Leading content studio Fremantle has unveiled a partnership with UK AI start-up, Papercup. In a two-year deal, Papercup will localise hundreds of hours of video content from Fremantle’s catalogue of world-famous talent shows into Arabic.
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 350 million people in the last 12 months alone, in non-English speaking territories.
Fremantle’s content, from formats including Idols, Got Talent and The X Factor, will be available on its YouTube channel Talent World. Papercup’s AI technology will be used to automatically translate and dub Fremantle video content into Arabic. Fremantle says the move is set to bring “a huge new audience to our content at scale, without the costs and barriers associated with traditional studio dubbing”.
The new MENA-focused deal follows the successful launch of Fremantle’s Spanish YouTube channel in collaboration with Papercup. The company 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.
Robert Cocker, head of social and digital platforms, Fremantle said: “We are delighted that this partnership will allow us to bring our content to 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. By partnering with Fremantle to localise content with high viewership in existing markets, we enable them to scale that success in new markets.”
