Saturday, July 7, 2018

The Media Empires of Egypt : A New and Quiet Reshuffle

This news came quietly last week and nobody paid attention despite it is quite interesting.
On 5 July Thursday, Egyptian Media Company announced that it acquired Al-Hayat TV Network and according to its CEO Tamer Morsi, the Egyptian Media would reboot the network with new material that would make the TV channels return to the lead of Egyptian TV channels.
Very short news but behind there is a lot to say.

In September 2017, Tawasul which is a subsidiary of Falcon International Group announced that it acquired the once-successful-but-currently-troubled-AL-Hayat TV network from its founder, businessman and former New Wafd Party leader El-Siyad El-Badawy for allegedly LE 1.4 billion or USD 79 Million pounds.

Since the acquisitions, we have been reading a lot about restructuring TV channels and the network attempting to attract big names of TV hosts and TV executives but in vain.
Tamer Morsi and Yasser Selim
Tamer Morsi and Yasser Selim "Youm 7"
I do not know honestly why Falcon International group which is said to have connections with Egyptian General intelligence service; decided to put it on sale.

Now it is acquired by none other than Egyptian Media which was acquired too in December 2017 by Eagle Capital For Investment.


Eagle Capital is also said to allegedly have connections with Egyptian General Intelligence Service as well !!!
It is not clear how much Egyptian Media paid for Al-Hayat TV Network, it was not mentioned in its price release about the acquisition.

Egyptian Media also issued another interesting statement on Thursday. It declared that former intelligence officer and current media executive Yasser Selim was appointed as the vice-chairman of Egyptian Media.

Yasser Selim was appointed as the chairman of Al-Hayat TV Network in April 2018 by its previous owner, Tawasul. 

Egyptian Media which already owns 16 media companies or subsidiaries in Egypt is headed by businessman and producer Tamer Morsi, who used to be Yasser Selim’s business partner in the past few years.

Unlike what I expected Dalia Khorshid, the CEO of Eagle Capital is not the queen of the media in Egypt; it is actually Tamer Morsi who is the new king of the media in the country.

Before I forget and as I speak about the Egyptian Media group, I remember something interesting.

In the black-comedy press conference held by the Egyptian Football Association “EFA” about the reasons on why the Egyptian football team failed so miserably in the World Cup in Russia, the EFA President spoke about Presentation Sports Media revealing a very interesting info.

The FIFA council member Hany Abou Rida said when asked about Presentation “that it is owned by the state” denying any relation between it and him. “Not true actually as far as I know.”
“I respect the contribution of the company which sponsors EFA and supported the National team with all its power” He added.

“Presentation Sports” controls local sports media in Egypt and 51% of its shares are owned by Egyptian Media as its previous CEO Ahmed Abu Hashima acquired  51% of the shares in June 2016.

I believe that Abu Rida said that to scare and to warn the journalists not to go too far with their attack and criticism of “Presentations”
Hany Abu Rida is the first Egyptian official to say that Presentation was actually “a state-owned company.”
So far no official has issued any comment about what Abou Rida said and he meant by “ a company owned by the state”.
Did not I tell you that it is interesting info?

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