What is the future of publishing in the Middle East?

The landscape of publishing in the Middle East does not revolve entirely around Dubai. But the fact that a small country like the UAE is responsible for half the region's advertising expenditure highlights its importance to the sector.

Since the launch of the Dubai Media City almost five years ago, a free zone for publishing and broadcasting which is now home to more than 800 companies, Dubai has greatly increased its hold on the regional media.

Indeed, magazine launches at the rate of one per week have seemingly got a little out-of-hand, and the casualty rate among start-ups has been high. But all this entrepreneurial ferment has created some good home-grown talent, and a lively environment in which foreign media concerns have also established offices.

The question is clearly where does it all go to from here? The DMC itself has been leading the way forward, and has become far less inclined to grant licenses for magazine start-ups this year. Partly this is down to physical lack of office space in the zone, but the DMC is also acting to protect the reputation of the sector.

As recent magazine audits have demonstrated the actual reading public of the UAE is relatively small. Increasingly media buyers are therefore asking awkward questions about the value-for-money represented by advertising in magazines.

Thus it would be reasonable to expect consolidation and a continuation of the high casualty rate among recent entrants in the magazine sector.

Newspapers, TV stations and radio are more difficult to judge, if only because the free market is less in charge, and the deep pocket of the Dubai Government more in evidence.

However, the start-ups planned for this autumn - two tabloid newspapers and new radio channels - face the same basic problem as the magazines: the UAE market alone is just too small to sustain them with advertising.

At least when Dubai Government's Channel 33 TV channel re-launched as 'One' last autumn, its ambitions were regional, in short to take on Lebanon's MBC. The danger with the upcoming launches is that they are an attempt to slice the Dubai cake even more thinly.

Advertising agencies then face the same dilemma as with the dozens and dozens of magazine titles: who is actually reading or listening to this stuff? Does advertising make sense in such a media or am I wasting my client's money?

When WPP Group's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell visited Dubai earlier this year he pointed to satellite TV, outdoor advertising and the Internet as the likely growth media in future years. It is hard to argue with one of the advertising industry's leading figures.

In this context it is difficult to see how the future of Middle East publishing can be a bright one, as print media was not even mentioned on this list. Perhaps then a sector consolidation and possibly acquisitions by the global media groups is the best that can be hoped for the region's publishers.