Industry experts are predicting as many as 500 channels in the Arab World by the end of 2008. “Wow!” This certainly must mean that we will have more choices of quality programming on the tube, right? Wrong.
What we are about to witness from these so-called networks is more and more ‘cut and paste,’ boring, mundane programming to which we are exposed over and over again. And why do we see such a great deal of that rubbish? Well the main reason is the absence of creativity; plain and simple.
I have visited many of the major networks and was shocked to learn that none of them have a creative department. Not a single one. What is my definition of a creative department? It’s a place where you find talented people who do nothing more than create, develop and write for television; professionals who have the title ‘television writer’ printed on their business cards.
Let’s try to make it simple for the newcomers into the business. If we compare the television business to the restaurant business, you will find that a good restaurant needs good chefs to constantly come up with specials of the day and create those recipes that make for good food. Once the chef has the recipe then he relies on his cooks to take over and produce. Now let me ask you, if you like the restaurant that serves up good food you’ll always come back, right? So then, why are there hardly any chefs in television? I mean TV has a menu (grid) which requires good original programming. Who is creating and cooking these shows for television? Well, certainly not professionals, you can bet on that. Has there even been a show created in the Middle East that was syndicated and sold worldwide? Nope! We simply buy existing formats because it’s easy and it doesn’t require any thinking. If one just calculates the cost of acquiring, versus developing, one would be shocked to learn that there is better return for developing and owning the intellectual property.
Here’s what I believe is part of the problem: most decision makers in the television industry—those who make the main decisions on programming– don’t really appreciate the significance of creativity and what it takes to actually create, as compared to just produce a program. Creativity takes time and they simply don’t want to invest in the long run, in the talents that make up the Research and Development component of a good industry. Their logic is that R&D is an unwarranted expense. The nets must put creativity on the top of their list and treat writing as a profession and those writers must be paid well for them to continue in this profession. I truly believe we are sitting on a great deal of talent here in the Middle East that has the potential to develop great shows. We have creative people who need to be turned loose, and given the freedom and resources to come up with stuff that will capture the audiences. Networks that look at developing their own formats and original programming will be much further ahead and be able to reap the rewards of a bigger audience share and syndication rights.

Ziad Batal is Executive Producer at Media Group.