New Century Production, Misr International Films (MIF), Synergy Films and Magic Beans have released the official poster for the upcoming comedy film Mama Hamel, headlined by Laila Elwi and Bayoumi Fouad.
Mama Hamel is slated to release in Egyptian cinemas on June 2 and in the Gulf region on June 3.
The poster reveals a snapshot of Laila Elwi along with Bayoumi Fouad, Mohamed Sallam, Hamdy Marghany, Nancy Salah, and Huda Eletreby, where she appears holding a notebook with a cover of a pregnant woman as a sign for her being a working mom-to-be. The poster also brings a number of children in the company of Mohamed Sallam and Hamdy Marghany, who are thought to be either their children or their siblings.
Written by Loai El Sayed and directed by Mahmoud Karim, Mama Hamel is distributed by Dollar Film and Orient Films. MAD Solutions handles the film’s marketing.
Snap Inc. has announced a host of new products and partnerships across its developer, creator and augmented reality platforms during its third Snap Partner Summit.
During the summit, the company announced that Snapchat now reaches over 500m monthly active users (MAU) and that roughly 40% of its community is now located outside of North America and Europe. In the Middle East, its monthly addressable reach continues to grow substantially, now over 75m Snapchatters, which is a 33% rise year on year as of March 2021.
CEO Evan Spiegel, CTO Bobby Murphy and other executives lifted the veil on products, features, and partnerships around Snap’s augmented reality offerings and platforms for creators and developers.
A core theme of this year was ‘utility’.
More than 170m Snapchatters use Scan every month, and now Snapchat is adding Scan to the home camera screen. It has unveiled the next generation of Spectacles, its first pair of glasses that bring augmented reality to life.
Snap has also added AR Shopping and Business Solutions, Public Profiles for Businesses, Connected Lenses, API-powered Lenses, and Lens Studio 4.0.
Snapchat is an increasingly indispensable platform for developers — it now has over 250,000 developers with Snap Kit, nearly 30m people playing Snap Games every month, and now Map Layers. For developers, it has introduced Poshmark & Ticketmaster Minis + prominent new home for Games & Minis, Bitmoji partnership with Unity, and Sticker Kit.
In addition, to help creators grow their audience, build their business and entertain their community it has added Story Studio, Gifting, Spotlight on the web, and Creator Marketplace.
Snap also introduced a new, multi-year partnership with Re:wild, an organisation that protects and restores the wild and that’s reimagining what a conservation movement can look like.
The company also recently announced plans to make Snapchat more inclusive, working with several noted directors of photography from the film industry to learn techniques they use to best capture actors with darker skin tones. At this Summit, it announced that these features will become available in Camera Kit, so developers all over the world can make their cameras more inclusive.
Day two of the Future of Sports Broadcasting Summit 2021 brought together some key stakeholders in sports and broadcast for a panel discussion on Broadcasting Sports – Who wins and where’s the money? Covering topics ranging from content rights and monetisation to fan engagement, piracy and emerging business models, the panel was moderated by Carl von Doussa, Managing Director of Venture Sports Media, and brought together Danny Bates, COO and co-founder of StarzPlay; Sunil Manoharan, Vice President Media Rights, International Cricket Council (ICC); Simon Brydon, Senior Director, Sports Rights Anti-Piracy, Synamedia Committee; and Steve F. D. Bainbridge, Partner, Head of Sports Law & Events Management, Al Tamimi Company.
Carl von Doussa, Managing Director of Venture Sports Media
Carl von Doussa kicked off the discussion with a brief overview of media and telco market growth in the MENA region. According to Venture Sports Media’s analysis, as of 2020, digital advertising is among the fastest growing segments in this region. However, significantly greater annual revenues derive from mobile carriers ($13.2bn) and gaming ($5.4bn). Revenue from gaming alone exceeds the combined revenue of FTA, pay-TV, OTT, digital and radio.
He steered the conversation towards the loss of revenue caused by piracy. StarzPlay’s Danny Bates agreed that this is a big problem – when searching for specific content on Google, seven to eight pirate sites also come up. Asked about password sharing as a subset of piracy, he called it the lesser of two evils, saying that at least someone is paying for that subscription and acquiring viewing rights fairly, in comparison to services like Popcorn Time, which are easily accessible in the region and provide free pirated content on a large scale.
Sunil Manoharan added that the lack of easy access to good content also often leads to piracy. “I live in Dubai. You would expect that I should be able to watch cricket very easily. In this day and age, in my home, I can’t watch cricket on a big screen; I have to watch it on my mobile.”
