Sultan Al Jaber, HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, BSkyB Arabia, Adrian Wells, Masdar, BroadcastPro Middle East
Earlier this week, BroadcastPro Middle East broke the news that a partnership had been forged between BSkyB and a UAE entity. We also announced that an Arabic news channel would be launched as a result of that partnership in 2012.
We now have official confirmation that Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp (ADMIC), a private investment company owned by HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has partnered with British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) in a 50-50 joint venture to launch the Arabic-language news channel to viewers across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Based in Abu Dhabi, the new company will operate under the Sky News brand. Content for the channel, website and mobile applications will be created and delivered by more than 180 multimedia journalists, supported by a full technical and operations team. The venture will be based in new studios to be developed at Abu Dhabis twofour54 media zone. In addition, it will have a network of newsgathering bureaux across MENA, further offices in London and Washington DC, and access to Sky News wider network of international bureaux.
As BroadcastPro reported, Adrian Wells will be the launch director of the channel. He will work with the ADMIC team to launch the new channel and a Director of News will be appointed in due course to lead the venture on a permanent basis.
Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of ADMIC and of the new venture, said the company intends “to set a new standard for broadcasting in the Middle East and North Africa by combining the best practice, expertise and reputation for impartiality of global news leader Sky News with our regional knowledge and the world class infrastructure offered by Abu Dhabi and the twofour54 media zone”.
Abu Dhabi is seeing the growth of several sectors that are contributing to the economic diversification and human capital development of the Emirate. The addition of Sky News in Arabic to the numerous Abu Dhabi based media outlets will further contribute to this sector’s growth and position Abu Dhabi as the region’s media hub,” points out Al Jaber, who is also the CEO of Masdar, a major energy company in Abu Dhabi.
