Papercup will localise hundreds of hours of Fremantle content into Arabic using its AI technology.
Fremantle, a specialist in creating, producing and distributing films, documentaries and broader entertainment content, has announced its partnership with UK artificial intelligence start-up, Papercup. The two-year deal will see Papercup localise hundreds of hours of video entertainment content from Fremantle’s catalogue of talent shows into Arabic.
The content – from Fremantle formats including Idols, Got Talent, and The X Factor – will be available on Talent World. The YouTube channel, which will be known locally as عالم المواهب, will use Papercup’s AI technology to automatically translate and dub Fremantle video content into Arabic, in a move that aims to reach millions of new viewers across the Arab world over the two-year partnership. Fremantle sees the deal as providing potentially millions of new viewers for the content “without the costs and barriers associated with traditional studio dubbing.”
The partnership follows the launch of Fremantle’s Spanish YouTube channel in collaboration with Papercup. The company’s patented AI Dubbing platform localised hours of Los Mejores Talentos En Español (The Best of Got Talent Spain) and the channel amassed millions of views in its first few months after launch.
Founded in 2017, Papercup offers an AI and machine learning-based system that localises videos into other languages using synthetic voices with true emotional depth. Content that has been AI dubbed by Papercup has already reached over 350m people in the last 12 months alone, in non-English speaking territories.
The AI tools will allow Fremantle to localise hundreds of hours of content in a high-quality and scalable way.
Commenting on the deal, Robert Cocker, Head of Social and Digital Platforms, Fremantle, said: “Our talent shows are loved by audiences all over the world, and we are delighted that this partnership with Papercup will allow us to bring our content to even more fans. With over 216m YouTube subscribers and 182bn views, Fremantle has an incredible track record in building engaged audiences, and we are excited to see how Talent World will grow.”
Jesse Shemen, CEO of Papercup, added: “At Papercup, our mission is to make all the world’s videos watchable in any language. We empower global companies to reach an international audience eager to watch videos in their native language which they couldn’t access before. With the proliferation of entertainment content out there, competition for viewers’ attention is ever-increasing. By partnering with Fremantle to localise content with high viewership in existing markets, we enable them to sustainably scale that success in new markets.”
