Local content is booming in the Arab world and the opening up of Saudi Arabia’s media landscape has especially seen an unprecedented rise in creative and local productions. At a BroadcastPro panel in Saudi Arabia, regional stakeholders discussed leveraging local narratives, nurturing talent, investing in film infrastructure and achieving success with hyperlocal stories.
BroadcastPro ME brought together a cross-section of high-profile individuals within the content business for a panel, moderated and organised by Hans Fraikin, former Twentieth Century Fox veteran and Abu Dhabi Film Commissioner, now Global Senior Advisor at Arthur D. Little. While each person on the panel represented their own company, their backgrounds made them naturally representative of the larger content community. Panellists included David Uslan, a well-known Hollywood producer and heir to the Batman franchise, helmed by his father Michael Uslan; Zeinab Abu Alsamh, GM of MBC Studios KSA; Wayne Borg, Managing Director of Media Industries, Neom; and Saudi film producer Ahmad Alerwi.
In the space of a short six years, Saudi Arabia has ushered in tectonic changes in the media and entertainment landscape. Vision 2030 set the ball rolling and its impact can be measured across themes such as flourishing Saudi film talent, a boom in investment in film infrastructure, global collaborations, curiosity about Saudi culture and the subsequent demand for local and hyper-local storytelling, noted Fraikin at the start of the discussion.
MBC’s Zeinab Abu Alsamh and Saudi filmmaker Ahmad Alerwi are two industry talents who have risen through the ranks as the media industry burgeoned. Alsamh’s eclectic career trajectory includes stints in advertising in Japan and Saudi Arabia. These paved the way for a role in production at Saudi Broadcast Authority (SBA), after which she joined MBC. Alsamh used what she learned from advertising to concoct a recipe for success in broadcast.
“In broadcast, content is the product and production is the kitchen of that ecosystem. Understanding the complete production chain helps you understand a very fast-moving industry. That knowledge helps you make content that moves consumers. Whether it’s a film for the audience or a consumer product for households, it needs to hit that emotional insight,” she said.
Alerwi recognised the opportunities the seminal industry would eventually yield and began working in media and tech startups. He joined Telfaz11 when it was still a new platform. A penchant for storytelling and an inclination for “anything that brings people together” were key driving factors. In 2015/16, the team created a few short films in Saudi Arabia that were screened in Los Angeles. These ended up on Netflix under the umbrella title Six Windows in the Desert. With the opening of cinemas in 2018, Ahmad decided to get a more formal training in filmmaking and went to the American Film Institute (AFI) in Hollywood, where he did an MFA in film producing.
David Uslan is another industry veteran who saw Saudi Arabia’s potential early on thanks to a close Saudi friend and business partner. “He opened my eyes to what was happening on the ground here in terms of film and television, live events, location-based entertainment, publishing and animation.”
He added: “My family caters to geeks. We need to be where there are communities that are growing local and regional IP [intellectual property] but with content that has the potential to expand into franchises and work on a global scale. Riyadh is one of the greatest places in the world to be for something like that right now.”
He also pointed out the growing number of comic cons across MENA and events like the Red Sea Film Festival that are drawing talent from all around the world. “If you are in the content creation business, if you’re in the franchise business, you have to have one foot here in this country.”
Wayne Borg believes that Neom Media Industries holds the key to the future for stakeholders like Alsamh, Alerwi and Uslan. Neom aims to emerge as a regional hub for content creation with a remit that stretches beyond “just the screen and will include gaming, publishing, music and advertising services”, said Borg proudly.
It also promises to address the challenges the region’s markets are facing. “We are a far-flung market spanning from Morocco in the west to Oman in the east, and the biggest challenge we have is fragmentation – of infrastructure, talent and industry. Neom is about how we bring all these elements together in a world where convergence is taking place across the screen sector, into gaming and publishing. We are also focusing on how we can harness and future-proof new tech to redefine processes and workflows more cost-effectively and efficiently.”
Neom Media Industries envisages its role as that of an enabler and facilitator, one that supports the content creation industry. Borg highlighted, “We’ve supported 38 productions over the last two years – from documentaries and high-end global TV commercials, TV, scripted, unscripted, right through to feature films, local, into international and Bollywood. There are a lot of creators here, such as MBC, SBA and SRMG. Our role is to help ensure that we can compete as a country and as a region on a global scale, get content out into the global marketplace and showcase what this region has to offer in terms of its storytelling capabilities.”
Creating an environment with a legal and regulatory structure that is highly competitive and has the right infrastructure and talent is another of Neom Media Industries’ goals. “It’s a regional proposition; it is a global city and a global jurisdiction. We want to be a formidable force as part of a creative global community,” Borg added.
Government policy and strategy are always important considerations in the development of any industry. Fraikin highlighted how the government of Saudi Arabia has adopted a two-pronged approach that includes developing the indigenous and service (content production) industries simultaneously. When Fraikin questioned whether the focus should be on production in the English language for global distribution or in the Arabic language for regional and local distribution, the panellists unanimously agreed that local content should always be the first priority.
“If it doesn’t work with your own people, it won’t work with anyone. If your own people don’t buy it, others won’t. I am a firm believer in this. The local audience is always relevant in any market. Saudi Arabia becomes even more important in this regard since it is a market that has been not talking about its stories for over 40 years. There is an immense hunger and eagerness to write our stories and to see ourselves represented,” said Alsamh.
