Saad Mohseni has been called the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan - and, like the Australian-born media mogul, he is at the helm of an ever-expanding empire.
Mr Mohseni is the chairman of Moby Group, Afghanistan's largest media company, which yesterday said it would boost its presence in Dubai as part of ambitious expansion plans in the Middle East and South Asia.
Moby Group plans to launch five channels outside Afghanistan over the next 18 months, with its new regional headquarters in Dubai acting as the hub, he said.
"We have ambitions to become more of a regional player. We're now looking at South Asia and the Arab market. Dubai is going to be a springboard into the region for us," said Mr Mohseni. "Our plans are for general entertainment satellite channels and production of shows specifically for these markets."
The Moby Group, based in Kabul, operates Tolo TV and Arman radio, Afghanistan's most popular TV and radio networks.
Its 11 businesses also include Lemar TV, a music-recording company, an advertising agency and a television and movie production company.
In 2009, Moby partnered with Mr Murdoch's News Corp to create the Farsi1 satellite network, whose programming is produced in Dubai and beamed from the UK to Iran.
Aside from hosting Farsi1, Dubai will be home to Moby Group's new TV channels, which the company says are to be geared towards markets in the Middle East and South Asia.
"In a short space of time, we will probably have about half a dozen stations outside Afghanistan. In time, we will have some editing, and we may of course start to transmit out of Dubai … It may make sense to do some aspects of production out of Dubai," said Mr Mohseni.
He said the company would establish direct satellite uplinks from Dubai "in the near future", followed by a production capability "in the medium term".
About 25 people currently work for Moby in Dubai, and that is expected to grow to 100 within 18 months, Mr Mohseni said. Television is the primary focus of the expansion, with "severe" government regulations on radio in the Middle East making that medium less attractive, he said.
Moby's expanded Dubai office is due to be sited at Dubai Studio City, a member of TECOM Investments Media Cluster, which also oversees Dubai Media City.
"Since we set up base five years ago in Dubai, we have rapidly grown out of our small office in Dubai Media City. The Dubai Studio City provides the ideal base for our expanding media operations," said Mr Mohseni.
In the original version of this article we restated reports that claimed Iranian officials had shut down the Tehran office of the Farsi1 satellite channel. The article should have made it clear that the company had denied reports in December that its office had been closed. Farsi1 officials say the channel has never had an office in Iran.