He gave credit to the local telecom for buying rights and providing content on mobile devices, but since this pertains to the UAE exclusively, it creates the problem of ease of access for consumers in other parts of the region. “For example, the ICC T20 World Cup that will happen in October, nobody knows where to watch it. So it becomes a big problem for everyone.”
“The rights holders need to enter into the risk with partners in the region, to give them that ability to distribute and to grow” – Danny Bates, COO, StarzPlay
He pointed out that this does however create the opportunity for a new service to aggregate content in one place and make it more widely available. “There’s a great opportunity here for a broadcaster or OTT platform to come in and acquire all the cricket rights. If you combine that with a trend of lowering data prices, it could be a win-win situation for everyone.”
He presented the success story of his home country India, where Reliance’s network Jio has profitably provided low-cost data access in even the most remote areas. “They offer the lowest data prices anywhere in the world. So if you have a mobile phone, you can watch cricket on your mobile phone and it’s really affordable. Doesn’t matter if you have a pay-TV connection or not. I think that is a formula which other countries can also apply.”
Sports law veteran Steve Bainbridge commented that although the law has taken action against offenders, “It is a multijurisdictional problem. The core of the problem is that we have a very broad spectrum of potential abusers. They are people who would not normally consider themselves people who would step over the line. They often are people who pay for content where it’s available. They would pay for content if it were legally available at a reasonable price. We have a multitude of potential rule breakers.”
He noted that although OTT platforms show promise in terms of protecting content against piracy through digital security as well as lower prices, one cannot be equally optimistic about traditional broadcast platforms. “Even if one jurisdiction accomplishes one victory in cutting back on piracy, they can often disband and set up somewhere else.”
Synamedia’s Simon Brydon focused the exchange with an estimate of the cost of piracy in the region: “In MENA, $3.25bn is the loss of potential revenue in sports only to broadcasters, TV operators and others.”
“In MENA, $3.25bn is the loss of potential revenue in sports only to broadcasters, TV operators and others” – Simon Brydon, Senior Director, Sports Rights Anti-Piracy, Synamedia Committee
In a Synamedia-commissioned study conducted by Ampere Analysis, it was found that many viewers that used pirate sites would be willing to pay for content if it were legally available. Brydon pointed out that access to legal OTT services, access on a device and territory-wise access were some of the crucial considerations in tackling piracy and providing a “provable return on investment” to rights owners.
While there seemed to be a consensus that the rights owner generates the content at great cost, Bates commented that collaborations are key to moving forward. “The rights holders need to enter into the risk with partners in the region, to give them that ability to distribute and to grow.”
He also noted that all parties may want to look at how “distribution deals will be structured in the future” and, with that element of shared risk, give players a chance to build the distribution model over time.
“I think that can also help with the growth in the region with paid services. Having an element of shared risk along with an element of shared growth would give players much more ability to execute and do the things that we are talking about – bring the features, the price and the distribution on one service. But the industry must come together a bit to make that happen.”
Since higher revenues for distributors eventually mean higher revenues for rights holders, Brydon conceded that there is space for more collaboration in the industry. However, he cautioned against revenue-share deals, as they imply “sharing x% of very little” in favour of the distributors – rights owners “still need those guaranteed level of fees, and any variation should be at the other end of the spectrum”.
Von Doussa then moved on, asking if federations should jump directly to consumers (D2C). Bates said that although this may be common in the US and Europe, in areas like MENA it could prove challenging “without a distributor”.
Bainbridge agreed: “In most areas, we are moving towards specialisation. Federations and rights holders have enough of their own problems to deal with. So we are looking at governance issues and managing their core business. The resources that are taken away from that to properly manage and move forward with these businesses, which are highly specialist, can sometimes be detrimental.”
Brydon endorsed this view. “I think federations and rights holders go D2C firstly out of a position of great strength in a certain market such as MLB, NBA, NSL. Or they go D2C out of a position of weakness, where they cannot secure broadcast contracts.”
“If you are able to, the best route is to secure specialist local broadcasters who can then best serve their local audience and deliver your content to the maximum financial benefit. Yes, some people can do a combined model of both, like the NBA League Pass, but that rights owner will still always try and find a specialist broadcaster in the local market, even though they might be going D2C themselves.”
The complications arising from rights deals have forced consumers in some countries to watch their favourite sport on their mobile devices.
