Mobile operators grossed over four million dollars in voting revenues alone from last week’s televised “Superstar” contest, the Arabic version of American Idol. Millions of Arabs awaited in anticipation the results of the contest, which is managed by Lebanon-based Future Satellite TV station, along with Future TV and the VAS service provider.
“SuperStar and its massive voting revenues is a prime example of how the GSM operators can leverage the TV content of many of the satellite TV stations in the Arab World. This is a sure example of the convergence of media and telecom,” said Arab Advisors Founder and President, Jawad Abbassi.
Superstar is one of the biggest TV productions in the Arab World for the year 2003. Future Television bought the show recently from FremantleMedia. FremantleMedia is one of the largest international television production companies in Europe. The company produces more than 260 programs in over 39 countries and territories a year.
Superstar is currently aired on Future Television as one of its newly scheduled shows. While this show is constrained to one country internationally, the Arabic version actually extends to all of the countries of the Arab league where the participants come from multiple countries. The two finalists of this season were from the two countries of Syria and Jordan and the GSM operators in both countries turned it into a national duty to vote for the compatriot.
“In a rare moment in the history of the Arab media a sense of influence and involvement has been given to the people, where their votes determine the outcome of the show. Consequently the popularity of this show has been amplified, and viewer numbers has augmented tremendously,”said Arab Advisors Media analyst, Abed Al-Rahman Pharaon.
“Voting through the Internet played an important role due to the fact that voting via the Internet is for free. According to Future Television, the majority of the votes from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia came through the Internet. Which underlines the relatively high usage of Internet in the rich gulf markets,” Pharaon added.
Arab Advisors Group research shows that the share of GSM subscribers out of the total GSM and Internet users in the Arab world is around 79 percent. As a result, the total number of GSM users who voted through SMS and Phone service reached more than five million of the total 6.5 million votes over the programs duration.
The group calculated the average cost for both SMS and phone per minute to be around $.78, which gives an estimated revenue of more than four million dollars. These revenues are divided among three groups: Future TV, the mobile operators, and the mediators between the mobile operator and Superstar according to certain pre-defined percentages/shares, such as the Global Call company.
“Creating TV content and an audience-jury model would create substantial revenues to the GSM operators hence increasing the level of ARPU in the long run. Due to the competitive nature of the GSM industry, many operators have lowered their tariffs and hence their ARPU levels were significantly affected. Superstar is one block in the quest to steady ARPU levels. Future TV and the rest of the major content providers in the region must surely be feeling their importance,” the research note concluded.
According to the TV station, 80 percent of the votes came from Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon in the semi final round where the three finalists came from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. 84 percent of the votes coming from Jordan were in favor of Diana Karazon, 97 percent of the votes from Syria were in favor of Rowaida Atieh, and 79 percent of the votes from Lebanon were in favor of Melhem Zein. The final voting session, where the Jordanian Diana Karazon won 52 percent of the votes, had a total of 4.8 million votes cast, through the Internet, SMS and cellular calls. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
