LONDON: British broadcaster ITV on Wednesday posted record revenues for June thanks to an advertising boost during the Euros 2020 football tournament.
For the first six months of the year, ITV net profit surged to £98 million ($136 million, 115 million euros) from £19 million one year earlier, it added.
“Our first-half results demonstrate that ITV is emerging from the worst effects of the pandemic,” group chief executive Carolyn McCall said in the earnings statement.
“We are optimistic about the future, despite the ongoing pandemic risk on our... revenues,” she added.
ITV said it delivered its largest advertising revenues for the month of June as Britain eased virus restrictions that coincided with the Euros.
England, Scotland and Wales all participated at the delayed Euros that took part across Europe.
The final in London saw England lose to Italy.
“The Euros were like a mega hit series, helping the broadcaster pull in the biggest revenues for the month of June in its history, even as the tournament was in the early stages,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“ITV is trying to play catch up in the streaming world, with some success,” she added.
ITV, along with state broadcaster the BBC and other channels in the UK, launched streaming service BritBox in late 2019 that offers mainly repeats of hit British shows and films.
“The number of subscribers pales into comparison with the likes of Netflix or Disney+... but the cachet of BritBox does appear to be a niche attraction,” Streeter added Wednesday.
UK broadcaster ITV scores with Euros advertising boost
https://arab.news/2fqr6
UK broadcaster ITV scores with Euros advertising boost
- Britain's ITV boosted its revenues for June thanks to advertisements during the Euros 2020 football tournament
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
