Qatari Sportscaster Accuses Saudi Rival of Pirating Its Content

(Bloomberg) -- Broadcaster BeIN Media Group has cut almost a fifth of staff at its Qatari base, citing a hit to pay-TV income from rampant piracy that it says is backed by Saudi Arabia.

The company has laid off around 300 employees in Qatar, or about 18% of the local workforce, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the number isn’t public. BeIN said in a statement it had taken some “difficult decisions to right-size our business” and to reflect the impact of piracy on the company.

BeIN has grown to become a major player in sports rights from its base in the small, gas-rich Gulf state. That status is now under threat from BeoutQ, a rival operation that BeIN accuses of pirating much of its sports and entertainment content and selling it on to viewers across the Middle East.

“These decisions will secure our business for the future -- we are not going anywhere,” BeIN Media said. “We will not stop our fight against BeoutQ until it is ended.”

BeIN has said the piracy is part of a wider diplomatic and trade war with Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s more powerful neighbor. BeoutQ’s channels are distributed online and are available over the Arabsat satellite network based in the Saudi capital Riyadh. The Saudi government and Arabsat deny any links to BeoutQ.

BeIN has blamed the piracy problem for its decision to walk away from auctions of high-profile rights, including Formula 1 motor racing. It lodged an international investment arbitration case last October, seeking $1 billion in damages, contending that it has been “unlawfully driven out of the Saudi market.”

--With assistance from Walid Ahmed.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Hellier in London at dhellier@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rebecca Penty at rpenty@bloomberg.net, Thomas Pfeiffer, Nick Turner

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