Bloomberg Media, SRMG announce first-ever Power Players Summit in Jeddah

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Updated 15 February 2024

Arab News

February 15, 2024 19:31

Bloomberg Media, SRMG announce first-ever Power Players Summit in Jeddah

The Summit features leading figures from the sports industry, convening to discuss the trends and moves shaping the future of the global sports industry
Speakers include Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih and Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, among many others

Updated 15 February 2024

Arab News

February 15, 2024 19:31

JEDDAH: Bloomberg Media and SRMG announced today the first-ever Bloomberg Power Players Summit, Powered by Asharq Business with Bloomberg in Saudi Arabia. The Summit will take place on 7 March 2024 at the Jeddah Yacht Club, alongside the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The event will bring together influential voices in the business of sports, entertainment, and technology to identify the next potential wave of disruption and multibillion-dollar investments.

Hosted by Bloomberg’s Business of Sports Chief Correspondent Jason Kelly, the summit will explore key trends and topics shaping the future of sports. Discussions will focus on critical issues such as the influence of private equity in sports investing, evolving dynamics in the world of football with a particular emphasis on the MENA region, and the rise of new opportunities in the esports sector.

The initial speaker lineup features prominent names in the sports industry, each bringing their unique expertise to the Summit. Confirmed speakers include Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Investment; Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren; Ralf Reichert, CEO of Esports World Cup Foundation; Carlo Nohra, COO of Saudi Pro League; Susie Wolff, Managing Director of the Formula One Academy; Amanda Staveley, Co-CEO of Newcastle United FC; Craig Levine, Co-CEO of ESL FACEIT Group; Dino Young, Founder and CEO of VSPO; Vikram Solanki, Director of Cricket, Gujarat Titans; and Gemma Wright, Senior Managing Director of CVC.

More than 150 esteemed guests, including CEOs and leading decision-makers from leading sports companies are expected to attend, with the Summit’s content accessible globally via Asharq News, Asharq Business with Bloomberg and Bloomberg’s television, radio, and digital platforms.

Karen Saltser, CEO of Bloomberg Media, said, “The inaugural Bloomberg Power Players Summit in Jeddah will serve as a pivotal platform for dealmakers, risk takers and game changers from business, investing, sports, media, and entertainment. The experience is designed to foster meaningful conversations against the backdrop of Saudi Arabia’s dynamic socio-economic landscape, where sports are gaining increasing prominence.”

Jomana R. Alrashid, CEO of SRMG, said, “This summit represents a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas about the future of sports and highlight investment opportunities in this important and growing industry worldwide. Saudi Arabia has emerged as a key player in driving innovation in the sports industry, with a comprehensive strategy over the past several years. The positive impact that this investment has had on tourism, job creation and the socio-demographic of the country and the region, is the reason we partnered with Bloomberg Media to host the Bloomberg Power Players Summit in Saudi Arabia.”

The Bloomberg Power Players Summit is the latest component of the content agreement between SRMG and Bloomberg Media, originally signed in 2018 with the launch of Asharq Business with Bloomberg. The agreement has since expanded to include Asharq Quicktake, the Arabic edition of the Quicktake streaming news platform, and Radio Asharq with Bloomberg, the region’s first Arabic-language radio station dedicated to business news and financial insights.

Topics: Bloomberg SRMG Power Players Summit

Netflix says 50 million households worldwide tuned in for Paul-Tyson match

Updated 17 November 2024

Reuters

November 17, 2024 04:15

Netflix says 50 million households worldwide tuned in for Paul-Tyson match

Updated 17 November 2024

Reuters

November 17, 2024 04:15

Netflix said on Saturday that 60 million households worldwide had tuned in for the highly anticipated boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, and the event peaked at 65 million streams, according to a statement.
The bout between the 27-year-old social media influencer-turned-prize fighter Paul and the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion Tyson, which Paul won, was streamed live on Netflix.
Nearly 50 million households tuned in for the co-main event between Ireland’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor and Puerto Rico’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano, according to Netflix.
“The bout is likely to be the most watched professional women’s sporting event in US history,” Netflix said in its statement.
There were some hiccups during the live-stream of the match, with over 90,000 users reporting problems on Netflix at its peak, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.
However, the streaming platform was back up on Saturday after the outage that lasted roughly 6 hours in the United States.

