Political instability in the Middle East is increasing the importance of Dubai as a hub for global media organisations, according to the man who runs the emirate’s media cluster.
In an exclusive interview with M&M Global, Mohammad Abdullah, managing director of Dubai’s Media Cluster business parks, added that the talent picture in Dubai has “totally changed”, with companies able to recruit locally rather than having to move talent from other regions.
Abdullah, whose clients include the BBC, Thomson Reuters, CNN and China’s CCTV, said that investments in Dubai’s infrastructure – from its airport to telecommunications services – has transformed the emirate into a world-class destination for media business.
He also believes that the Gulf region is increasingly appealing to advertisers, with high smartphone penetration and a much younger population than can be found in North America or Europe.
“When these companies base in Dubai, their target is not just Dubai or the United Arab Emirates (UAE),” says Abdullah. “They can serve a wider region including the Gulf States, and reach an audience of up to two billion from India to Africa.
“For many years there were centres for TV and production, such as Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, but because of the political situation in the region, the activity in these centres has shifted elsewhere – and one of [the beneficiaries] is definitely Dubai, because of the community we have created here.”
Knowledge workers
Last month, the emirate celebrated the 15-year anniversary of the creation of its first “knowledge economy” business park, Dubai Internet City. That launch spawned several other ‘cities’ focused on areas such as ICT and media. Today, six ‘clusters’, including Media Cluster, are managed by a single company, TECOM Investments.
TECOM claims its business parks are home to 4,500 companies and 70,000 “knowledge workers” – with plans to expand that total to 10,000 companies and 100,000 workers within a decade. It has also expanded its ambitions to the burgeoning tech start-up sector, allocating $1bn to supporting and creating entrepreneurs with an Innovation Hub.
Concerns about the difficulty in recruiting top talent to operations in the Middle East are no longer valid, argues Abdullah, who cites reforms to freelance work permit requirements brought about by TECOM’s lobbying of government.
“I’ve worked in the media since 1984,” says Abdullah. “The way I see it, when I started 30 years ago at a TV station, we had to depend on talent coming from abroad. If we wanted more professional talent, we would come to London or other regions.
“That has totally changed. Today, within the Media Cluster, we have 22,000 knowledge workers from all aspects of the industry, from TV to advertising to publishing. That would not be possible without the community that was created. Even the neighbouring countries come to Dubai to attract talent from companies here – instead of importing, we are exporting.”
Regional growth
Abdullah says that the resilience of publishers in the Middle East, despite a global slump in the sector, proves Dubai can thrive when other major media centres are struggling.
“Challenges that might exist in other regions do not exist in others. In recent years, for all the talk about how traditional publishing is suffering, this is not the case in the Middle East. We license traditional publishing, and we are getting interest and requests for new publications to set up. That applies to other segments as well,” he says.
“[Media companies] feel that their presence in the region is important, and that there is a market for them. News agencies that started with 20 people now have 250 staff. For them, the ease of doing business in Dubai has allowed them to expand.”