The topic of fan engagement revealed strong opinions. Manoharan commented: “All over the world, the general trend in sports is that the audience is ageing, the younger people are not getting into any sports, and I am not talking about any particular sport. People who have started watching pay-TV or linear TV are getting older and the younger lot is not coming in.”
Brydon, a self-proclaimed sports stats enthusiast, suggested that engaging people with a deep-dive into sports data may be a great alternative, but does not seem to work in the present day. He blamed the media partly for the pre-and post-match banalities marring what is otherwise an effective way to stimulate fan curiosity and involvement.
The folly is in society’s demand for poster children who can do no wrong, he claimed. “We don’t seem to want humans out there, flawed people playing sport. We want them to be clean and easy, say interesting things … we need heroes. We need people out there to grab fans.”
His solution was a more forgiving media world. “Let people speak more freely, and we will get fans, more fans, simply from portraying human stories and real human beings on screen.”
But what does it mean to be a fan when games on gizmos are preferred to those on the field? For the ICC, Manoharan says the prime question is how to involve younger fans. “How do you make them followers and believers in the sport?”
The answer can be found in the gizmos themselves. “The advent of mobile is a major thing. Interactivity is massive. If you have seen Twitch, all the gaming content that goes on there, how gamers talk to each other while watching something … Gaming is very important. For example, everyone knows what FIFA 21 has done for fan engagement to convert people. A game is massively important to get younger kids into the sport.”
“There’s a great opportunity here for a broadcaster or OTT platform to … acquire all the cricket rights. If you combine that with a trend of lowering data prices, it could be a win-win situation for everyone” – Sunil Manoharan, VP Media Rights, International Cricket Council (ICC)
Von Doussa quizzed the panellists about whether sportspeople making a complete transition to e-gaming and esports platforms such as Twitch is the inevitable future. Sharing his personal experience with an 11-year-old, Bates said gaming is the way to go, but even that proceeds from an inclination towards the real sport.
“I think the reason that they transcend into things like FIFA starts with a love of the sport. I look at my own son and my friends’ kids … I think the love of sports is the starting point. The love of watching and playing those sports is where, for a lot of people, the evolution into the e-gaming comes into play. Although there is a shift definitely in that generation to e-gaming, I still think that live sports and real sports, and as Simon has rightly mentioned real heroes, are still going to play a big role in people’s consumption going forward.”
He added, however, that he doesn’t expect a total shift in the next generation. “For that generation, it’s more complementary, it’s a way to bring something that they love to life, to have their own interaction with it, more than actually replacing something altogether anyway.”
Manoharan concurred.
“I think everyone looks at gaming as the platform that helps the viewer engage with the sport much better. The kid who plays FIFA will know all the players when he starts watching football. He becomes a lifelong football fan. His engagement with the sport deepens by playing the video game. So the video game is actually complementary to the sport. Ultimately, it’s the sport that people are following. But gaming is a very important element of how you reel the younger audience in.”
On the question of whether a local cricket league is in the offing for the UAE, he said there’s room for games on a small scale.
“There is a market for it. The UAE has a massive Commonwealth/ South Asian expat population, with people who understand cricket. You can’t make it into a money-making thing of ‘time to get players from India’ and so on. There is enough homegrown talent; you can organise events and then monetise the rights accordingly, locally. You have to start low and build engagement from there. There will be people who will take it up, especially now that OTT is going in a great space. I think the future is very bright.”
“We are going from a relatively small number of very highvalue agreements … to rights holders and federations wanting to be more flexible” – Steve F. D. Bainbridge, Partner, Head of Sports Law & Events Management, Al Tamimi Company
The possibility of separate broadcast rights for different MENA countries was dismissed. Manoharan explained that earlier on, major pay-TV broadcasters such as OSN and BeIn had competed for the major sports rights together and ultimately canvassed the entire region.
“That is easy for a federation to do, one deal rather than going to each of the 22 territories around. If you are doing a new pan-MENA deal, just to carve out one country becomes very difficult. If you carve out one country, then what do you do to the rest? What you need for the entire region is a super-aggregator who comes in and buys the Premier League rights or the FIFA rights.”
Bainbridge, however, pointed out that “we are going from a relatively small number of very high-value agreements – done over longer periods of time – to rights holders and federations wanting to be more flexible. What was previously a unified, one-deal agreement that you are thrown in for five years, now could be four to six different ones.”
“An issue we see now is that rights holders are actually not sure where they are going to be next, and they are trying to save or carve out certain rights that maybe they cannot even envisage monetising yet, but it can be done in a different way from before. I think this will continue, because there is innovation in the sector and there are new ways to monetise rights.”
