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Charisma - the Leading independent Arab production house - Expands into Abu Dhabi

Choosing twofour54 for major production base

Leading independent Arab production house, Charisma, has chosen twofour54 as its new production base in the Gulf.

A leading producer of commissioned content in the region, Charisma currently produces in excess of 1,200 hours of television per annum. With this move, Charisma will gain the opportunity to create dynamic new programming, using state-of-the-art production, post-production and broadcast facilities available at twofour54 intaj.

Charisma Gulf plans to produce, in the first 3 years of operation, close to 4000 hours of quality scripted and non-scripted programs, entertainment shows and documentaries by uncovering cultural insights that shape viewers' expectations. This operation will obviously create new job opportunities, forecasted at more than 70 for the first year alone and, in line with established practice, largely including the recruitment and training of local talent. It is also planning to approach regional drama with international production standards, in order to cater to an increasingly demanding audience in the GCC and broader MENA markets.

The GCC headquarters will also offer media management services to TV channels, from market analysis to 360 exploitation of their content.

Ayman Al Zyoud CEO and founder of Charisma, said, " The GCC market has always been of great importance to us, and our focus on insightful content makes it only logical for us to expand our operations within the Gulf. It's this shared vision of cultural relevance and original content, along with their infrastructure and production facilities that made us choose twofour54 among the many options that were available."

Wayne Borg, twofour54 's COO, said: "Charisma's commitment to Abu Dhabi is a vindication of our vision to create a sustainable content creation community. I'm delighted that Charisma will be a totally integrated partner in our community which is developing local and regional Arab talent through training and investment and providing production facilities second to none in the region."

By the end of 2010 twofour54 is expected to be home to more than 100 regional and international partners developing quality media content from its Khalifa Park campus. Charisma joins this growing content creation community, which will continue to grow significantly throughout 2011.

Tony Orsten, twofour54 's CEO, said: "We launched twofour54 intaj's production, post-production and broadcast facilities at the end of 2009 and have since booked more than 500 production days to produce close to 1000 hours of TV programming. Attracting major Arab production companies, like Charisma, will add not only to the amount of Arabic programming produced at twofour54 but also contribute to our overall rapidly expanding and evolving media ecosystem through increased job and career development opportunities for Arabs working or entering the media industry."

-Ends-

About twofour54 - Corporate
twofour54 is an Abu Dhabi government initiative and an integral part of its 2030 plan, which seeks to diversify the Emirate's economy and establish the Emirate as the cultural capital of the Middle East.

twofour54 's vision is to establish a sustainable Arabic media and entertainment content creation industry in Abu Dhabi; a regional centre of excellence which is internationally renowned. The aim is to stimulate creative and professional partnerships in the television, radio, film, publishing, online, mobile, music, gaming and animation industries.

The company provides a collaborative and supportive ecosystem that will allow the establishment of a world-class media industry for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The focus is on developing Arabic media and entertainment content by Arabs and for the Arab audience.

twofour54 delivers its advanced cohesive infrastructure through three key pillars: twofour54 tadreeb (the training academy), twofour54 ibtikar (innovation and support) and twofour54 intaj (state-of-the-art production facilities) supported by business enabler twofour54 tawasol (one-stop-shop).

twofour54 has already attracted several of the region and world's largest and most influential content creation companies, including CNN, BBC, Thomson Foundation, Rotana Studios, Financial Times, Abu Dhabi Media Company, imagenation, C Sky Pictures, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Flash, PyraMedia, Getmo Arabia, Experience Media Studios and Baynounah Media Company.

Each of these partners has recognised the vast opportunity that the Arab world represents for growth and has committed significant investment and resources to business initiatives that will be led out of twofour54 .

The name twofour54 is taken from Abu Dhabi's geographical coordinates, which are latitude 24 north, longitude 54 east. This name was chosen to symbolise Abu Dhabi's strategic position within the Middle East, which makes it the ideal location for the centre of excellence for content creation in the Arab region.

About twofour54 ibtikar
twofour54 ibtikar provides media and entertainment industry funding and support for start-up and early stage buinesses, and individulas with creative ideas and passion for success.

twofour54 ibtikar offers two sources of funding:

• twofour54 ibtikar: ventures - is for entrepreneurs and businesses that need start-up, early stage or growth capital and business development and operational support

• twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab - provides grants for talent that would benefit from seed funding, development guidance and planning to get a great idea off the ground.

twofour54 ibtikar encourages and facilitates the growth of a sustainable media industry, within the UAE and broader MENA region, by providing expertise, guidance and support to applicants receiving funding for creating content across all media platforms, from mobile content and video games, to television and web based applications.

About twofour54 tadreeb
twofour54 tadreeb is the media training academy of the twofour54 content creation community. In partnership with three of the world's most respected media industry training organisations the BBC, Thompson Reuters and the Thompson Foundation, twofour54 tadreeb provides international standard training courses across a wide range of media disciplines.

Offering over 200 vocational training courses, in both English and Arabic, the training courses and facilities at twofour54 tadreeb are specifically designed to support the development of world-class Arabic content in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). All courses are tailor-made and outcome driven that respond to market demands, whether on-site at the Abu Dhabi based academy or on-location at a client's premises across the region.

About twofour54 intaj
twofour54 intaj offers state-of-the-art production, post-production, broadcast and media asset management facilities and technical support which will be the envy of more recognised and established production facilities around the world.

The five HD production studios ranging from 60m² to 650m², are fully equipped with the latest technologies to support production in a range of fields including news, sports programming, game shows, serial dramas and light entertainment.

The facilities are operated by a team of highly experienced broadcast technicians and are available either fully staffed or as a dry-hire (equipment and studios only).

The production facilities are complemented by 22 fully equipped HD post-production suites split across two sites. The Khalifa Park facility houses 12 (7 x video editing; 2 x audio; 2 x graphics; 1 x high end finishing and compositing) while the main facility at the National Theatre site houses 10 (6 x video editing; 2 x audio; 2 x graphics).

About Charisma
Charisma Group is the fastest growing format developer and multimedia production house in the Middle East and North Africa. Since its foundation in 2005, Charisma has expanded from television to motion picture production, and houses today a remarkable portfolio of TV programs, movies, drama series, video clips, and TVCs, as well as digital media via mobile and internet content offerings.

Charisma Group pillar services:

- Content Creation and Acquisition,

- High-end production of original Content

- Content exploitation through a variety of cutting edge media platforms

- Media management - helping stations in succeeding with their programming

Charisma's growth can be reflected in its diversifying list of offerings. We've been tapping into new media, strengthening our relations with advertisers to further establish our branded entertainment facet, and using our multimedia expertise to help the print media expand horizontally into audiovisual.

This growth is also evident in our fast paced geographical expansion. We have a network of studios and offices located in all of, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, Manama, Cairo and Beirut. We are also currently setting up a base in Jordan. In addition, we own satellite segments and uplink facilities that help us further our reach to the rest of the world. This allows us to balance our portfolio, benefitting more evenly from the Arab media market.

Charisma's ultimate source of strength and true competitive advantage lies in the expert understanding of audience needs and expectations. From this comes the creation and development of content that is locally relevant in nature as well as our promise that is deeply rooted in our content development process: we are inspired by the audience.

For further media information please contact:
Nashwa Zakaria
PR Director, twofour54
Mobile: +971 (0)50 6629811
Email: Nashwa.zakaria@ twofour54 .com

Nick Farmer
Account Manager, Hill and Knowlton
Mobile: +971 50 250 3562
Email: nick.farmer@hillandknowlton.com

© Press Release 2010