DUBAI, 30 March 2007 — The grey area in the pay-TV network is expanding and alarming in the Middle East-Gulf region, a senior leader of a pay-TV network has said. “It is against this background that we have intensified our efforts with the help of authorities to tackle the menace,” Danny Bottoms, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Showtime, told Arab News earlier this week.
Pay-TV networks invest a lot of money in reaching some of the best movies, talk shows and programs to their viewers, and the expanding grey area in the market is eating into their profits, he said.
“We are working closely with various authorities in the region and the issue is being tackled legally,” he said. “We hope the joint effort of all pay-TV networks will check the menace and the viewers get to see their money’s worth through genuine sources,” he said.
Showtime has a wide range of subscribers and viewers from Saudi Arabia, its largest market among the Gulf states, Bottoms said. “We have definite plans to offer what Saudi viewers want and thus expand our market share. That’s why we are heavily emphasizing on Arabic content in our newly relaunched platform.”
It is launching “Showshasha,” a channel entirely dedicated to Arabic programming that includes some of the best Arabic movies, series, talk shows and also some top international series and lifestyle shows, dubbed in Arabic.
It is expanding its Arabic offering by introducing more relevant Arabic programs to complement the movies with shows like Nour Al Sabah, Malak Rohy, Tash ma Tash and Gargaan.
“We will also dub some of our best international series in Arabic, programs such as ‘Ugly Betty’. In the future we are looking to produce and show more relevant, Arabic programming including talk shows,” he added.
The family package is a new offering designed to respond to subscribers’ needs by offering family and sports entertainment that is designed specifically for a family audience. The package is biased toward content for family viewing but gives them additional options and the ability to include or exclude channels as it suits them. This package will include all sports channels and will therefore include the Premier League coverage, he said.
Parental Control is a voluntary rating system designed to give parents information about the content of television programs.
This system provides parents with information about the content and age-appropriateness of television programs. “These ratings are used to automatically filter out unsuitable programs,” he said, adding that the ratings were created to help parents make intelligent choices about which programs are suitable viewing for their children.
“Opt in” is about selecting the channels customers’ want to view at the time they subscribe with us and applies to a set of channels only. With the parental control service, subscribers can completely control what their children watch.
The network is ensuring that all of its subscribers and viewers are aware of the changes happening on April 1.
An on-air teaser campaign has been running from March 25 letting viewers know that they will need to rescan their Showtime box on April 1 to get the maximum out of their TV entertainment.
Showtime is introducing VOD (Video on Demand) very soon. It is an exciting development and literally puts a ‘video store’ in our subscribers’ homes.
“Over the past year Showtime has implemented a ‘Customer First’ approach and as a part of this initiative we have a better understanding of what the majority of our customers think about our products and services and, more importantly, what they want from us going forward. Through this feedback and other research we now have a much better understanding of the television entertainment values that are important to our customers. These insights have given us the opportunity to look again at our programming and how we could improve the 20 premium channels that we produce right here in the region, as well as the choice of our partner channels,” he said.
“A more diverse mix of premium entertainment, more sport with the English Premier League, more programming for the family and more Arabic content are just some of the solutions we have come up with to ensure our customers can watch more of what they love,” he said.
