Dana El Bataji writing for Arab Media & Society believes that MTV Arabia

“has not only translated a western medium to suit an Arab audience; it has also translated the western definition of what is and isn’t cool and made it pertinent to the region. That is, by all accounts, a laudable feat, especially given the cultural, social and political divides between the west and the Arab world.”

Wow. Really? Unfortunately I have yet to watch MTVa, not for lack of trying, I can just never seem to find it on the box, so I can’t really comment directly on its laudable feat.

I was interviewed by the MTV international research team in the pre-launch phase (which in typical, and thusfar successful, Dubai Inc / AMG style was highly-condensed; speed to market paramount, thoroughness and preparation secondary) during their field-tour of the region as they looked to connect with and make sense of the attractive demographic called ‘Arab Youth’. Tantalizingly, youths under the age of 24 now make up 50-65 percent of the population of the Middle East (Brookings Institute).

The MTV researchers (these guys’ jobs were to basically travel the world identifying global youth cultures – rad) were obsessing over the conservative values of the ‘Arab Street’ and its much-trumpeted anti-American sentiment.
Now I admit that my experience working in the Middle East, predominantly marketing and selling American and European brands to kids in the region (often appropriating regional creative talent to achieve the task), may have provided me not with a  skewered sample, one not totally representative of the region’s youth population. Our audiences have usually been in the mid-to-high socio-economic brackets, well-traveled and open to the arts. But surely this is the very same audience MTVa is targeting. I don’t see the channel winning over the (definitely present) conservative contingent which in any case probably isn’t of great interest to the prospective MTVa advertisers. The fact that the channel predominantly broadcasts in English, playing English-language music videos and MTV’s internationally syndicated shows (Cribs etc) will in itself filter out much of the conservative audience.

I believe MTV and US brands in general are mistakenly overly-concerned with the feared ‘Anti-American’ impact, particularly when it comes to kids’ actual purchasing decisions. American brands continue to be supremely popular across the region and in particular in Saudi, easily the most important Middle East market and especially so for MTVa (SA is make of break for the channel – that is the market broadcast advertisers spend their budgets on). This has continued to be the case even during the last few years of unprecedented and genuine regional frustration with US foreign policy. It’s always interesting to compare the divergence between regional youth surveys (plenty of venting) and actual spending patterns where Western and US brands continue to perform exceedingly well amongst the youth brackets.
The power of the MTV brand internationally has always revolved around its anti-establishment credentials and it should be no different to kids in the Middle East. They will see right through a diluted, self-censored, polite MTV.
Kids in this part of the world are no less rebellious, angst-ridden, cynical etc than those in MTV’s other markets, and they are certainly no less sophisticated at identifying disingenuous brands. With MTV a much diminished cultural force  internationally, this isn’t the time for dilly-dathering fence-sitting circumspection, it’s the time for bold, confident ground-standing, feather-ruffling, two-fingers to the system type stuff.

And yet this is indicative of the path chosen by both Viacom and their regional partner AMG (the latter’s perspective is understandable, it is after all a Dubai-government wholly owned entity):

Al Marzouqi is quick to defend the channel’s decision to openly censor inappropriate content: “We’re applying the standards of the region to the channel. We’re not applying global standards. Cutting scenes is normal, and we’re dealing with it. We want a safe channel that people can watch with their families.”

All in the fear of offending the mighty Saudi market.

Perhaps even more worrying was the fact that MTVa’s online strategy was ‘something to be worked out once the satellite channel was successfully up and running’. These kids like kids everywhere are anchored online, looking up at the TV as and when something interests them.

Purely anectodally, MTV Arabia doesn’t seem to have hit a nerve yet (it’s never on, no one talks about it- although there was some negative buzz about the winner of the VJ competition, it’s facebook + myspace that set the pulse), although I admit I am too old to truly be in tune with the target audience.

On the commercial front, it’s too early to judge one way or the other on the channel’s success. The regional broadcast industry is notoriously secretive and often non-commercially driven which makes assessing the market response that much more difficult. But what other youth-oriented platforms are available to advertisers? There’s Rotana, ShowTime etc but it is a niche that needs filling and on that count alone, the odds are MTVa will probably be a financial success in the medium term.

Disclosure: We (9714) were invited to pitch for the MTV branding which we lost (with a far cooler creative direction!) but this isn’t me being bitter! and Chadiyo (director of some of the video clips) is an old friend and one-time collaborator.