Middle East pay-television operator Arab Digital Distribution (ADD) recently announced plans to develop its Western channel bouquet FirstNet/Star Select and Hindi bouquet Pehla, in an effort to expand their reach and offer affordable television to meet the diverse needs of viewers. ADD also plans to launch a new look for the Al-Awael Arabic bouquet.
“We currently offer three pay-TV bouquets for each of the region’s main viewers—Arabs, Asian and western—and we plan to expand further in 2002 with more premium TV channels at competitive prices,” ADD CEO John Tydeman said.
Add operates two other platforms: in North Africa there is Maghreb and a special selection for Arabic viewers in Europe, Arabesque. “Our aim is to reduce the hardware barrier to entry so that pay television is affordable by all. As such we have launched a deferred payment plan for hardware to allow easy procurement,” added Tydeman.
ADD plans to implement a three-step approach in structuring its channels. First, the price of pay television is reduced to about $0.60 per day. The price of entry for Pehla has been reduced $16 per month and FirstNet includes three movie channels for $19 per month.
Second, the array of viewer services has been expanded to allow a one-stop shop approach, for movies, entertainment, sport, news, music or children’s programming. ADD’s channels offering includes Cartoon Network, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Adventure One, Sci-Trek and Fox Kids. Third, a new pay-TV package offering Kids and Knowledge channels has been introduced.
Registered in Mauritius, ADD creates and manages niche programming bouquets and markets and distributes these channels across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. ADD is the platform company for the Arab Media Corporation (AMC) group, which owns Arab Radio and Television (ART), whose biggest shareholders are the Saudi Sheikh Saleh Kamel and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
