Despite the economic conditions in Egypt and the fact that the government and new elected president are running behind investments to save our economy we found out that the Ramadan TV season this year is the most expensive one in the Egyptian TV history.
According to news reports published in the past week :
- This year we have in Egypt 70 soap operas
- The budget of 54 soap operas have reached to LE 1 billion and 180 millions !!
- The highest production TV soap opera was Adel Emam’s “Nagi Attallah’s Team” series followed by Yahia El Fakhranay’s “El Khawaga Abdel Kader” series. You can check this list here.
The Ramadan season in TV is usually the busiest in Egypt and in the Arab world in general. Of course we taught our dear Arabs this tradition unfortunately where people do nothing after Iftar except sitting in front of the TV for 30 days !!
In market language , in the past 16 months we got over 10 private channels including channels that are actually networks with huge funding God only knows their sources like CBC and Al Nahar. “Which are actually owned by former Mubarak’s regime men”
These channels create demand and ready to pay to get exclusive products which in our case simply TV series so it is not a big surprise to find huge number of TV series in one season like that.
Of course some believe that this is bad as all that money is spent on soap operas but when you think about it again actually this money is good for our economy as this is part of our entertainment sector , from the services sector in our GDP. You should think about the fact that TV soap operas are sold to Arab TV channels from the Gulf to the Ocean.
Already before the coup of 1952 cinema production in Egypt was one of the main sources of income right after the cotton export. Just imagine how many houses are open because this sector and you will know that it is not bad but rather a good thing in such bad economic situation.
Hopefully other services sectors in Egypt will catch up with the entertainment and TV production in Egypt.
By the way for the first time in the Arab world as well in the World you can watch the Ramadan TV soap operas with no silly commercial breaks online on YouTube. In cooperation with Google and YouTube and bunch of channels and producers we got : Youtube.com/Ramadan.
I think we are competing the American networks that post its full soap operas on YouTube now with all that TV shows and soap operas only made for one month !! There is live broadcast for TV channels from Egypt and Arab world if you are interested in watching them alive.
By the way if I recommend , you should watch TV series “The Escape” written by dear friend and famous writer Balel Fadl and starring Karim Abdel Aziz. A mix of politics and drama with a little comedy dosage that tackles the working class outside Cairo as well the practices of state security during the days of Mubarak frankly and clearly.
BY the way I have noticed that there are 3 soap operas about thugs and thuggery as well the amount of obscenities said and violence against women in the soap operas are horrible and incredibly increasing.
rs and new faces and To me one thing is truly shocking and not just at Ramadan series.
ReplyDeleteIt's very rare to find an Egyptian drama that has no women being slapped on the face, no man being slapped on the face, no children being slapped on the face, no screaming, no crying, no shouting. The amount of domestic violence is really disgusting and acceptable it seems. To see every trailer during Ramadan showing slap after slap after slap and crying and shouting is truly disgusting to watch between programmmes. I wish that Egypt TV would get some new actors and new faces and some new storylines. The actors need some training. Is there not an acting school to learn method acting? Something that doesn't look like it is being acted? something natural?
Egyptian Media needs complete overhaul to bring it into line with 2012. Instead of making 70 trashy badly acted series why not make 10 really good ones. Quality rather than quantity. Something you can export outside the region that is watchable.
Stress and dis-functionality in Egyptian lives has increased exponentially over the past 60 years. Guess why?
DeleteI have noticed this behavioral change every time I visited Egypt over the past 50 years.
The majority subject matter of these series is superficial and have no positive cultural depth. These big budget series target ignorant viewers just like some Bollywood and Hollywood productions do and their end game is to make money by selling crap!
ReplyDeleteThe quality standards of Egyptian cinema from the 30's, 40's and early 50's should be revived soon and mediocrity should be stopped.
I liked #11, it seemed a mixture of various things, like comedy, the bazaars, etc. I couldn't undertand the language but enjoyed the scenery. Thanks for posting the samples.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Soap operas in America are the same, no cultural depth, just same stuff but were popular for decades until just recently . Now it's all the rage to have so-called "Reality Shows" which aren't real for the average people, anymore then the soap operas were real in the 1960s, 1970s.
ReplyDeleteSoaps are among the things that we use every single day. Since soap making has been recognized as a fun activity, this is something which people have been doing these days. Making soap from scratch is being enjoyed by a lot of people because it allows them to choose what to include in their soaps. Unlike for the soaps which are sold in the groceries, handmade soaps have more variety.
ReplyDelete