Dubai: ‘Entertainment’ seems to be the word buzzing through the corporate corridors and studios of beIN Media these days.
The Qatari pay-TV powerhouse known more for holding regional broadcasting rights for eyeball catching attractions as English Premier League and Spanish La Liga is now offering movies and prime-time TV shows. And there are no half measures about this approach with speculation swirling that it could even acquire a US studio, Miramax. (Its movie library includes the multiple Oscar winner ‘The English Patient’ and all of the Quentin Tarantino repertoire, among many.)
But it’s the just announced push into extending its offering beyond sports that catches the eye. The move does, by the looks of it, takes beIN Media away from its comfort zone. There was already an established operator in OSN, which launched in the region in the late 1990s, while the local and Gulf telecom companies was offering multiple content via cable. And, more recently, the web-TV brigade such as Starz Play and soon-to-come Netflix are rewriting the script in how content is consumed by the mobile generation.
But Yousuf Mohammad Al Obaidly, Deputy CEO, does not see it that way. “Our market research clearly indicated that our current and potential customers expect beIN to provide a TV solution fit for the whole family. If you look at the leading global pay-TV platforms, you would observe that this is a normal trend that they utilise sports as their anchor content but supplement their proposition with a wider content offering.
“Using multiple set-top-boxes or receivers is a major customer pain-point. By offering a wide spectrum of content, suitable for the whole family, we want to give a much sought after solution to our customers.”
In beIN’s view, the regional pay-TV industry is “far from” reaching maturity. “There are various regions where pay-TV penetration is above 50 per cent, whereas in MENA it is sub-15 per cent,” said Al Obaidly. “This means that there is substantial room for growth.
“Pay-TV growth in any region depends upon a few factors. One of the most important factor is pricing.
“Our strategy is to make pay-TV accessible creating packages at a very fair price compared to various other services that are visibly overpriced for this region.”
The entertainment push will be via 24 dedicated channels, which is a mix of beIN-branded as well as third-party movie, general entertainment and kids offerings.
“We restructured our pricing and packaging recently to reflect our expanded content offering,” said Al Obaidly. “Both our product proposition as well as our packaging will evolve over time.”
Details of the investments committed towards adding the entertainment options have not been divulged. Since it already had the basic infrastructure in place via its sports broadcasting, scaling up wouldn’t have been too capital intensive.
According to Al Obaidly, adding to the viewers’ options via the bean platform will create benefits down the line. “We feel that investment in entertainment content will give us the ability to monetise our existing investment in sports content better. This belief is primarily based on the fact that as we build our entertainment portfolio, appeal of our brand grows multifold.
“This will help us attract new segments besides giving us ability to retain our current customers.”
But wouldn’t access to prime content provide difficult for a relatively late entrant? Most of the major US studios already have exclusive arrangements with regional pay-TV and web-TV providers.
Al Obaidly lets it be known that beIN will not be in thrall to the competition. “There is a lot of premium content that is available to a brand like beIN,” he said. “We do not see content availability as a barrier in expanding our content offering.
“beIN is in an enviable position of being able to actually choose the best content and brands from among what is available out there. Our content offering will comprise of both exclusive and non-exclusive third-party content.
“Besides third-party pass through channels, we will continue to develop our beIN-branded channels as well. Our content acquisition strategy is a reflection of our vision of being a holistic and most relevant TV entertainment brand in MENA region.”
And if that deal does go through with Miramax, it can make for another compelling reason.