Nick of time

Having blazed a trail with the launch of MTV Arabia last year, parent company MTV Networks International (MTVNI) and local partner Arab Media Group (AMG) are planning a full-scale assault on the Middle East media sector, spearheaded by the multi-platform launch of its hugely successful kid's property Nickelodeon later this year. Aaron Greenwood reports.

Introducing US-based media properties with a reputation for cultural provocation - however contrived - to the conservative markets of the Middle East region would seem a risky proposition to most media organisations operating in the Arab world.

Doing so in a television broadcast market characterised by comparatively limited advertising spend and a glut of free-to-air channels, which includes dozens of rival niche broadcasters grappling with diminishing margins, should arguably present even greater concern to key stakeholders involved in any such venture.

But not so for Viacom subsidiary MTVNI and its UAE-based partner AMG, which is funded by the government of Dubai and ranks as the UAE's largest media organisation.

MTV Arabia, the first fruits of the partners' collaboration, which launched to much fanfare in November last year, could arguably be perceived as the riskiest of MTVNI's much-heralded properties - which include Nickelodeon and Comedy Central - in this respect.

Largely perceived as all-American as apple pie in its domestic market, MTV's international properties - in a bid to forge their own identities - have purposely distanced themselves from any such parochial sentiments.

Suffice to say, MTV North America maintains little semblance to spawned properties catering to the Indian Sub-Continent or South America for example, barring a common commitment to short-form and serial youth programming concepts mostly developed in the US and often customised for regional markets.

MTV Arabia also follows this script, with a programming schedule blending the most accessible US-produced programming - including Pimp My Ride and Made - with local product, including Hip Hop Na, and music videos from the Arab world's most popular artists.

Yet, while MTV Arabia's programming strategy has largely mirrored that of MTV's other channels catering to regional markets worldwide, the Middle East presents its own set of unique commercial and logistical challenges, according to Bhavneet Singh, managing director and executive vice president of MTVNI's Emerging Markets division.

Singh should know. With more than 400 staff at his direction, Singh is responsible for managing all of MTVNI's properties in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

He also steers the organisation's multi-platform operations in each of these markets, developing and delivering cross-platform digital media services to end-users.

"The Middle East television broadcast sector is quite unique in terms of its commercial dynamics," he explains. "There's probably no other territory in the world where we've committed the same amount of resources to a channel launch.