Is Shahid the Pluto TV of Middle East?
The Streaming Lab #57
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This week’s program
This week, I’ll tell you everything you should know about the FAST strategy of Shahid, the streaming service of MBC Group.
Do you really know Shahid?
The FAST channels already available on Shahid
My favorite FAST channels
Do you really know Shahid?
Shahid is an hybrid streaming service owned by the Saudi media conglomerate MBC Group. Because a screenshot is worth a thousand words, here is the Shahid Web homepage ↓
The service was launched more than 10 years ago and was rebranded in 2020. The story of Shahid in 4 dates:
2008: Launch of the AVOD service shahid.net.
2014: Relaunch as an hybrid service with an SVOD tier.
2020: Rebranding of the platform, now available in English & French.
2022: Re-focus on the Ad-Supported tier representing 86% of the content available, and launch of 21 free digital channels
Shahid is today the most visited local streaming service in the MENA region, with a total number of desktop & mobile web visits between 14M and 35M in the past 7 months ↓
Users mainly come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE. Here is the full visits breakdown by MENA country in June:
Saudi Arabia: 39.1%
Egypt: 19.9%
United Arab Emirates: 5.2%
Morocco: 3.2%
Kuwait: 3.2%
Iraq: 2.5%
Jordan: 1.9%
Palestine: 1.7%
Tunisia: 1.4%
Lebanon: 1.3%
Qatar: 1.1%
Oman: 1.1%
Libya: 0.8%
Algeria: 0.8%
Yemen: 0.7%
…
Now that you know a little bit more Shahid, let’s focus on their FAST channels ↓
The FAST channels already available on Shahid
As a reminder, I consider a FAST channel any streaming linear programming available for free to consumers, with commercials.
And again, screenshots are the best to explain what a service looks like. You can see below the Live TV page of Shahid. You just have to filter the EPG by “Free” channels and you’ll have the full list of FAST channels available.
Shahid is leading the FAST initiative in the MENA region with already 63 channels available. As you can see in the next graph, it’s almost the same number of channels than all the other local platforms combined.
Entertainment is still the most represented genre on Shahid FAST channels. However, this breakdown is changing month after month with more News, Movies, Music and Sport channels available.
Finally, I had a look at the number of Single-IP channels available on Shahid. I decided to include in this in this category two types of channels:
Channels focused on a single TV series: Tash, The Pit, Al Hayba, The Chef, Arous Beirut, etc.
Channels focused on a specific actor: Hassino, Al Zaeem, Naser Al Qassaby, Al Ostoura, etc.
We can see that the ratio of Single-IP channels is increasing. Does it mean this type of channel is already successful on Shahid?
My favorite FAST channels
Enough about graphs, analysis and insights, let’s talk about content! I listed below the 5 channels that caught my attention ↓
Movies
Because I’m sure you’ll find a movie you like on this high quality channel: The Wolf Of Wall Street, Knives Out, Berlin I Love You, Adrift, The Gentlemen, Hugo, The Good Lie, etc.
Euronews Français
Because… I’m French.
#ABtalks
because I’m convinced we will watch more content coming from social media on premium streaming services. Very soon.
The Chef
Because I can spend hours watching cooking shows.
WWE
Because it’s the only FAST channel focused on Sports on Shahid. If you are a fan of Wrestling, you know where to go ;)
That’s all for today, the FAST strategy of Shahid in MENA. It would be difficult to say that Shahid is the Pluto TV of Middle East as the streaming service of MBC is still an hybrid platform with a strong focus on SVOD. Shahid content programming team did an amazing job creating unique FAST channels in less than a year. However, Shahid is still missing a strong monetization strategy to validate the economic viability of this model in MENA.
See you online next Monday. Until then, enjoy Crime+, the newest FAST channel available on Shahid. Grab your detective hat and get ready to crack some cases that would make even Sherlock Holmes proud.
Most of these free channels don't seem to be available anymore on the website, I can only see 7 whereas your count is 64 on Shahid Do you know why this is/where they're gone? https://shahid.mbc.net/en
Thank you so much for analysis! Its interesting that RoyaTV talked a lot about variety of FAST-channels at their platform at recent CabSat — but it appears that Shahid is way ahead of them