Electronic platforms began showing Ramadan series timidly a few years ago, but they continued to increase the rates of TV shows year following year until they reached a new peak in Ramadan 2023.
Arab and foreign platforms are competing with each other to win the largest percentage of followers in Ramadan, especially “Watch” and “WATCH IT”, which had the lion’s share of the series, with a clear presence of other platforms such as “OSN”. And “TOD” and “Starz play” and others. The offers of the electronic platforms are distinguished by the absence of advertisements that interrupt the viewing and drive the viewer to boredom, and double the time required to follow one episode.
Local and Arab competition
Despite the start of the competition several years ago, signs of its ignition appeared last year. While the Egyptian “Watch It” platform contented itself with displaying Egyptian series exclusively, the “Shahid” platform entered with a diverse mix of Egyptian, Gulf and Syrian series, which guarantees it a greater presence in Arab countries, especially With the development of the Syrian and Kuwaiti dramas and their competition with the Egyptian drama in different regions other than Egypt.
The matter is no longer limited to Egyptian drama even in Egypt itself, as it found – along with it – Syrian, Lebanese and Gulf drama as well and took its space to begin to attract its own audience, including series such as “Cairo Batch” and “Beirut Batch” Kuwaitis, who had their luck from Viewing and audiences in two consecutive years, and their presentation on a platform such as “Shahid” allowed audiences from different Arab countries to follow, and there are also other Gulf series such as “Amina Haf” and “Baby” and others that were found strongly and were among the most watched works on the “Shahid” platform of the year. the past.
The “Watch It” platform is betting on the form of modern drama, as it found drama in short series also strongly in the past years and this year as well, such as “Jet Salima” by Donia Samir Ghanem, “Al-Safara” by Ahmed Amin, “The Imam’s Message” by Khaled Al-Nabawi and “Diary of a Husband”. Tariq Lutfi.
attractions
And as part of its attempts to attract the audience, the “Watch” platform decided to show some of its series in Ramadan for free, without subscription to the public, including the series “Rashid” by Muhammad Mamdouh, the Syrian series “Jam Al-Ezz” by Suzan Najm Al-Din, and the Lebanese series “Fire with Fire” by Abed Fahd.
As for the “Watch It” platform, it exclusively displays the series “Reveal Urgent”, and it also announced the presence of 4 works of its exclusive production in Ramadan.
The “Shahid” platform displays a number of series in conjunction with MBC channels, most notably the series “The Seventh Harsha” starring Amina Khalil and directed by Karim Al-Shennawy, and “Tash 19”, which is the 19th part of the famous Saudi series “Tash Ma Tash”. Starring Nasser Al-Qasabi and Abdullah Al-Sadhan, in addition to “The Whole Number” by Esad Younis.
foreign platforms
Ramadan will not be without competition from foreign electronic viewing platforms, although there are no platforms such as “Netflix”, “STARZPLAY” and others as a major competitor in Ramadan drama, but these platforms have produced short series directed at the Arab region.
In the past few weeks, “Starz Play” has produced the horror series “Nightmare”, which takes place in 4 Arab countries in separate episodes regarding the most famous Arab folk legends. “Netflix” also produced the Kuwaiti series “The Deal”, which revolves around a true story of the entry of two Kuwaiti women. The stock market in the eighties of the last century.
These foreign platforms this year do not seriously compete with their Arab counterparts, but they will clash sooner or later in the Ramadan seasons with productions dedicated to this month, and perhaps the production of these short series was nothing but an attempt to feel the pulse and clash little by little with the battle of the next dramatic season.
