With the addition of four new channels, Middle East broadcaster Showtime is stepping up the pace in its attempts to break into new territories. On the eve of the platform’s launch into Morocco, Showtime president Peter Einstein gave Interspace an insight into his plans for future growth…

Middle East pay-TV platform Showtime is about to enter Morocco. To build towards the launch, Showtime is soon to add four more channels to its entertainment bouquet. While negotiations have yet to be finalised, it is understood that three of the channels come from the Turner Broadcasting stable. The fourth is Abu Dhabi’s new sports channel, which has exclusive regional rights to the Italian premier soccer league, which will be available to Showtime subscribers as part of the NileSat digital platform.

All the channels will be in place by October 14 when Showtime has its autumn launch to Morocco’s estimated four million television homes, and dish ownership that touches 50 per cent in urban areas. Morocco has been a target market for Showtime for the past six months following deals which secured local distributor OmniVision as its agent.

The platform is now benefitting from higher quality reception. Peter Einstein, Showtime’s president, in an exclusive interview with Interspace, says that since switching its signals from PanAmSat to NileSat the difference in transmission quality has been "like night and day" especially in regard to the Egyptian market, and its 4.1 million TV households, again with a high penetration of dish owners.

"Egypt is now a major contributor to our success, and across the region we are beginning to see the levelling off of the analogue dish and decoder sales, and this is coupled with a matching increase in the sales of digital IRDs, with new people coming into the satellite world not even bothering to go into analogue. It simply isn’t worth bothering with analogue," says Einstein.

Much the same argument applies to Morocco, "which has been a slow start for us," according to Einstein. "Relationships have now been established and we are out there in a big way," he says. "We plan on having a nice launch event on October 14, tying down a few loose ends, getting the installation teams trained and set up, for example. Our distributor OmniVision is really ready to go." NileSat already carries French overseas channel TV5, "and we are looking to acquire French language rights to a lot of our programming, which means subscribers can choose their soundtrack through our OpenTV software. As far as other French channels go, we are in discussion with other channels," says Einstein.

Showtime faces tough competition regionally, not only in the form of Orbit, every bit as professional in terms of its output, but from around 30 free-to-air local channels, some with very high production values. However, this surfeit of channels has ensured that dish ownership is widespread.

Einstein says his great hope is to tap into the high number of existing analogue dish-owners who upgrade for the better quality – and in many cases free-to-air – digital transmissions. "Our great hope is that because the market is in its infancy, and you have at least eight million and maybe more analogue dish homes already, just converting a fraction of those is a huge windfall, and that’s not taking into account homes without a system," he says. "That is a very significant development, fostered by the steady reduction in price of the MPEG-2 decoder. The reduction of IRD costs is one of the most important industry developments, and is equally important to channel development. Eighteen months ago it would cost $500 a unit for a decoder. Next year we see these costs plunging to below $200. I am confident that street-prices next year for digital decoders will be in the $150-200 range, and they will be better units."

Einstein says he expects Egypt to be one of his top three markets next year. "It is currently in the top four. It could even become second," he says. Meantime, Showtime has grown from a five-channel platform to 14 channels. Viewers also have the chance to subscribe to Showtime’s sat-neighbour Arab Radio & Television (ART), also on NileSat.

Part of Showtime’s success (Einstein says he expects to move into profit next year, some four years after its launch) has been its combination of top-rated Western programming, with most of the prime-time programming subtitled into Arabic. Subtitles have been "a huge bonus for viewers," according to Einstein. Next step is to add Arabic dubbing as one of the language options. It’s likely that at least one channel will get this treatment shortly.

Meanwhile, Showtime’s bouquet is almost complete, at least for the time being. Einstein says it now has a substantial raft of news, movies and sports services as well as entertainment available to its digital viewers. Earlier this year Music Choice was added as an option. Next, says Einstein, is the Internet. "We have a lot," he says. "We launched with five channels; now we are 14 and have not raised prices once. We want to add the ZakNet’s Internet service over this winter. Adding Abu Dhabi TV with the Italian Premier League means we have a lot of wonderful sport. [Considering] either Showtime on its own, or Showtime within the NileSat environment, it’s hard to see how we could do much more."

But Showtime also has other markets in which to launch, and at least one of them (with a reported MMDS coverage of at least 30,000 homes) is now more open to a visit from the Viacom-backed outfit. "Showtime is unique in certain markets. In Morocco, Tunisia and the other North African markets, for example," says Einstein. "Algeria is not a country we are diving into right now, but the population cannot be ignored. As for Libya, it is an interesting possibility with cable and MMDS already present. There is also a good demographic in Libya, and so if there is an opportunity…We have had some initial conversations with people there."