Lebanese media house Charisma, which recently opened an office in twofour54, Abu Dhabi, will expand its operations even further in the Middle East in a bid to encourage local talent to be involved in productions relevant to their respective countries, Ayman Al Zyoud, CEO of the company told BroadcastPro Middle East. “Each country is looking […]
Lebanese media house Charisma, which recently opened an office in twofour54, Abu Dhabi, will expand its operations even further in the Middle East in a bid to encourage local talent to be involved in productions relevant to their respective countries, Ayman Al Zyoud, CEO of the company told BroadcastPro Middle East.
“Each country is looking for content that reflects its own culture and people so we are planning to expand geographically and be in every country where we can have a presence and create content from there. The core idea is that if you want to get close to your target audience, you have to involve them in the creation of your content. The more you involve the locals in the creation of content that is relevant to their society, the more successful a production is likely to be,” he stated.
Al Zyoud’s comments come in the wake of its new operations in twofour54, where it hopes to produce 1000 hours of television content and 200 hours of drama in its first year.
“We are already in the process of developing ideas with local broadcasters in Abu Dhabi and we are in the pre-production stage of certain drama series that we will announce in the coming weeks,” he stated.
As a media house that also offers media management consultancies to broadcasters in the region, Charisma claims that it has a pulse on what the local population wants.
“The core competency of our company is in setting up media entities in the Arab world and being part of the media broadcasters’ growth in the Middle East. We provide media houses with the expertise to grow their business with a realistic expectation. Our position also allows us to understand how the media operates globally and how we can adapt that to the region in terms of operations, in terms of viewers’ expectations and advertisers so our core offering is content creation and acquisition and content production. We produce the content and then, we exploit that content,” he explained.
Charisma’s own research in the region suggests that people want to see programmes that will empower them, according to Al Zyoud.
“Charisma has developed its own methodology called Charisma Content Development Model (CCDM), which allows us to study the market in detail. Our study shows us that people in the Middle East are looking for content empower them to move forward. This is especially true of women, who are the biggest viewers of entertainment in this region. They see viewing as empowerment, and our aim is to empower women through entertainment and enlighten them on how to improve their lives,” he added.
