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XArabic Streaming Service Shahid VIP Comes to North America
Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake

Shahid VIP launched in the Middle East and North Africa in January 2020. The timing couldn't have been better. With so many people stuck at home during the pandemic, the Arabic streaming service racked up 1.4 million subscribers, making it serious competition for Netflix in the region. Now, it's eyeing the U.S. and Canadian market with its six million or so Arabic speakers.
Los Angeles, home to Tinseltown and where Netflix has a massive footprint, will be the epicenter for that effort, which began in November.
Owned by one of the Middle East and North Africa's largest broadcasters, Dubai-based media conglomerate MBC, the streaming service will carry live channels, regional versions of shows like "Arab Idol" and "The Voice," sports programming, movies and television series. It costs $8.99 per month or $79.99 per year and will be free for the first 30 days to U.S. subscribers who sign up in November.
Sadek Sabbah, chairman of Sabbah Brothers group, a media company started by his grandfather in the 1950s, will be one of the creators filling Shahid VIP's pipes. The service has an exclusive deal with Sabbah's production company, Cedars Art Production, which will include new seasons of two of MBC's most popular shows, "Al Hayba" and "Aswad Fateh"; past seasons of the former are already available on Netflix. Cedars shoots primarily out of Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt and has garnered awards from Cannes, Toronto and Venice film festivals.
In addition to serving the Arab diaspora, Sabbah hopes to reach non-Arabic speakers, particularly young adults, by sharing stories that have a ring of familiarity. He cites Aladdin, Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra and Ali Baba shouting "Open Sesame!" as examples of well-known storylines and themes rooted in the rich heritage of the region, which he hopes will be a complement to exposing viewers to the varied and exotic sceneries and communities of the Middle East.
As a niche service, it will have tough competition.
dot.LA: Tell me about what working with Shahid VIP does for you as a producer.
Shahid VIP platform has liberated us from the constraints of linear TV and catering to the taste of the majority. We now have the ability to unleash our aspirations by producing cutting-edge series and films that tell universal stories with a twist of exotic.
We'll also bring new ideas to better attract certain audiences, especially young adults in the U.S. and Canada. We have the opportunity to tell good, important stories that may be exotic for them but at the same time, especially for Arabs, stories that will remind them of their roots.
Sabbah Brothers chairman Sadek Sabbah will be producing several shows for Shahid VIP.
How does streaming on an international platform affect the types of messages your stories can carry?
With Shahid, we are in a better position to tell controversial stories. Our hands aren't tied anymore, and we are working hard on stories that will resonate in Arab countries, Arabs in the U.S. and Canada, as well as stories that might be of interest outside the Arab diaspora in the U.S. and Canada. We've already had several success stories of popular shows that were dubbed into Spanish and Portuguese. This is because we're telling stories that have a universal scope but with the taste of the Arabic countries where we are shooting. And now we are free; we have no border lines.
Can you give me an example of a new type of story you're now able to tell?
One of the ideas that came up a few weeks ago is talking about Jews that came from Arab countries.
Older families from our area remember how they were living door by door with the Jewish community – in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq – and it's important to tell those stories because they are the stories of where those Jews who are now in the U.S. and Canada came from.
How did Arabic television limit the stories you could tell?
Linear television, in addition to being made for all the family, is mostly governmental, and the government likes to be on the safe side, always. So we always have to be careful. We've come up with many stories that we couldn't do for many reasons: religious reasons, political reasons; We had to be careful.
With Shahid, we can present any type of series, and any type of dimension. For example, in the Arab world we have Ramadan, a holy month that is also very important for viewership because everyone is at home, fasting, and most of them are watching television from the early morning on. Because it's 30 days, for many years we had to do 30 episodes – even if the story could be done in 20 episodes, we had to stretch it out to make it 30.
2021 and the years to come – but especially 2021 – will be a real test for us because we're putting all our efforts as a group to make great productions. We know that we have a responsibility, especially as a group with so much time in this business.
Do you see that as a responsibility to pave a path for other Arab storytellers and creators to follow your footsteps into these broader storylines and wider audiences?
One hundred percent. We have a fairly big industry in the Arab world, and we work with many countries in the region. We see ourselves leading this industry in this new direction. I'm sure many of our friends in the media sector are preparing as well, and some are already leading with us, or they will soon.
What do you hope to achieve with success on Shahid VIP?
My hope is to bring the world near each other – to bring the people of the world together and to know more about their stories. It's very important to know a little bit about other people's lives. Also, we hope we can contribute to a U.S. co-production soon. If we can really prove ourselves on Shahid VIP, this will open our possibilities to work on a bigger scale. And I hope that we will end up making the media sector in the Arab world bigger. This is the beginning. We are really on the first word of the first sentence on the first page.
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Sam Blake primarily covers media and entertainment for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA
Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake
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Plus Capital Partner Amanda Groves on Celebrity Equity Investments
On this episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, Amanda Groves talks about how PLUS Capital advises celebrity investors and why more high-profile individuals are choosing to invest instead of endorse.
