Raffaele Annecchino, the former president of Paramount Global who left the company last year, is launching a consultancy firm called Blue Ocean Media Partners. In its first deal, he has forged a partnership with Spain’s Mediapro Group, which is looking to expand its footprint in the Middle East.
Blue Ocean, which is based in Madrid and Dubai, will offer services to “help clients identify efficient growth strategies with a transformative approach,” said Annecchino. He noted that “the media landscape in the Middle East is transforming and creating huge opportunities for companies that that have innovative and unique services to offer the market.”
During a more than 25 year stint at what is now Paramount before becoming president of Paramount Global, Annecchino served as president of ViacomCBS Networks Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia, and oversaw the expansion of Paramount’s free streaming service Pluto TV. Prior to that, Annecchino held positions at Turner International, Cartoon Network and CNN.
“What distinguishes my leadership in the work I did at Paramount was to find a path for the transition from traditional broadcasting to streaming, identifying what could be growth levers given by partnerships,” Annecchino said. “The key values of Blue Ocean Media Partners are: transformation, innovation, thinking outside the box, and partnership.”
Regarding Blue Ocean’s agreement with Barcelona-based pan-European TV group Mediapro – that is specialized in live production of soccer and other major sporting events – Annecchino said he is working to boost and expand their portfolio of services and esports into the Middle East “using the network that I established in my years of partnership in the region.”
“The idea is to identify opportunities to bring esport competitions into the [Middle East] market that can be relevant at the global level,” Annecchino said, specifying that these can span from soccer to other sports “in which the Middle East market is investing heavily in the actual physical sport.”
‘We can leverage the explosion of the importance of this sector in the esports era,” he added.
According to analysts, the esports industry is booming in Spain and Latin America. Concurrently, the Middle East is establishing itself as an emerging leader with strong focus, investment and commitment to this sector.
In addition to its focus on esports, Blue Ocean will also be active in other sectors. It is also representing a library of unspecified premium content comprising movies, series, kids animation and factual for distribution across streaming, free-to-air and pay-TV channels in the Middle East.