Topics: Netflix Jake Paul Mike Tyson

Renowned Lebanese journalist quits MTV over death threats by alleged Hezbollah supporters

Updated 16 November 2024

Arab News

November 16, 2024 21:59

Renowned Lebanese journalist quits MTV over death threats by alleged Hezbollah supporters

‘I decided to leave MTV because of the intimidations that reached the point of death threats,’ says Dr. Eman Shweikh on X
Samir Kassir Eyes Center reports that since Nov. 12 Shweikh had been subjected to a campaign of threats, incitement, accusations of treason

Updated 16 November 2024

Arab News

November 16, 2024 21:59

DUBAI: A renowned Lebanese journalist has taken to social media platform X to announce her departure from MTV following alleged death threats believed to have been made by supporters of Hezbollah.
Not mentioning the Iran-backed group by name, Dr. Eman Shweikh, a TV presenter at MTV, journalist and university professor, wrote: “I decided to leave MTV because of the intimidations that reached the point of death threats and the harassment that I am exposed to, which reached the point of following me home and chasing me on the road, in addition to harassing my family.”
The Samir Kassir Eyes Center reported that since Nov. 12 Shweikh had been subjected to a campaign of threats, incitement and accusations of treason due to her political opinions that she publishes on X, and because of her work for MTV.
The purported threats and harassment prompted her to leave her job at the channel.
The TV presenter added in her tweet: “The (Lebanese) state is absent, and laws are inexistent, and I do not want to expose my life and the lives of my family to danger. I want to live in safety and peace. Thank you to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of MTV Michel Murr.”
Shweikh’s tweet received thousands of likes and hundreds of retweets and comments.
Replying to her tweet, advocate Tarek Chindeb said: “The threat to kill journalist Eman Shweikh makes us believe at every moment that we cannot build a state in Lebanon in the presence of illegal weapons and militias outside accountability.”
Expressing solidarity, Chindeb hoped that the Lebanese security and judicial authorities would do their duty to protect her, and arrest the culprits.
Political analyst Magdi Khalil also replied to Shweikh’s tweet, saying: “Ideological militias do not know participation, but rather overpowering. They do not know dialogue, but rather the threat of violence.”
MTV journalist Nawal Berry and cameraman Dany Tanios were attacked in July while attempting to cover the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold.
It was not the first time Berry and her team had been assaulted by Hezbollah loyalists. During the early days of the Oct. 17 revolution in 2019, she and her team faced a violent attack and had their camera smashed.
Supporters of Hezbollah have a history of assaulting and threatening journalists. Targets have included Layal Alekhtiar, who received death threats in 2021 and faced legal action last year for interviewing an Israeli spokesperson; Dima Sadek; Ali Al-Amin; and others.
At the time of publishing, Shweikh could not be reached for comment.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon MTV Hezbollah Eman Shweikh Death threats

What is Bluesky, the fast-growing social platform welcoming fleeing X users?

Updated 16 November 2024

November 16, 2024 04:07

What is Bluesky, the fast-growing social platform welcoming fleeing X users?

Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and talk to others online

Updated 16 November 2024

November 16, 2024 04:07

SAN FRANCISCO: Disgruntled X users are again flocking to Bluesky, a newer social media platform that grew out of the former Twitter before billionaire Elon Musk took it over in 2022. While it remains small compared to established online spaces such as X, it has emerged as an alternative for those looking for a different mood, lighter and friendlier and less influenced by Musk.
What is Bluesky?
Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed and a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.
Why is Bluesky growing?
Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and talk to others online. The post-election uptick in users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X. The platform gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August — 85 percent of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.
Across the platform, new users — among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities — have posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of Twitter more than a decade ago.
Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted after the election that it had “dominated the global conversation on the US election” and had set new records.
Beyond social networking
Bluesky, though, has bigger ambitions than to supplant X. Beyond the platform itself, it is building a technical foundation — what it calls “a protocol for public conversation” — that could make social networks work across different platforms — also known as interoperability — like email, blogs or phone numbers.
Currently, you can’t cross between social platforms to leave a comment on someone’s account. Twitter users must stay on Twitter and TikTok users must stay on TikTok if they want to interact with accounts on those services. Big Tech companies have largely built moats around their online properties, which helps serve their advertising-focused business models.
Bluesky is trying to reimagine all of this and working toward interoperability.

Topics: Bluesky

Media group IMI and UAE Media Council sign deal to recruit and train local talent

Updated 14 November 2024

Arab News

November 14, 2024 23:39

Media group IMI and UAE Media Council sign deal to recruit and train local talent

Collaboration is part of the Media Apprenticeship Program launched last year by the Media Council and the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council
It targets existing Emirati media professionals, as well as graduates and final-year students in media-related studies

Updated 14 November 2024

Arab News

November 14, 2024 23:39

DUBAI: IMI, a media group in the UAE formerly known as International Media Investments, has signed a cooperation agreement with the UAE Media Council to train and recruit local talent and develop media infrastructure in the country.

The initiative is part of the Media Apprenticeship Program, an initiative launched in May 2023 by the UAE Media Council and the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council. It targets existing Emirati media professionals, as well as graduates and final-year students in media-related studies, with the aim of developing the next generation of talent in the nation’s media sector.

The agreement was signed at IMI’s new headquarters in Abu Dhabi by Mohammed Saeed Al-Shehhi, secretary-general of the UAE Media Council, and Rani Raad, CEO of the recently rebranded IMI Group, which owns several news outlets including Sky News Arabia, The National newspaper, Al-Ain News and CNN Business Arabic.

“We are proud to be the first global media group in the UAE to partner with the UAE Media Council on this initiative,” said Raad.

IMI Group, he added, can offer “aspiring Emirati talent unique opportunities to learn about the best media assets and standards” through its network of companies and the IMI Media Academy.

Launched in September, the IMI Media Academy employs the latest learning methodologies and offers an advanced curriculum focusing on the media industry, journalism and content creation.

Al-Shehhi highlighted the need to forge stronger partnerships with private media companies, and for cohesive country-wide efforts to develop the sector.

He said the partnership with IMI demonstrates the Media Council’s “commitment to empowering the media sector to attain global leadership by investing in the development of national skills and talents and equipping them with the latest media tools and technologies.”

It also aligns with the council’s desire “to nurture a new generation of talents capable of spearheading the sector and achieving significant accomplishments in the future,” he added.

Topics: IMI UAE Media Council

Spotify introduces ‘Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24’ residency program for emerging talent

Updated 15 November 2024

Zaira Lakhpatwala

November 14, 2024 23:02

Spotify introduces ‘Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24’ residency program for emerging talent

Initiative covers songwriting and music production, music marketing, music rights and industry knowledge, and touring and performing
The Kingdom is an ‘incredibly exciting market’ for Spotify, says platform’s regional managing director

Updated 15 November 2024

Zaira Lakhpatwala

November 14, 2024 23:02

DUBAI: Spotify this month introduced Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24, the first iteration of a program dedicated to the promotion and development of the emerging music scene in the Kingdom.

“We’re incredibly thrilled to launch Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24 and are eager to see the impact it will have on the career growth of the selected artists,” Akshat Harbola, managing director of Spotify in the Middle East and North Africa region, told Arab News.

The program, which ran from Nov. 6 to 11, represented “a long-term investment in nurturing up-and-coming talent, starting with a residency format this year,” he added.

It brought together four local talents who feature on Spotify’s Fresh Finds Arabia playlist, a showcase of the best new music by independent artists and labels from the region: BrownMusic, known for merging Arabic and English lyrics with contemporary experimental electronic beats; hip-hop artist Grzzlee; Kali-B, a singer, songwriter and producer; and Seera, an all-female Arabic psychedelic rock band.