The discussion concluded with the panellists agreeing that the sports industry has been continuously evolving in light of the lockdown, with the industry in a state of change with new technologies and strategies being adopted in response to market conditions.
Extreme E has engaged artificial intelligence (AI)-driven sports video technology provider WSC Sports for the highlights package of the electric off-road racing series ahead of its second X Prix from May 29-30, 2021 at Lac Rose in Dakar, Senegal.
Extreme E will have access to WSC Sports’ cloud-based live-clipping platform Clipro, allowing the series to create and publish near-live and post-race highlights, as well as WSC Sports’ graphics engine which automatically adds visuals to videos to help brand and monetise content.
During the rest of the series, Extreme E and WSC Sports will work closely to apply WSC Sports’s AI technology to automatically generate real-time highlights for this new sport. WSC Sports has already adapted its technology to support car racing working in 2020 with its partner NASCAR to automatically produce real-time race highlights.
WSC Sports will also assist Extreme E in distributing race highlights to all its media partners and drivers’ social channels thanks to WSC Sports’ partnership with Socialie.
Speaking about the production deal, Ali Russell, Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme E, said: “It is really important for us to share the action with our fans as soon as possible as they won’t be watching the races on site. This partnership with WSC Sports not only allows us to share content quickly, but with some really interesting graphics and overlays, which I’m sure will appeal to our global audience.”
Itai Epstein, Head of Business Development, Central Eastern Europe & China at WSC Sports, added: “Extreme E offers an exciting and ambitious new racing concept. WSC Sports is always happy to partner with innovative and forward-thinking organisations, and so we’re honoured to take part in this great endeavour and contribute to its success by providing Extreme E with the tools to maximise fan engagement and spread the word across digital media around the world.”
Extreme E is a sport for purpose, aiming to highlight the climate crisis. In doing so, it looks to keep its carbon footprint as low as possible, which is why fans will not be on site, but able to watch the action through a plethora of global broadcasters and the championship’s social media channels.
Twitter is rolling out its new verification process that allows anyone from the general public to apply for the blue badge for the first time since 2017.
To apply, user accounts must be “authentic notable, and active” and belong to one of these six categories: government; companies, brands and organisations; news organisations and journalists; entertainment; sports and gaming; activists, organisers, and other influential individuals.
In addition to the category-specific eligibility criteria, accounts must have a profile name, a profile image, a confirmed email address and a phone number. Accounts must also be active within the last six months and have a record of adherence to the Twitter rules.
The option to apply will appear in the Account Settings where users can click on Request Verification.
Later in the year, the platform plans to add more categories for verification, including academics, scientists and religious leaders.
The announcement follows the development and launch of a new policy shaped by public feedback in Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.
Showmax Pro has added the UEFA Euro 2020 to its African streaming sport package, allowing subscribers across Africa to live stream all matches of the Euro 2020.
The matches will be held in 11 cities across 11 countries from June 11 to July 11.
Speaking about the addition, MultiChoice CEO for General Entertainment and Connected Video, Yolisa Phahle, said: “We know that Africa is football mad, and we’re thrilled that more people will be able to stream the matches on the go or at home.”
SuperSport chief executive Marc Jury added: “Being able to offer this high-class tournament to sports fans on the Showmax streaming platform is an exciting addition to the many SuperSport platforms that offer viewers top-tier sport.”
Other live sport available on Showmax Pro includes all Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and PSL games, and a wide range of live sports events, including athletics, professional boxing, and the world’s biggest marathons.
Belgian-Moroccan directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah who led Will Smith and Martin Lawrence-starrer Bad Boys for Life, are set to direct the Batgirl movie for Warner Bros. DC feature centring on Barbra Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon.
Christina Hodson, who wrote Bumblebee and Warner Bros’ Birds of Prey and The Flash, has penned the script for what is being planned as a movie for HBO Max.
Barbra Gordon is the most established version of the Batgirl character, who was initially introduced in 1961 as Betty Kane. But the character was revamped in 1967 when television executives wanted to attract a female audience to the Batman TV series, then faltering in its third season. Yvonne Craig played the character whose last live-action big-screen appearance was with Alicia Silverstone in Joel Schumacher’s 1997 movie Batman & Robin.
In 2020, Disney+ named the pair as directors of Ms Marvel, its coming series based on Marvel’s first Muslim character, set to premiere later this year.
El Arb and Fallah are the sons of Moroccan immigrants and first met at an art school in Belgium where they began collaborating on film projects as students.
