Brian Scudder

'We simply intend to produce the best magazine in the region,' he says. 'I am not just saying that, I seriously believe that is what we are doing'. That may sound a tall order, but Brian is definitely the man for the job.

We are, after all, former colleagues from Motivate Publishing and Brian worked with me for more than two years on Gulf Business magazine. Since then he has been freelancing furiously, and has even been an occasional contributor to AMEInfo.

So what made him decide to throw in a carefree freelance lifestyle, and take up the Time Out challenge?

'Launching a new magazine is a unique opportunity and it does not come along very often,' he says. 'And ITP is proving a great company to work for, with a great focus on what it is doing. I had done all that I wanted to on the freelance side, and it is just great to get back to working with a group of colleagues again'.

A challenge it certainly is. ITP has recently found its core IT advertising under pressure in the wake of the Tech crash in the United States, and has decided to diversify into entertainment publishing. At the same time rival IT publisher DIT has launched its own STARS entertainment magazine, which is now rather overshadowed by the conference of the same name, originally designed as a launch platform for this magazine.

But can a market like Dubai really support two new entertainment magazines? It is a crowded market already, with Motivate Publishing's What's On still a popular read.

'We are going to have an excellent new product,' says Brian. 'People will look at our format and say 'wow' this is really something new. There are around 200,000 words to read for a start, and the Time Out formula is a knock out.'

In cleverly obtaining the Gulf franchise for Time Out magazines, ITP not only obtains a good brand name but also a magazine design format and access to the many highly professional articles produced by Time Out journalists around the world. That means Time Out Dubai will have something different to offer Dubai, and represents a further globalisation of the media sector.

For rival publishers the arrival of Time Out, and its multitalented editor can not be good news. But it shows how the deregulation of the media sector in Dubai is attacking the old monopolistic structure of business life, and resulting in a better product for the reader. Not that Time Out Dubai will just be replicating its international editions.

'We have all the Time Out articles as back up, but I have not had to use many of them yet,' says Brian whose former hobby as a DJ with Fire Island will prove much more use to him in his new role than it was on Gulf Business. But I am not surprised at the output of articles. This is a man who loves to write and can be exhaustive in research.

This is the Brian whose computer files once revealed 80,000 words of research for a 10,000-word survey. He had literally written a book on the subject. And this sort of dedication to finding the truth will be well received by readers of Time Out Dubai this autumn who are in for a treat.