They were chosen by Spotify’s local editorial team as “standout talent” that had “already made an impression on our Fresh Finds Arabia playlist,” Harbola said.

Spotify seeks to showcase different musical genres through the program, he added, and so “we took special care to prioritize a diverse range of styles that highlight the new generation of creators” from Saudi Arabia. The selected artists “have proven they can connect with listeners and are ready to elevate their careers.”

The residency program provided them with support, mentorship and a host of resources aimed at accelerating their growth as artists and expanding their presence in the Saudi music industry, Spotify said.

The program’s curriculum focused on four topics: songwriting and music production; music marketing; music rights and industry knowledge; and touring and performing.

Experts such as lyricist, writer and creative director Menna El-Kiey, and musicians and producers Ntitled, El Waili, Soufiane Az and Ismail Nosrat, offered guidance to the participants on songwriting, beat-making, mixing and mastering.

Amin Kabbani, vice president of Arabic talent at entertainment company Live Nation Middle East, provided insights into planning and executing a successful tour, managing logistics and engaging with fans.

Sony Publishing MENA led the session on music rights and industry knowledge, during which the participants learned about intellectual property, and how to protect their work and navigate the business side of their art.

Spotify also worked with the artists to record new tracks at creative hub Merwas in Riyadh, and the results will be released by the end of the year. Nada Al-Tuwaijri, the CEO of Merwas, said the studio is “committed to nurturing talent and providing artists with the tools and environment they need to unlock their creative potential.”

She added: “The Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24 initiative aligns perfectly with our vision of supporting emerging talent in the Kingdom, the region and beyond.”

Harbola said that the Kingdom is “an incredibly exciting market” for Spotify and although he was “unable to share specific listenership rankings, the level of engagement in Saudi Arabia is truly remarkable.”

The company is seeing a “strong surge” in the popularity of pop music, especially Egyptian pop, and Khaleeji music, “which remains central to Saudi listeners,” he added.

The platform’s focus on the Kingdom has grown in recent months through initiatives such as “Tarab,” a campaign that celebrated Khaleeji music and spotlighted Saudi-based RADAR Arabia artist Sultan Al-Murshed in New York’s Times Square.

Harbola said that the burgeoning local music scene and audience engagement on Spotify is driving the company’s efforts to introduce initiatives such as Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24 and commit to them on a long-term basis

“While we don’t have set dates for future iterations (of the residency), our focus remains on curating unique experiences tailored to artists’ needs in different markets, whether through this initiative or other Spotify Music Programs across MENA,” he added.

Topics: Spotify spotify saudi

Bloomberg Media, SRMG announce first-ever Power Players Summit in Jeddah

Bloomberg Media, SRMG announce first-ever Power Players Summit in Jeddah

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Renowned Lebanese journalist quits MTV over death threats by alleged Hezbollah supporters

Renowned Lebanese journalist quits MTV over death threats by alleged Hezbollah supporters

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Lebanese journalist receives threats, travel ban for interviewing Israeli official

What is Bluesky, the fast-growing social platform welcoming fleeing X users?

What is Bluesky, the fast-growing social platform welcoming fleeing X users?

Bluesky has added 1 million users since the US election as people seek alternatives to X

Lebanese journalist Soukaina Mansour Kawtharani killed in Israeli strike on Joun

Media group IMI and UAE Media Council sign deal to recruit and train local talent

Media group IMI and UAE Media Council sign deal to recruit and train local talent

IMI media group rebrands with new name, logo and strategic shift

Spotify introduces ‘Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24’ residency program for emerging talent

Spotify introduces ‘Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24’ residency program for emerging talent

Spotify introduces ‘Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24’ residency program for emerging talent

Spotify celebrates Khaleeji music in Saudi-focused campaign ‘Tarab’

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Bloomberg Media, SRMG announce first-ever Power Players Summit in Jeddah

Bloomberg Media, SRMG announce first-ever Power Players Summit in Jeddah

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