While the international film and television production industries continue to reel from job cuts, low yields and diminishing budgets, the Middle East industry remains well-placed to not only ride out the recession but to record meaningful gains in 2009.
Landmark advertising indices remain primed for growth in the next 12 months, particularly in the GCC. Remarkably, despite the economic downturn, TV ad spend is expected to breach the $10 billion mark for the first time in the Middle East and North Africa, recording double-digit per annum growth in the process.
Importantly, pan-Arab television broadcasters will claim a significant chunk of the advertising pie, ensuring continued demand for indigenous Arabic-language programming.
With much of this content outsourced to third-party production companies, many remain rightfully confident of their ability to not only ride out the storm, but to pick up new business over the next 12 months.
This is providing a sense of optimism among the production industry’s key stakeholders, particularly in the emerging production hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Indeed, while acknowledging the broader impact of the economic downturn, sources placed among tenants of the Dubai Studio City precinct suggest steady demand for production work remains in the emirate, particularly from regional broadcast clients.
Going one step further, DSC’s executive director, Jamal Al Sharif, claimed that certain tenants had requested additional space within the production precinct to enable them to meet increased demand for post and effects work.
Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi, the region’s newest Arabic-content production zone, twofour54, is confident it will remain buffered from any financial crisis in 2009 – a welcome claim given the fact the next 12 months is shaping as a pivotal period in its development.
Discussing the current climate, twofour54 CEO Tony Orsten recently told me that the zone’s long-term strategy to drive the creation of Arab media content would remain steadfast despite the economic downturn.
“Ours is a very long-term strategy,” he said. “But it’s also one that is commercially-minded. Those that say this is just another government-funded initiative are short-sighted. We are here to make it work commercially.
“There’s no point looking at 2009 economic predictions. In five years time when all of our plans are put into fruition, the economic situation will be completely different to today.”
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