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Jon Alterman: Fadi Ismail is the founder and general manager of DKL Studios based in Dubai. He has over 30 years of experience in Arab media. And I met him more than 20 years ago, when he was working for what was then the London-based, and is now the Dubai-based, MBC group. Fadi, welcome to Babel.
Fadi Ismail: Thank you, Jon. It's great to be on Babel.
Jon Alterman: So you've been in the Middle East media and entertainment world for almost three decades. What makes something work in terms of Middle Eastern entertainment and how has that changed over your career?
Fadi Ismail: I think I was a witness to great changes, but unfortunately I might say that those changes stagnated later on, because there was this transformation from the traditional TV to let's say, augmented TV. Augmented not in the sense of reality, but maybe it's reality. A higher level of TV content, higher level of TV sophistication, but it was never like the rest of the world. So that transformation—
Jon Alterman: So that was what we were talking about when we talked in 1998, the first time we met was at Pan Arab Satellite television. It suddenly raised the production values from states sponsored television and created things for the Arab world that were really on a top flight international level.
Fadi Ismail: Yes, and I think we must have discussed what did that do to the Arabs, that brought them together more than 20, 30 years of ideology and rhetoric and supposedly nationalistic plans and parties and propaganda. And here comes satellite TV, which brought Arabs together in taste. And for example, while the Egyptian content has always been the Pan Arab content—and still is—but it had its up and downs. Syrian content was able to benefit from one of the gaps or the weaknesses of the Egyptian content and took a prime seat. Then the war in Syria stopped that.
The Lebanese content was not able to go beyond the entertainment, the shows, the voice, the Arabs Got Talent, the musical contest, those kinds of big flagship shows, but not in the drama, and the feature films. The Gulf drama has been static for a number of years, and now it is time for it to go into the second stage ,because that's where supposedly the money is. That's where all the resources are good there, and advertisers are there.
So I've witnessed those transformation of strength and weaknesses of different regional powers in production, in Arab media dominance.
Jon Alterman: I understand you were involved in trying to launch a show about a hermaphrodite looking for gender identity. What are audiences looking for in the Arab world? I mean, what does today's audience in the Arab world want when it looks for entertainment?
Fadi Ismail: There was one of these movies, What Woman Want, that is about reading the mind. And this is one of the most difficult question because everybody claims he or she has an answer, but that's one of the most mysterious questions, because research is weak, because we don't have the people meter. We don't have lots of tools of research that exists in other places, where you can tell what people are watching and would like to watch. Now, this is the prerogative of today's world of the digital services, who have lots of data that they can utilize, but usually they deal with it as if it is state secret.
Jon Alterman: You are credited with the person who watched some Turkish soap operas, and said that would make great Arab television in 2007. What did you see there that you said, "I think an Arab audience wants that?"
Fadi Ismail: Let me tell you what others didn't see, because this is the danger of research if it is not scientific and with a representative sample. I will tell you more about the Turkish in a minute. But after I found that Turkish soap and got the approval of my board, of my boss, to go and invest and do something never done before in the Arab world, I took that content to a focus group of different female professional viewers from different parts of the Arab world and gave them the Turkish content dubbed into Syrian and dubbed into Egyptian and told them, "What do you like? What do you think Arabs would like?" And there was almost a consensus that Arabs will not like Turkish content.
That is just an indication, that whoever you ask that question might think that they know and they have the answer, but the answer is once you do it, it has a different taste. So what did I find in the Turkish? I find an Arab, a plus plus. I found an Arab culture, Arab society, but more modern, more open minded, less restrictive. So the escapism, and it is so attractive, so appealing that it had an immediate impact. And it was as I jokingly call it, the best thing that's happened in the entertainment business since man landed on the moon. So I think this was a historical and a hysterical thing because of the amount of the viewership and buzz that happened. But then as you well know, in the same it started all of a sudden and it ended all of a sudden as well. And do you know the answer why?
