Television crews and casts have been hitting the streets of Damascus and the studios of Egypt, as well as scouting locations from Britain and Morocco to Pakistan. More than 100 musalsals will be made across the Arab World for Ramadan, translating into millions of dollars in production spending.

The current situation reads as follows: Egypt is trying to rebound from a multi-year rut in which it produced formulaic, star-centered vehicles that often failed to attract viewers. Syria is suffering from a production glut but continuing to flex its muscles regionally, with Gulf productions closing the distance on both Syria and Egypt. Under pressure to secure a share of Ramadan’s advertising pie, the region’s leading producers are looking for ways to get an edge over the competition.

Egypt: Under (Re-) Construction?

Egypt’s state-dominated television production industry has stalled in the last five years. The same, ever older faces, were showing up in virtually indistinguishable or gimmick-based shows, and many viewers headed for Syrian and other productions.

To try to correct this, the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) Production City has a new chairman, Sayyed Hilmi, who is overseeing a new plan to right the ship. According to Hilmi’s adviser, Youssef Osman, the fruits of the new plan won’t be apparent until Ramadan 07, since this year’s 22 musalsals were set in motion under the previous administration.
Much of the same is promised in 2006 – social dramas with perennial stars Nour Al Sharif, Yahya Fakharani, Ilham Shahine, and Hanan Turk, who recently took the veil and will play a hijab-wearing character.

As part of the new plan, the state-sponsored industry will work with a Syrian firm next year to produce a musalsal on Asmahan, the Levantine singer who became famous in Egypt, along with her brother Farid Al Atrash. Osman promised that the new plan would address the star-induced rut, vowing that “we will be concentrating on scripts, in the first place, and directors, followed by actors – not necessarily stars, but people who can give good performances.”

Meanwhile, Egypt’s private sector is making another two dozen or so musalsals, sometimes with outside funding and audacious offers, such as trying to lure megastar Adel Imam and Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram into separate shows. A private firm has brought Syrian actor Jamal Suleiman on board to play a “Saidi” (from a rural region of Egypt) as the lead role.

Syrian actress Joumana Mrad is appearing in her second Egyptian series, also playing an Egyptian character, and there have been other offers made to leading Syrian actors and directors.
A network of state satellite stations guarantees many Egyptian shows a buyer, but success comes from securing the leading slots on regional stations like MBC, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and LBCI. The question for Egypt is whether bringing in some new faces in lead roles will do the trick, or whether an overhaul of scriptwriting, direction and dramatic topics is needed to halt the slide.

Syria: Hollywood on the Barada

The Syrian industry is on the upswing: industry figures have identified 40 - and counting - musalsals being made in the country this year. Not all, however, are certain to find buyers. Wael Sweidani, who heads the production company Arabiyya, says that “you can’t walk around Damascus without seeing the equipment of TV production companies, the trucks parked in front of houses with cables running out of them - they’re everywhere. But who is going to buy these shows?”.

Industry insiders cite production costs at around $500,000 for a contemporary show, while costumes, locations and extras easily push the costs of historical epics into the $1-$1.5 million range; the figures being lower than Egyptian costs by at least half. Syrian director Najdat Anzour estimated that exclusive first-run airing deals range from $8,000 to $30,000 an episode; non-exclusive deals drop to $500 to $3,000 per episode. Shows that don’t obtain a lucrative first-run deal take several years to recoup their costs from repeated re-airings.

Meanwhile, Kuwaiti firms are busy in Syria, filming a big-budget epic on the Muslim general Khaled bin Walid and another on the founder of modern Kuwait, Sheikh Mubarak Al Sabah, with directors and cast from the Syria-based industry. But the flurry of activity masks a cutthroat market that requires a bit of order and security.

Director Haitham Haqqi said many production firms are “gambling” this year, as it is sometimes difficult to confirm whether an airing deal has been or will be secured. “Some production companies respond by saying that ‘it will be taken care of,’ but you don’t know for sure,” Haqqi said. “Another big problem is that with so many series, many actors have more than one commitment, and we end up trying to ‘steal’ actors from each other, or spend a lot of time coordinating all of these different commitments.” Haqqi described an industry that needs to rationalize its production schedules and advocated a change in the practice of going all out for Ramadan and forgetting the rest of the year.

The Gulf: Coming Up Fast

The Gulf has dominated the producing and airing part of the musalsal equation: Egyptians and Syrians traditionally seeking funding and/or broadcasting deals with MBC, Abu Dhabi TV, Dubai TV, Infinity, Orbit, ART and LBCI – the latter now exhibiting even more focus on the regional satellite market.

In 2006, LBCI is making a weighty move into the musalsal world, funding the production of a series on the late Egyptian actress Souad Hosni, the original Tash ma Tash Saudi satirical sketch show, and two series by director Anzour.

MBC is involved in producing a show on the legendary Egyptian singer Abdel-Halim Hafez, although the production might not be completed in time for Ramadan.

Meanwhile, the Gulf continues to import Arab staff for their “local” production – a Kuwaiti firm brought Syrian director Mamoun Al Bouni over this year to shoot a Kuwaiti drama on the subject of divorce.

Gulf musalsals – with mainly Gulf actors playing Gulf characters – are steadily making inroads. Syrian state TV is now broadcasting an Emirati series while LBCI and Future have done the same recently.

“I think the future could belong to the Gulf musalsals,” said Bouni. “But it might take a few years for them to catch on with Arab audiences, just like it took years for Egyptian audiences to follow Syrian shows.”

Terror and Trilogies [SIDEBAR]

One of the most-watched shows this Ramadan could be Renegades (al-Mariqun) by Najdat Anzour, for several reasons:

The subject matter is contemporary terror. One segment was shot in English, in the UK, with mainly British actors, treating the London bombings of July 2005. A Moroccan segment, in the Moroccan dialect, will be subtitled into formal Arabic. Other episodes were shot in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Also, the series is made up of 10 three-episode segments, each trilogy a separate story, as Anzour says it is high time to amend the 30-episode musalsal format. Audiences are known to complain that a commitment to watching a show for 30 successive days is too demanding. Rather than watch part of the series, many decide not to watch any at all. In recent years, some Syrian shows have tried the format of self-contained episodes.

“If a trilogy or shorter system succeeds, we’ll keep going and never look back,” Anzour said. “Years ago, the 30-episode series worked, but everyone has a remote control these days and will just switch to another station.”