The first segment of the panel discussion on "Mobile vs. Internet vs. TV: Who Wins?" at CoE Animate 11, our animation-focused event held this past September, features Mohammad Harib of Lammtara Pictures and popular animated series Freej, Najeeb Jarrar, the MENA Product Marketing Manager at Google, Hosam El Sokkari, Head of Audience at Yahoo! Middle East, Abed Agha, the founder of Vinelab, and Badih Fattouh, Head of Group Acquisition and Programming at MBC, all debating how digital media is evolving in the Middle East and North Africa. 

Abed Agha discusses the most popular platforms for mobile, and how those that are easy to monetize are actually not the most popular platforms across the board. Mohammad Harib then expands upon creating content that targets a broad audience. 

Najeeb Jarrar delves into regional statistics, noting that some days the Middle East and North Africa sees more video playbacks (over 100 million) than total searches on Google, coming from its 23-24 million daily active users. With this kind of bandwidth, he says, video platforms are giving small content creators the ability to compete with big studios. 

Fattouh closes out the first segment by discussing how broadcasting company MBC is commissioning more locally animated content, yet facing the challenge of  effectively monetizing it. "We want to] enlarge the benefits for all of the players," he explains, "not at the expense of each other, but… [by] finding ways to grow the business model so everybody can be a winner."