twofour54 Abu Dhabi has been named ‘Broadcast Services Provider of the Year’ for the second time in a row, a reflection of the world-class, 360-degree support and infrastructure that is ensuring the media free zone is a hub for the creative community and broadcast industry in the region.
twofour54 picked up the accolade last night in Dubai at the BroadcastPro Summit & Awards, which celebrates excellence in the broadcast and satellite industry across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
The judges recognised the incredible range of services that twofour54 offers to regional and international studios, broadcasters and production companies.
H.E. Maryam Eid AlMheiri, Vice Chair of twofour54, said: “This is a new era of media and entertainment, and Abu Dhabi is well-positioned to benefit from these opportunities thanks to the quality of our end to end service delivery. We are seeing major studios choose our Emirate time and again making Abu Dhabi one of the most sought-after locations for Bollywood productions outside of India.
“Media and entertainment remains a strong, growing, and dynamic industry, with streaming and OTT services becoming more prominent. This is creating unprecedented levels of demand for production capacity, with content budgets for major US studios and streaming services alone are expected to reach USD85 billion within the next 2 years.
“Our goal at twofour54 is to ensure Abu Dhabi’s media industry has the expertise, infrastructure and end-to-end production services to support the global content production growth as a whole.”
Production services and facilities at twofour54 include support with location scouting, professional crews and freelancers, assistance obtaining government permits, transportation, visas, and script approval, as well as 11 production studios, a the latest high definition technology, and a 300,000 square metre backlot.
twofour54 work collaboratively with its industry partners to ease the production process. An outcome of this strong relationship is the Abu Dhabi Film Commissions recently announced “Express TVC Cashback Rebate” for companies producing short-form content, such as TV commercials – it provides a 30% cashback and can issue and interim certificate within 5 days.
The media zone, whose broadcast partners include Red Bee Media, part of the Ericsson Group; CNN; and Sky News Arabia; also recently became the first production facility in the UAE to receive Dolby Vision certification, a direct response to the diversity of platforms in use today, from TVs to mobiles and laptops, and the need to ensure that content produced at twofour54 is suitable for every one of them.
twofour54 also has an agreement with Arab Satellite Telecommunication Organisation (Arabsat), the leading satellite services provider in the Arab world, that allows twofour54 partners and broadcasters across the region to reach Arabsat’s huge audience directly from the free zone.
The BroadcastPro Awards, which took place at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Dubai last night, have repeatedly recognised twofour54 as a leader in the broadcast industry, awarding them with the Editor’s Choice Award in 2017 and Broadcast Services Provider of the Year in 2018.