Dubai's media free zones reported almost 300 new company registrations last year, signalling what one executive described as "positive" growth for the industry.
Media companies from the emerging markets, along with digital specialists and consultancy firms, led the growth in companies registering at Tecom Investments' three media zones.
Mohammad Abdullah, the managing director of Tecom Investments' Media Cluster, said a total of 284 companies registered last year.
These include the audio specialists Dolby Laboratories, the entertainment companies Sony Pictures and Fremantle Media, and the daily-deals service Groupon.
"The year 2011 has proved positive for us. On the back of an industry uptrend, a good line-up of businesses set up base [in the free zones]," Mr Abdullah said.
The zones managed by Mr Abdullah include Dubai Media City, Dubai Studio City and the International Media Production Zone (IMPZ).
Dubai Media City - the oldest of the three free zones - was launched in 2001 with 99 companies. Mr Abdullah said there were now 1,800 companies spread across the three zones. Mr Abdullah said companies from the emerging markets - from countries such as China and India - had helped this growth.
"The total number of knowledge workers within the media cluster is around 18,000," he said.
"One of the important trends that we noticed was the emerging markets in the media industry," he said. "We noticed this is the establishment of CCTV, the main Chinese TV station in Dubai."
Despite the new registrations, many media companies left the free zones last year. "We had some companies that either closed or moved to some other zones," Mr Abdullah said. The office supplies company Xerox Emirates was one of the firms to have established at Tecom's IMPZ free zone last year.
Andrew Hurt, the general manager of Xerox Emirates, said the company enjoyed growth last year.
"We signed three times as many contracts in 2011 than we had in 2010 around management services," Mr Hurt said. "2011 was our second largest year in our company's history." But more media companies means more "clutter" in the advertising world, according to another member of Tecom's free zones.
"If a consumer was looking at 100 ads five years back, [he] is looking at more than 1,000 ads today," said Najam Khawaja, the regional executive chairman for the advertising agency DDB.
"So comprehension levels are obviously very, very low. It creates a very big challenge for the industry overall."
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