Music to your ears.

Provided by 7DAYS.ae

Fed up of not being able to download your favourite songs on iTunes because your credit card is registered in the UAE? Now, there's a solution. Digital entertainment firm Arvato Middle East yesterday teamed up with the Abu Dhabi Media Company to form a joint venture initiative, GETMO Arabia, as a platform to provide more content for music and film fans in the region.

"This is pretty much the iTunes for the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South-East Asia," Simon Rahmann, vice president of alliances at Arvato Middle East, told 7DAYS. GETMO Arabia, a 50:50 joint venture to be based in Abu Dhabi, will have access to the local content archive of Abu Dhabi Media Company and the global content archive of Arvato. Sony BMG is one firm already to have already licensed its music content to the platform.

Partners will be able to provide their customers with a combination of music, movies, games and infotainment services. These will be available at any time on devices ranging from mobile phones and PCs connected with broadband, to set-top boxes.[R]P[R]P Rahmann points out that the converged GETMO platform enables content to be transferred from a PC to a mobile phone. "We can do every single handset except for the iPhone," he says, claiming this is 98 per cent of the population. His target is to get 25 million customers on board in the next three years.

GETMO will offer services direct to consumers through its web site, www.getmo.com, where customers can download content in English, Arabic and other Asian languages to their mobile phones and home computers.[R]P It claims the content will be available to users at "significantly reduced rates", heralding a "new era of mobile and PC entertainment in the region".

The rates will be lower because of sponsorship deals being negotiated, with the entertainment industry set to see a large chunk of a growing Middle Eastern advertising budget. Abu Dhabi Media Company CEO Ed Borgerding said he saw "the emergence of ad-supported content, customer loyalty programmes and entertainment bundled with devices as three important trends".

Industry research has also revealed consumer demand for instant and personalised access to content, among the region's 80 million mobile phone users and 33 million internet users, is constantly increasing. "We believe that through collaboration with big brands across the region, we will be able to give consumers a rich mobile and digital entertainment experience at a price they can afford. For us, the convergence of media and telecommunications is the market of the future," said Arvato Middle East CEO Sean Emery.

"We feel that consumers should be offered a significantly more compelling entertainment service compared to what they are presently getting from their operators and ISPs (internet service providers). Fully authorised download platforms that have accreditation from the international content labels will enable consumers to access more music, allow retailers to offer interesting music products [and] provide new revenue streams for enterprises and

service providers."

[R]A 2007 Al Sidra Media LLC

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