For years, the Middle East’s media story was framed around platforms. That era is ending. The real transformation is structural: who controls capital, who earns trust, who captures tech, and who shapes global narratives.
By 2026, a new media hierarchy will be in place and much of it will be engineered in the Gulf region.
Saudi Arabia’s soft power play
Saudi Arabia’s media push is not cosmetic. It is strategic, patient, and systemic.
The $55 billion Saudi Public Investment Fund takeover of Electronic Arts wasn’t merely a gaming bet. It placed Saudi at the heart of a global cultural engine where youth, storytelling, identity, and scale converge.
The Met Opera partnership with Riyadh underscored a broader shift: cultural legitimacy now flows both ways. The region is no longer just consuming Western culture; it is co-creating and sometimes, exporting.
That same logic is playing out in Hollywood. Arena SNK Studios, backed by $1 billion in Saudi capital and led by former Lionsgate executive Erik Feig, signals an ambition to build globally competitive storytelling rooted in regional vision.
Incentives not subsidies
Incentives, too, have become strategy. Content production rebates — up to 40 percent in Neom, 30 percent in Abu Dhabi, and 50 percent in Qatar — are less subsidies than risk reducers, fueling projects that would not otherwise be greenlit.
This is patient capital at work: focused on ecosystems, IP ownership, and talent pipelines — not just quick wins.
Capital Follows Influence
That strategic confidence is now spilling beyond content creation. In a telling signal, three Arab sovereign wealth funds have recently joined the Paramount hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, providing $24 billion – thus underscoring the region’s growing appetite, not just to finance media, but to influence its global architecture and audiences.
The Gulf is no longer content with distribution rights. It is positioning itself upstream.
Expertise not (just) gloss and glam
Across the region, tone is gradually shifting from institutional to human. In an AI-saturated media environment, authenticity and trust have become scarce and valuable.
Trust has (to) become the new currency. Audiences increasingly favor expertise — on markets, technology, AI, health, wellness, etc — over lifestyle gloss and glam.
Vodcasts gaining traction
Podcasts, particularly video-led formats, have moved from side projects to core infrastructure. The strategic question is no longer scale alone, but whether regional IP can travel across markets.
Lean, opinionated media startups are also gaining traction, building loyal audiences and attracting acquisition interest.
Ramadan drama all-year-long
Premium, drama content is no longer confined to Ramadan. Platforms like Netflix and MBC GROUP’s Shahid, supported by a maturing production ecosystem, are driving year-round engagement, in short and long-form.
Sports and its limits
Sports and live programming remain the strongest magnets for young audiences. beIN remains a dominant force regionally. Thmanya is an emerging player in Saudi with the SPL. But rights are expensive, competition is fierce, and returns are often thin. Scale alone no longer guarantees profitability.
Stories, not news
The region’s youth now consume stories through digital and social feeds, not necessarily traditional broadcast news. This shift forces mainstream media to rethink both journalism and distribution as audiences migrate away from linear TV — amid the rising threats of AI, deepfakes, misinformation, and propaganda… and a harsh economic reality where high costs increasingly collide with thin revenues, beyond state support.
AI speeds, humans decide
Automation multiplies speed and scale, but judgment, trust, and legitimacy remain human domains.
The UAE’s G42, Presight AI and M42, alongside Saudi Arabia’s SDAIA and Humain, among others, lead the MENA region’s technological push, while underscoring that strategy and accountability still rest with people, not machines.
The way forward
By 2026, media power in MENA will reward voice over volume, trust over reach, patient capital over quick wins, and distribution over platforms. The winners will go beyond storytelling: investing strategically, building infrastructure, upskilling talent, adopting new technologies, and creating systems that carry homegrown stories to global audiences.
- Mazen Hayek is a media consultant
