Rotana Holding

The Saudi-based Rotana Holding specializes in audio and video production and distribution; licensing; television and radio broadcasting; and restaurant ownership and operation. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud retains sole ownership of the group.

Rotana’s TV network was launched in 2003 and expanded to include seven free-to-air channels: Fox Movies, Fox Series, Nagham, Rotana Agani, Rotana Cinema, Rotana Clip, Rotana FM, Rotana Khalijiyya, Rotana Mousica, Rotana Zaman and the Lebanon-based LBC, as of 2009. Rotana supplies content to Arabic satellite channels and owns 40% of all Egyptian films ever made, as of 2009, and one of the largest Arabic music libraries in the world.

The group broadcasts outside the MENA region, through direct-to-home television, IPTV, mobile and news media distributors. It produces and airs its own TV programs on its channels, and produces and distributes its own music recordings in digital format. The group also owns Rotana Magazine and the Lebanon-based Rotana Café chain.

Rotana launched Saudi Arabia’s first movie theatre, in June 2009, at the King Fahad Cultural Centre in Riyadh, where it aired its own and Saudi Arabia’s first film, Menahi.

The group’s subsidiary, Rotana Audio Visual, won a license, in February 2010, to operate a private FM radio station worth SAR67.4 million (USD18 million). Yahoo! announced a partnership with Rotana, in July 2010, which will enable it to use and stream Rotana’s range of multimedia content, through its new Video Network channel for the Arabic-speaking region. Its content will include: music videos, movies, concerts, TV channels and radio programming.