresponding period of 2012. The
markets in UAE and Qatar also
registered strong uptake of IPTV
services; for example Ooredoo’s triple
play accounts jumped from 31,873 by
year-end 2010 to 88,398 by
September 2013; a growth of 177%.
There are ongoing or planned
projects by service providers and/or
governments in six other countries,
with the aim to upgrade the countries’
legacy networks and install fibre optics
the other capitals.
And we have 360
days of sunshine, I
can guarantee that!”
Dubai Media City
was the starting
point, targeting
businesses in the
broadcasting,
advertising,
production and
publishing sectors
and all sitting within
a new concept for the
Arab world: the
Dubai duty-free zone.
Plenty of other cities
allowed for the free
import and
processing of goods within duty-free zones,
but Dubai offered tax-free