Jon Alterman: Yeah. I want to get to the end part, but at first I want to talk about the beginning part. You’ve thought for decades about what Arab audiences want. Is there something you think you understand that other people don't understand?
Fadi Ismail: I can't claim that credit. I will say I have the modesty of saying we don't understand. And I think I will add to it that I’ve had the experience of 30 years. We have to admit that there is a lost battle, the hearts and mind of the young.
Yes. What are they consuming? Are they consuming traditional TV stations all over 22 countries? I don't think so. Is there anything to prove me right or wrong? No, but my hunch says, there is a battle that is lost every day, and those lost, those youngsters, well, under 25 is not youngsters. But those who TV have lost, I don't know where they are other than on social media, but not on another medium. I mean, yes, of course the Netflixs of the world, the Amazons have made a breakthrough, but they don't have local content. They've been talking about local content, but there is no Arab, local, original content. I mean, they're getting content, but as a second runner, third runner, whatever. But the other general content, you don't find it. It's not there on the big streaming services of the world yet.
Jon Alterman: Do you think there's a different storytelling that young Arabs want that other audiences don't? Is there something unique to the way young Arab audiences think about themselves and stories that content producers could tap into?
Fadi Ismail: I think that if they want superheroes, there is enough stories about superheroes that they don't need an Arab to do an Arab superman to watch it. There are enough supermans all over the world in the media. What I think they need and they will enjoy, is the local stories, stories from the culture, the mythology, the history, society, stories that they feel are relevant to them. And that's why, for example, the Turkish meant a lot more than the American series, because it's just more relevant. More relevant in their tastes, in their behavior, in their culture. And you need Arabic original storytelling, whether it is even daring in the sense. Do you know Jon that, from the genre that every country in the world produces, the legal drama, crime drama, police drama, science fiction, horror, medical drama, legal drama. We might have only two or three genres that everybody repeats in its production.
We have so much missing: teen drama, musicals, all of that does not exist. There is so much that one can do, but maybe up till now, it wasn't the right time. It wasn't allowed. Nobody wanted to take a risk. There has to be a major change for Arab storytelling to be able to grab the attention of the millions and the tens of millions of youngsters, hungry for content but not finding it.
Jon Alterman: My understanding is that a lot of the Gulf governments are putting a lot of money, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, into production. And then of course, where people close to Gulf governments own most of the large broadcasting platforms. Shouldn't there be enough money to produce entertainment if the governments want to produce entertainment?
Fadi Ismail: You are asking a very pivotal question. And let me answer that by saying, do you think money on its own is enough to do anything? I think money is a facilitator, but you have to have a vision. You have to have a strategy, you have to have the proper tools. You have to have the trust. You have to believe in who can do that? Who can take the vision and implement it. Money can never alone do things, and if it does, it will for a very short time. So to answer your question, the Gulf is capable of producing content that takes Arab content or storytelling to the next higher level, because the money is there and the openness.
Also there is no history, there's no baggage. The baggage is very superficial. You can start fresh and do things. You have tens of thousands of young students who graduated from the best universities in the world. So there is the right combination of elements. You just have to mix them. You like the tabbouleh, yeah? Tabbouleh is a wonderful, simple thing. It has only three ingredients, only when you mix it right, it tastes good.
Jon Alterman: I need your recipe because my tabbouleh has about seven ingredients.
Fadi Ismail: That's a very modern tabbouleh.
Jon Alterman: For a long time I've heard about political messages being injected by governments into programming. And one of the issues that gets a lot of attention in the West is both negative and positive portrayals of Israelis. On Arab media we had recently the politicization of Turkish programming. As you said, it was taken off the air, first temporarily in Egypt, then was permanently from some of the Gulf broadcasters for political reasons. Are people making too much of the idea that media is a vehicle for political messaging? Are people making too much of the idea that governments are trying to intervene in media for political purposes?
