Yahoo! Middle East and the Rotana Group have joined forces to provide multimedia content to the Arabic speaking world.
The new alliance will enable Yahoo! to stream Rotana’s wide range of content, including music, videos, movies, concerts, TV channels and radio, through its new Video Network channel for the Arabic speaking world.
“This is an exciting and important development for Yahoo! Middle East as we continue to strengthen and support Arabic content on the internet, and introduce more innovative and locally relevant content and products for our consumers in a highly engaging platform,” said Ahmed Nassef, vice-president and managing director of Yahoo! Middle East!. “We strive to be the centre of people’s online lives, and are delighted to partner with Rotana, one of the Arab world’s leaders in high quality content. We look forward to joining forces to build an ever-evolving content platform, for the benefit of our valued customers in the Arab world.”
Rotana is the Arab world’s largest entertainment company and is majority owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding. The pan-Arab conglomerate includes a film production company and 11 TV channels, two of which are in partnership with News Corp’s Fox International. Rotana Records, a subsidiary of the Rotana Group, is the Arab world’s largest record label. Its artists include Lebanese pop starlet Haifa Wehbe (pictured), Iraqi singer Kathem Al Saher, Wael Kfoury and Egyptian superstar Amr Diab.
Yahoo! entered the Middle East market last year when it bought Maktoob.com.