Syrian soap opera makes Israeli cellular company millions richer

As the television program "Big Brother" breaks viewing records around the world, a Syrian soap opera has generated record hype of its own without any advertising. "Neighborhood Gateway" (Bab el Haarah) attracted 100,000 cellphone viewers in October - in Israel, according to Logia, which handles content for cellular provider Cellcom.

Hafid El ASS

The Syrian soap has been broadcast every evening during Ramadan for the past three years. Arab Israelis bitten by the soap-opera bug spreading throughout the Arab world have taken to watching entire episodes on their cellphones.

For comparison, Cellcom had more than 150,000 views of content links to "Big Brother" in October, while the Syrian soap opera registered 100,000 in a much smaller population without the benefit of publicity or TV commercials. It generated NIS 400,000 a month in revenues for Cellcom. Viewing of newscasts through Cellcom in October totaled just 30,000 to 40,000 views.

Arabic content is relatively undeveloped in the Israeli cellular market. It's hard to reach agreements to buy content, mainly because a number of entities claim sole ownership of rights to cellular transmission. The claims can be tricky to verify because the entities are in Syria, Dubai and other countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations.

Hussein Abu Moch, Cellcom's marketing manager for the Arab sector, says multichannel TV and Internet in the sector is not as high as the general population. In some cities, and entire villages like Sakhnin or Umm al Fahm, where there is no cable infrastructure at all, cellular communication is more prevalent. More