Their debut feature, Image, a film about a reporter who makes a documentary about Moroccan immigrants in Brussels, was released in 2014. But it was their 2015 film Black, a crime drama influenced by Romeo and Juliet, that would put them on the map.
The duo’s other film Rebel, about a Moroccan boy growing up in a tough Brussels neighbourhood, who searches for his identity following his father’s death, is currently in post-production.
Viasat has signed a multi-year In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) content partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to make its live game subscription service NBA League Pass available to airline passengers.
The partnership will provide a streaming experience in the sky, enabling airline passengers to access live and on-demand NBA games and content on their personal electronic devices at no extra cost when they register for NBA League Pass in-flight. JetBlue will be one of the first airlines to offer NBA League Pass on Viasat-equipped aircraft, with additional airlines expected to be announced.
The service will begin for the 2021 NBA Playoffs, which start May 22. Viasat will enable access to the premium version of NBA League Pass – featuring every NBA game live and on-demand – to passengers onboard aircraft with Viasat In-flight connectivity. NBA League Pass will be available on any route, except for flights within the US, Canada and China; international flights to and from these three countries will also have access to the service.
Speaking about the partnership, Matt Brabants, NBA Senior Vice President, Global Media Distribution and Business Operations, said: “We are thrilled to provide fans around the world with the unique opportunity to experience the excitement of the NBA on their personal devices while in-flight at 35,000 feet. By leveraging Viasat’s world-class satellite technology and global reach, we believe this partnership will transform the future of content consumption for airline passengers and allow us to engage millions of new and existing NBA fans in a whole new way.”
Dave Elliot, Viasat Managing Director, Media & Mobile Applications, added: “We’re focused on evolving the way passengers enjoy in-flight internet by offering differentiated, premium over-the-top content and streaming experiences. We continue to explore and announce new partnerships, like the NBA. The trend to market content – and in this case, league assets – directly to customers is powerful, and offers more opportunity to drive customer acquisition through new business models that haven’t been previously offered through packaged, linear TV viewing.”
Qatar-based telecommunications company Ooredoo has appointed Noor Al-Sulaiti as CEO of Ooredoo Oman, making her the first woman appointed to this position in one of the groups main markets.
Al-Sulaiti has been in the telecoms industry for 17 years, and recently held the position of CEO of Starlink, one of the group companies. Prior to that, she was general manager at Phono and FASTtelco in Kuwait.
Noors vast experience has equipped her with a deep understanding of the market, products and delivery channels. As Ooredoo Oman embarks on a new era, Noor is anticipated to steer the next phase of its strategy. This will be centred on driving the countrys digital transformation, nurturing the development of its people, and catering to its ever-evolving communications needs as it realises the goals of Omans 2040 Vision.
StarzPlay has strengthened its existing partnership with Ooredoo Tunisia. Tunisian subscribers can now have access to the platform’s add-on channels – UFC and discovery+.
Continuing to expand its reach across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the partnership now enables Ooredoo Tunisia subscribers to access the platform’s add on channels in addition to a wide array of content through value-added packages offered by the telecom provider.
Commenting on the partnership, Raghida Abou-Fadel, Senior Vice President of Sales & Business Development, StarzPlay, said: “Our partnership with Ooredoo Tunisia underlines our commitment to provide our content for more people across the MENA region. StarzPlay has an impressive library of content including our latest add-ons like discovery+, UFC and BluTV. Through Ooredoo Tunisia’s value-added packages, its subscribers can enjoy StarzPlay at no additional cost. Tunisia is an important market for us, and we are confident that our continued partnership will enable us to strengthen our market reach further.”
Mustapha Ben Ghachem, Head of VAS and Content, Ooredoo Tunisia, added: “We are pleased to build our relationship further with the region’s leading streaming platform to offer additional value-added benefits to our customers. Consumers today seek easy and convenient access to services and bundling our packages with partners having the same DNA helps us to attract new customers as well as retain the existing ones. We hope that our customers enjoy StarzPlay’s new add on services as we continue to evolve our offerings to deliver relevant and unmatched experiences to them.”
Subscribers opting for the XGO packages will have access to StarzPlay as well as its add-on channels at no additional cost.
Viasat has signed a multi-year In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) content partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to make its live game subscription service NBA League Pass available to airline passengers.
Qatar-based telecommunications company Ooredoo has appointed Noor Al-Sulaiti as CEO of Ooredoo Oman, making her the first woman appointed to this position in one of the groups main markets.