Fadi Ismail: Most media is either owned directly or indirectly. So there's no surprises, they're owned by governments directly or indirectly. Therefore, there is no surprises about the messages that comes. So that's not the issue. And to be honest, remember TV speaks to the lowest common denominator between audiences, the masses. It is a mass media, and in a mass media, if there is one shot or a couple of scenes in one show that talks about the Jews, like what's happened with an MBC program last Ramadan, and all hell broke loose. It's because the masses aren't ready. Change is not something that you do for a few minutes and then you say “I've changed.” It's an ongoing, continuous attempt to make an impact on the minds and the hearts of your audience.
So just one thing happened and created that controversy, when the Jews were mentioned in this program on MBC, should this not happen? I think now you have something called the—we always had it—the remote control. But you can go and watch one of the other TV stations that is pro-resistance or pro-whatever political ideology. What I'm trying to say is, there is in terms of political change, so much more that the media can do in a subtle way, in a very seamless way, in a very smart way. But unfortunately, many of these tools, the messages that comes there, either are not smart, or on the other hand, because of who they are, because of who owns them, sometimes it might tarnish the effectiveness of the messaging.
Jon Alterman: There were some criticisms that the Turks were trying to inject, an ideology of neo-Ottomanism into some of the serials that were circulated in the Arab world. Did you ever see a sign of that? Do you have a sense that the governments outside the Arab world have been trying to use entertainment as a way to advance their own governmental interests?
Fadi Ismail: Yes and no. Yes, but it's not a secret that there were some very pro-Ottoman grandeur, how they founded the empire. That was two, three, four, series that created a big buzz and a big impact. But remember Turkey, when I went to buy all these series, it's a democracy in the sense that there are conglomerates owning production houses, and companies that just produces content to make money. It's a business.
And therefore, it's not like a monopoly. This is not North Korea where everything has to be filtered through the government. So what I'm trying to say is yes and no to the question about the government trying to use the soft power of media and content. And this is something that has been done and will continue to be done to various degrees of success.
Jon Alterman: If I wanted to know where young people in the Arab world are going, their heads, their hearts, and I wanted to look at entertainment as a guide to that, what should I be paying attention to? What trends, what phenomena should I be noticing?
Fadi Ismail: Unfortunately, the absence of research makes answering this with any certainty and credibility difficult. But for example, daily when you open Netflix, it tells you the top ten programs in this country or that country, you can get a feel. But if you ask me, I think it's going to be —you might laugh at this simplistic answer—good content. We miss and we need good content. Good content can be something mysterious, can be something science fiction-y, it can be something of a teen drama, it can be horror. It has to be good and well done. And the story appeals to whoever is watching in an emotional way. It has to be relevant to how you look at it. I feel that today, if I got it right, there is 500 series produced per year in the United States.
Add to that the same number maybe in Europe, add to that another 300 or 200 series produced in the Arab world. You have at least a thousand series per year that audiences can tap into. It is the chaos of the world of entertainment in terms of drama. And there is so much that everybody will find something that he or she likes. I don't think it is mass media anymore. The mass has to become targeted. I like something, you like something else. We don't have to have millions. The Turkish series, the ending of one of the Turkish series is 130 episodes. I think we had statistics that 70 million people watched it. The advertisers in America would love to see those numbers. Not even in the States will you find such achievement. But I don't think that will be repeated. Now it's fragmented and segmented.
Jon Alterman: And that makes the money problem of producing things all that much harder.
Fadi Ismail: Absolutely. My dream is to do to the Arab content what I helped to do to the Turkish. Turkish has become a worldwide phenomenon‑partially to take a little bit of credit—because of how I helped it to start, to launch in the Arab world, and then it became a worldwide phenomenon. I would like to do the same, because the Israelis are not better than us. The Danish are not better than us. The Spaniards are not better than us. They all have content that the world is watching. What is wrong? Why don't we have content that is good enough for the world to watch? I think it's a matter of time and some perseverance and some open mind and some luck.
Jon Alterman: Fadi Ismail thank you very much for joining us.
Fadi Ismail: You're welcome, Jon.