MTV Arabia 'a work in progress'
by John Parnell on Mar 10, 2010
The MTV Arabia franchise is ‘a work in progress’, according to the president of MTV International, Robert Bakish.
When asked how successful the launch had been during a session at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Bakish instead highlighted the company’s recent announcements in the region surrounding its other brands.
“MTV Arabia is still relatively new and continues to be a work in progress,†he said. “We are still big believers in international markets and we have shown our intention to continue growing our participation in this region,†said Bakish referring to MTVI’s announcement late last year that it would develop a Comedy Central content production studio in Abu Dhabi’s twofour54 content precinct.
“We started internationalising our channels early â€" partly because it was economical to do so with MTV’s music video-based format. We realised that it was important to localise these channels for each market. MTV Arabia is an example of this with a mixture of global formats and local episodes of these international shows.â€
MTV Arabia's local partner, Arab Media Group has recently undergone major restructuring with CEO Abdullatif Al Sayegh resigining and several of its products being transferred to Dubai Media Inc.