As a partner at PLUS, Groves works with over 70 artists and athletes, helping to guide their investment strategies. PLUS advises their talent roster to combine their financial capital with their social capital and focus on five investment areas: the future of work, future of education, health and wellness, the conscious consumer and sustainability.
“The idea is if we can leverage these people who have incredible audiences—and influence over that audience—in the world of venture capital, you'd be able to help make those businesses move forward faster,” Groves said.
PLUS works to create celebrity partnerships by identifying each client’s passions and finding companies that align with them, Groves said. From there, the venture firm can reach out to prospective partners from its many contacts and can help evaluate businesses that approach its clients. Recently, PLUS paired actress Nina Dobrev with the candy company SmartSweets after she had told them about her love for its snacks.
Celebrity entrepreneurship has shifted quite a bit in recent years, Groves said. While celebrities are paid for endorsements, Groves said investing allows them to gain equity from the growth of companies that benefit from their work.
“Like in movies, for example, where they're earning a residual along the way, they thought, ‘You know, if we're going to partner with these brands and create a tremendous amount of enterprise value, we should be able to capture some of the upside that we're generating, too’,” she said.
Partnering in this way also allows her clients to work with a wider range of brands, including small brands that often can’t afford to spend millions on endorsements. Investing allows high-profile individuals to represent brands they care about, Groves said.
“The last piece of the puzzle was a drive towards authenticity,” Groves said. “A lot of these high-profile artists and athletes are not interested, once they've achieved some sort of level of success, in partnering with brands that they don't personally align with.”
Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
Rivian Stock Roller Coaster Continues as Amazon Van Delivery Faces Delays
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Rivian’s stock lost 7% yesterday on the back of news that the company could face delays in fulfilling Amazon’s order for a fleet of electric delivery vans due to legal issues with a supplier. The electric vehicle maker is suing Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) over a pricing dispute related to the seats that the supplier promised, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The legal issue could mean that Amazon may not receive their electric vans on time. The dispute hinges on whether or not Commercial Vehicle Group is allowed to raise the prices of its seats after Rivian made engineering and design changes to the original version. Rivian says the price hike from CVG violates the supply contract. CVG denies the claim.
Regardless, the dispute could hamper Rivian’s ability to deliver electric vans to Amazon on time. The ecommerce/streaming/cloud computing/AI megacorporation controls an 18% stake in Rivian as one of the company’s largest early investors. Amazon has previously said it hopes to buy 100,000 delivery vehicles from Rivian by 2030.
The stock plunge marked another wild turn for the EV manufacturer. Last week, Rivian shares dropped 21% on Monday after Ford, another early investor, announced its intent to sell 8 million shares. The next few days saw even further declines as virtually the entire market saw massive losses, but then Rivian rallied partially on the back of their earnings report on Wednesday, gaining 28% back by Friday. Then came yesterday’s 7% slide. Today the stock is up another 10%.
Hold on tight, who knows where we’re going next.
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Snapchat’s Attempt to Protect Young Users From Third-Party Apps Falls Short
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Some Snap Kit platform developers have skirted guidelines meant to make the app safer for children.
A new report from TechCrunch released Tuesday found that some third-party apps that connect to users’ Snap accounts have not been updated according to new guidelines announced in March. The restrictions, which target anonymous messaging and friend-finding apps, are meant to increase child safety. However, the investigation found a number of apps either ignore the new regulations or falsely claim to be integrated with Snapchat.
The Santa Monica-based social media company announced the changes after facing two separate lawsuits related to teen suicide allegedly caused by the app. Over 1,500 developers integrate Snap features like the camera and Bitmojis. Snap originally claimed the update would not affect many apps.
Developers had 30 days to revise their software, but the investigation found that some apps, such as the anonymous Q&A app Sendit, were granted an extension. Others blatantly avoided the changes—the anonymous messaging app HMU, which is now meant for adult users, is still available to users "9+" in the App Store. Certain apps that have been banned from Snap, like Intext, still advertise Snapchat integration.
“First and foremost, we put the privacy and safety of our community first and expect the products built by our developer community to adhere to that standard in addition to bringing fun and positive experiences to people,” Director of Platform Partnerships Alston Cheek told TechCrunch.
The news is a blow to Snap’s recent efforts to cast itself as a responsible social media platform The company recently announced Colleen DeCourcy would take over as the company’s new chief creative officer and CEO Evan Spiegel to recently made a a generous personal donation to graduates of Otis College of Art and Design. The social media company currently faces a lawsuit from a teenager who claims it has not done enough to protect minors from sexual exploitation. In April, 44 attorney generals sent a letter to Snap and TikTok urging the companies to strengthen parental controls.
Lawmakers are considering new policies that would hold social media companies accountable for the content on their platforms. One such bill would require social media companies to share data with independent researchers.
Snapchat recently rolled out augmented reality shopping features and influencer-led original content to grow its younger base of users.
Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, is an investor in dot.LA.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.