There’s no shortage of streaming sites seeking to emulate the success of global giants like YouTube and Netflix. Of them, ALTV is the Middle East’s most promising contender, but it is more than just a streaming site.
Currently operating in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon, more than 50 per cent of ALTV’s content is produced by its members. It also offers film enthusiasts a platform to learn the trade, with video training available for everyone from those setting out to make their debut video to those seeking a route into full-time work.
ALTV chief David McCourt – who’s also the chairman and CEO of ALTV’s parent company, the private investment firm, Granahan McCourt Capital – has high hopes for the regional service which is about to launch in Dubai.
“I’ve been in the TV industry for a quarter of a century, and it must be the only industry in the world where America has a trade surplus with every single country in the world,” says McCourt, keen to change this imbalance.
To this end, the entrepreneur started the TV station Discovery TV in the Caribbean in 1985, where he trained local staff to make their own shows rather than import programmes from abroad. The station was founded in Grenada with 30 foreign employees and when McCourt sold it to the government some years later, it had 30 Grenadian employees.
McCourt's not afraid to use his celebrity connections to get the job done either – several stars appeared in the 2003 Showtime documentary series What's Going On?, and producer McCourt carried his local training initiative through here too: "I did a documentary with Angelina Jolie about refugees in Tanzania and sent cameras and trained local people how to use them," he says.
“It was the same thing with Michael Douglas when I made a documentary about child soldiers in Sierra Leone. When he went on Oprah Winfrey, the clip they showed was actually shot by a young kid we’d trained who’d never previously shot with a camera before.”
Now, says McCourt, he wants to use the same model for the world of digital content. ALTV has already undertaken training and let its graduates out to start shooting in Egypt, Morocco and Jordan. Once its Dubai operation is up and running, McCourt says the ALTV team will host a series of meetings and workshops from which they hope to develop a crop of UAE-based content creators.
The site will be launched complete with localised versions of the most popular shows from the Middle Eastern markets, where it is already in operation.
The content will include Streets Points of View, a six-times daily show that, as the name implies, seeks opinions from the streets of Cairo.
McCourt says the service may also introduce a reading show that would celebrate the UAE's Year of Reading (2016). Other popular shows already on the site include the Jordanian hit comedy Al Hob El Hob, which starred Jordanian comedian Rajae Qawas and pulled in 1.5 million viewers per episode during Ramadan.
Negotiations are also under way to bring exclusive football content from around the world to the platform.
In addition to the streaming site, plans are afoot for an upgraded app that will connect interested filmmakers with training modules and allow them to collaborate all over the world.
“With digital now we can have a situation where three guys in Dublin, Cairo and Abu Dhabi can all work on the same show, they can have the same music, the same green screen background and go through the whole process on an app, right up to getting paid direct to their phone when Coke advertises on the show,” McCourt says.
It is basically the YouTube model of income generation – a free stream with in-stream ads, which raises the question, how can a newcomer to the market compete with an established behemoth like YouTube, particularly in the Middle East where YouTube viewership is the highest in the world.
“YouTube is collection of all content, with no discrimination on value or quality,” McCourt adds.
“We’re trying to take that YouTube cost model of cheap production, but offer a BBC or MBC quality, while keeping it very local. That’s our unique definitions – cheap, quality and local.”
With the ALTV Facebook page having attracted two million followers since it launched less than a year ago, viewer numbers exceeding expectations (Streets Points of View has had more than 50 million to date) and expansions already in the pipeline in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, McCourt is confident.
Stats at a glance:
Cost: 1.05 billion pounds (Dh 4.8 billion)
Number in service: 6
Complement 191 (space for up to 285)
Top speed: over 32 knots
Range: Over 7,000 nautical miles
Length 152.4 m
Displacement: 8,700 tonnes
Beam: 21.2 m
Draught: 7.4 m
Monster
Directed by: Anthony Mandler
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington
3/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: BorrowMe (BorrowMe.com)
Date started: August 2021
Founder: Nour Sabri
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce / Marketplace
Size: Two employees
Funding stage: Seed investment
Initial investment: $200,000
Investors: Amr Manaa (director, PwC Middle East)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
The Sky Is Pink
Director: Shonali Bose
Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim, Rohit Saraf
Three stars
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hoopla%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EDate%20started%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMarch%202023%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Jacqueline%20Perrottet%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2010%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPre-seed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20required%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%24500%2C000%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
The specs
Engine: 4-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: nine-speed
Power: 542bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh848,000
On sale: now
HWJN
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Coal Black Mornings
Brett Anderson
Little Brown Book Group
The Uefa Awards winners
Uefa Men's Player of the Year: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)
Uefa Women's Player of the Year: Lucy Bronze (Lyon)
Best players of the 2018/19 Uefa Champions League
Goalkeeper: Alisson (Liverpool)
Defender: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)
Midfielder: Frenkie de Jong (Ajax)
Forward: Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Uefa President's Award: Eric Cantona
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 620hp from 5,750-7,500rpm
Torque: 760Nm from 3,000-5,750rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch auto
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh1.05 million ($286,000)
The specs
Engine: 2.2-litre, turbodiesel
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Power: 160hp
Torque: 385Nm
Price: Dh116,900
On sale: now
Five expert hiking tips
Always check the weather forecast before setting off
Make sure you have plenty of water
Set off early to avoid sudden weather changes in the afternoon
Wear appropriate clothing and footwear
Take your litter home with you
Founder: Ayman Badawi
Date started: Test product September 2016, paid launch January 2017
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software
Size: Seven employees
Funding: $170,000 in angel investment
Funders: friends
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
Directed by: RS Prasanna
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
Barbie
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