Saudi Arabia’s geographical diversity has also fed into content creators’ creativity, allowing local audiences to peel away the layers of Saudi culture. “We get scripts from the Eastern Province or the south about a wedding and it mentions traditions there that aren’t known about in other parts of Saudi Arabia. The local flavour is so appetising for us too. We want to hear the different accents and customs that make us diverse, but also bind us together,” she explained.
Borg added: “You always have to make content that speaks to your home market. And streamers have shown now that great content will travel and will find an audience of scale. Take for instance the Korean model or the Scandi model. People aren’t afraid of foreign content anymore, nor is it restricted to the domain of arthouse students and theatres. Saudi films are now finding global audiences. Some of the work Telfaz11 has done has gone global and succeeded in sustaining audiences over some time. So it is resonating beyond just core markets.”
The panellists also observed that language is no longer an obstacle to great content going global. “I don’t believe language is an issue. Local and hyper-local are trending. Now there is a demand to connect more as human beings; there is a lot of curiosity about other cultures and audiences are willing to understand differences,” emphasised Alsamh.
“Human emotions are universal. If the story is authentic and people connect with its emotion, they will rally behind it. What is revolutionary is the advent of platforms that have presented this local content, dubbed or subtitled, internationally. Previously we didn’t have the platform to take our stories to the world; there was no infrastructure to support storytellers.”
“OTT platforms and streamers have opened up the market for people to engage with different cultures and not be put off by subtitles or language,” reiterated Borg.
While Saudi content creators are “good at representing our own stories for our audience, they are tailored for international audiences as well”, noted Alerwi, but added that scriptwriters and filmmakers need to be taken more seriously. “People wouldn’t take it seriously in the past, as they didn’t think there was a financial aspect to it.” The young Saudi producer also cited the need for stronger collaboration between producers and writers to push the market. He remarked that ecosystems like Neom Media Industries have the potential to “shift the market”.
“While platforms like Netflix, MBC and Shahid help push our content, it is the likes of Neom, where international collaborations can potentially take place and talent can shadow and learn from each other, that will boost the content creation process,” he surmised.
For Uslan, an ‘adapt and glocalise’ strategy has been the way forward. However, the path has not been easy. “It’s time-consuming and requires having a team that can shape the content the right way. We have to bring in the cultural sensitivity and intelligence to make the content right for the local fans here.”
His first movie production in the Kingdom is a testament to his commitment to local: “Everybody except one of the three leads is local. The movie will have a mix of English and Arabic.” He is in the process of acquiring his first local format and excited about adapting it for an international audience.
In addition to producing movies and regional adaptations of popular international IPs, Uslan is also focusing on the publishing opportunities, both physical and digital, emerging in the Kingdom. “Whether we talk about graphic novels, manga or webtoons, there is a huge opportunity to bring in more global IP and localise it.”
Agreeing with Uslan, Fraikin noted the robust and dynamic connection between Japan and Saudi Arabia via anime and manga. This was seconded by Zeinab Alsamh. “Saudi nationals have a very strong connection with animation and my generation grew up with the greatest of animators and the greatest of manga. We’ve had amazing Arabic-dubbed IP. Today, our children also enjoy anime and manga. It’s a different style and very modern, but the roots are the same. It’s become a part of our millennial heritage.”
The panel lauded MBC’s recent collaboration with Stu Levy at TokyoPop as another testament to Saudi Arabia’s affinity for Japanese animation. “It’s a very smart and strategic move. TokyoPop is not only a great publishing house for manga content, but they’re a conduit to fabulous IP in Japan. And having a company like that partner with MBC creates a great two-way street scenario which gives access to great global IP as well as opens up great distribution channels internationally for local content,” noted Uslan.
Alerwi attributed the growth in manga and anime’s popularity to the lack of other entertainment avenues in Saudi Arabia. “We love animation because we grew up watching it. There were a lot of things that were prohibited; films were not always accessible, so we used to watch a lot of animation. At the time, it was all from Japan or international productions.” He opined that it is perhaps this long exposure to manga, anime and other international television content that has made the local population connoisseurs of good TV entertainment. “People say that it is hard to please the Saudi audience, but that’s because we have an eye for great content. We have consumed it for so long.”
Saudi Arabia’s demography also plays a significant role in the explosion of different genres on the content front. “The Arab world has 500m people. That’s a marketplace bigger than North America. Add to this another few hundred million people peppered around the world. Plus this is not one cultural group. Saudi nationals are very different from Moroccans who are different from Emiratis, and a majority of the population is young,” commented Fraikin.
“We’ve got the envy of the world here: 50% of the population is under the age of 30, and they’ve got this great propensity to consume content in all forms. Globally, a lot of the big content providers are focusing on the region, and particularly Saudi Arabia, because they see a huge market here and they all want to get in,” added Borg.
Alerwi summed up the discussion: “The DNA of what is happening in Saudi Arabia is completely different, making it hard to compare to other parts of the world. Once you understand this DNA, it becomes fascinating. We are seeing a new wave of local production companies that are trying to establish themselves, and the financial and creative potential of such ventures is huge. I believe we have now reached a sweet spot in terms of timing. The people who are going to benefit the most are those who are going to start investing this year or have already started, like David Uslan. They will see the benefits over the next two or three years.”
