- Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE entities have been pouring money into Western media and entertainment.
- Middle East investment is filling a funding void as other sources have become scarcer.
- Insider broke down 11 top media companies with Middle Eastern backing or partnerships.
Middle Eastern investment has poured into US media and entertainment, and US media companies have been eager recipients.
This year, Peter Chernin and Providence Equity’s production roll-up The North Road received $150 million from Qatar’s main investment vehicle, and UAE-backed RedBird IMI, led by ex-CNN boss Jeff Zucker, backed a new non-fiction studio, EverWonder.
Attention has centered on Saudi Arabia, which is scrambling to take advantage of high oil prices to diversify its economy, chiefly through the Public Investment Fund, or PIF — one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, with $700 billion in assets. The PIF has made investments with Blackstone, Softbank, and Uber, to name a few. The kingdom also is aiming to promote projects that portray it as progressive.
The rise in investment — coming five years after Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, for which the US government held Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible, and with Saudi Arabia’s longstanding poor record on human rights — has stoked concerns and soul-searching in the West.
The subject is still fraught with tension and many of those doing business with Middle Eastern regimes and investors have declined to speak to Insider on the record about their partnerships.
Privately, proponents reason that such deals could help spread Western values and that it’s hypocritical to eschew Middle Eastern backing when countries in many regions commit human rights abuses. Others fret that reliance on foreign funds will impact creative or editorial decisions. Initiatives like Saudi Arabia’s 2-year-old Red Sea International Film Festival have attracted international stars while being criticized as a form of reputation whitewashing by the kingdom.
The specter of censorship arose earlier in August when the Guardian reported that Vice Media, which has a deal with a Saudi-controlled company, squashed reporting that could have upset the kingdom. (Vice hasn’t responded to a request for comment.)
Then there’s the possibility of self-censorship, which is harder to prove or sometimes even recognize. “That to me is potentially the most pernicious,” said one editorial exec at a company with ties to the Middle East.
Money from the region is sometimes filtered through public companies or Western banks, making the ultimate source somewhat opaque — but the investment has nevertheless become increasingly welcome as factors like high interest rates and a flagging ad market dry up other areas of funding in media.
Here’s a rundown of 11 key Western media and entertainment companies, listed alphabetically, that have licensing and investment partnerships with Middle Eastern entities. Some companies did not respond to request for comment on these deals, and some declined to comment on the record.
Bloomberg Media has had a partnership since 2017 with Saudi Research and Media Group, which bills itself as the region’s biggest publicly traded media company and which has close ties to the government of Mohammed bin Salman. Bloomberg’s relationship includes a business content deal with news network Asharq News, which SRMG says is one of the region’s fastest-growing digital news outlets. The two companies have also partnered on an Arabic version of streaming news service Quicktake as well as on live events.
CNN has a licensing deal with Abu Dhabi’s International Media Investments for CNN Business Arabic. IMI is part of Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, whose owner is a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family; IMI also has interests in Sky News Arabia and Euronews. A CNN rep said its licensing agreement, which lets IMI use the CNN brand and access its content and programming, is similar to the network’s content deals in other regions. The rep said CNN Arabic Business is editorially independent of CNN but added that CNN provides training on its standards and practices, so there is alignment with CNN’s values and brand of journalism.
London’s The Independent struck a licensing deal with SRMG in 2018 to create four websites in the region.
Jimmy Finkelstein’s news startup The Messenger has Middle Eastern funding via its acquisition of IMI-backed startup Grid, which is now shuttered. As part of the acquisition, IMI said it would invest an unspecified amount in The Messenger.
In 2016, film studio Miramax was acquired by BeIn, a Qatar state-owned sports and entertainment network, for an undisclosed amount. BeIn sold 49% of the company in 2020 to ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global).
The North Road, Peter Chernin and Providence Equity’s production roll-up, took a $150 million investment in January from the Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s main investment vehicle, to support its expansion.
Penske Media Corporation, the publisher of Billboard, Variety, Rolling Stone, and other entertainment magazines, said it took a minority investment worth $200 million from SRMG in 2018. Penske also is the biggest shareholder in Vox Media (publisher of New York magazine, Eater, and others), having made a $100 million investment in the company in February. Billboard in June announced the launch of Billboard Arabia with SRMG. A Penske rep said the stake has had no impact on its outlets’ journalism, pointing to numerous examples of its coverage of Khashoggi’s 2018 murder and its aftermath in entertainment following the investment earlier in the year.
RedBird IMI is a new $1 billion venture — run by ex-CNN boss Jeff Zucker and backed by Abu Dhabi’s IMI and PE firm RedBird Capital Partners — that’s investing in media, sports, and entertainment (IMI is putting in $750 million, with RedBird contributing the rest). It just launched EverWonder, a studio run by ex-Time Studio head Ian Orefice to create nonscripted programming.
Vice Media has a deal with Mideast broadcasting giant MBC Group to create content for the region that over time could be worth $50 million. MBC is reportedly at least 60% owned by the Saudi government. Vice was sold out of bankruptcy in July to a buyer group including Fortress Investment Group, which in May was set to be sold to Abu Dhabi-based sovereign-wealth fund Mubadala Investment and Fortress’ management.
Warner Bros. Discovery has a partnership with SRMG to launch free-to-air channel Asharq Discovery; WBD said the channel is set to launch in September.
Vince McMahon’s WWE, one of the first US companies to create unique events in Saudi Arabia, has an agreement with the country’s General Entertainment Authority to work together through 2027, a deal that research firm Wrestlenomics estimated is worth $100 million a year to the WWE.
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