Outfoxed

D'silva says FIC has no privileges when it comes to acquiring broadcast rights of content, such as 24, produced by fellow News Corp subsidiary Fox.
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With the launch of Fox Movies and Fox Series, Fox International Channels (FIC) is going head-to-head with pan-Arab free-to-air TV juggernaut MBC for a share of the lucrative English-language FTA movie and serial market. Aaron Greenwood spoke to FIC Middle East GM Rohit D’silva about the company’s expansion strategy for the region.

Launching FTA TV channels in a market populated by more than 400 rivals all vying for eyeballs and advertising dollars would seem a risky move given the current economic climate.

But when those channels result from a partnership between the one of the region’s most successful media organisations and one of the world’s biggest media companies outright, the chances of success would seem to increase dramatically.

The launch of Fox Movies last May marked a major signal of intent on behalf of Rotana and News Corporation to aggressively pursue a television broadcasting niche peculiar to the Middle East – the FTA movie channel market.

The once-dormant sector had been dominated to date by Saudi-based pan-Arab broadcaster MBC, whose formula of broadcasting Hollywood feature films 24 hours a day via its MBC 2 channel had proved a major hit with viewers across the region.

It was also one laced with commercial opportunities previously unheralded by a pan-Arab broadcaster.

 Following its launch in 2001, the broad multinational appeal of the channel quickly translated into advertising dollars with English and Arabic-language commercials combining relatively seamlessly during programming breaks.

This scenario prompted a dramatic shift in regional TV marketing strategies, which had previously been segmented largely by way of language and cultural boundaries.

Seeing an opportunity to snare their own share of these revenues, Rotana and News Corp, by way of its Fox International Channel subsidiary, settled on leveraging the best of their respective strengths to launch Fox Movies.

“Following an initial round of discussions we both came to the conclusion that our mutual interests would be best served by way of a partnership,” explains FIC Middle East general manager Rohit D’silva.

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“Rotana operates a very successful Arabic-language TV portfolio consisting of music, general entertainment and reality channels. The company has been keen to get into the English-language market for some time and saw an opportunity to do so working with us.”

D’silva, who is also responsible for managing Fox’s pay TV portfolio of channels in the region, which includes Fox Sports and Fox News, says the FTA market arguably holds greater long-term commercial opportunities for the company’s planned expansion in the region.

“FTA viewer numbers in the Middle East are massive compared to pay TV, hence the number of satellite television channels vying for attention,” he says.

Given this scenario, D’silva concedes the process of launching the Fox-branded channels in this complex environment has proven “very challenging”.

“In saying that, the key to our success has been teaming with a very strong partner,” he says. “Rotana is one of the biggest media organisations operating in the region and is one of the few to have adopted an international mindset in the way they do business.”

“We are leveraging each other’s strengths – ours lies in our brand, Rotana’s lies in its experience in this market and the sheer scale of its presence.”

This inherent strength extends to Rotana’s ability to snare advertising dollars for its media portfolio, including the Fox-branded FTA channels, D’Silva says.

“It makes it much easier – particularly given these channels are start-ups – when they are part of a major portfolio of channels, in securing advertising dollars,” he explains. “It draws advertisers in from the outset, which is hugely important in the free-to-air market.

“In the past three to four months, the response from advertisers has been very encouraging. We’ve been receiving a lot of interest from new advertisers in particular.

“We are very much on track in terms of our commercial ambitions,” he continues. “We are definitely reaping the benefits of being part of Rotana’s channel bouquet.”

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