Arab Television Today 9780755610075, 9781845115630, 9781845115647

Citation preview

Acknowledgements To the extent that this volume is a sequel to my first book on television in the Middle East, Satellite Realms, I should start by repeating the thanks I expressed there, because the people who helped me with the first book also, ultimately, helped with the second. Since that book appeared I have been privileged to take part in many events organized to discuss issues related to Arab media, in Abu Dhabi, Alexandria, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Doha, Ramallah, Sharjah, Tangiers and Washington, not to mention a large number in London and other European cities. Again, I owe a debt to the organizers and other participants in these gatherings, who cannot all be mentioned by name. The magnitude of my debt will be apparent in the endnotes to this volume. Reference is also made in the endnotes to those who kindly agreed to be interviewed. I wish here to acknowledge and thank everyone who shared information and opinions with me, whether with me individually or with a larger audience, and whether they did so on or off the record. This book was written in rather different circumstances from its predecessor, for which I am very pleased to thank senior colleagues in the School of Media, Arts and Design at the University of Westminster. I have been inspired, encouraged and supported in various ways by Sally Feldman, Peter Goodwin, Annette Hill, Jean Seaton, Colin Sparks and Daya Thussu. Philippa Brewster, Commissioning Editor for Film and Visual Culture at I.B.Tauris, played a big part in making the book happen and in its taking the shape it has. I value her wise input tremendously. For their particular practical contributions in helping me to obtain insights and source material, I am especially grateful to Magda Abu Fadil, Lamis Andoni, Rima Azar, Habib Battah, Dima DabbousSensenig, Donatella della Ratta, Mahasen al-Emam, Wimco Ester, vii

viii

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Jihad Fakhreddine, Yasmine al-Farr, Sylvia Harvey, Arnim Heinemann, Jan Henningsson, Khaled Hroub, Catherine Joppart, Fareed Majari, Satnam Matharu, Maggie Morgan, Ibrahim Nawar, James Piscatori, Barbara Roberson, Oussama Safa, Amal Sakr, Christiane Salem, Martha Sara, Abdallah Schleifer, May Walsh and Deborah Wheeler. Ahmad Sakr, my husband and partner, is the mainstay of my professional as well as my personal life and I take delight in declaring that in print. I dedicate this book to my mother.

Note on Sources, Citations and Transliteration The extensive references in this book pose a dilemma when it comes to creating a bibliography that is both representative and reasonably sized. To try to resolve this, I have followed my previous practice of distinguishing between primary and secondary sources. Thus interviews, internal reports, newspaper and magazine articles, press releases, speeches and talks count as primary sources, which are cited in full in the endnotes but are not repeated in the bibliography – even in the case of some particularly insightful and weighty pieces by journalists, the rationale being that these provide data at more or less first hand. Books, monographs, conference papers, journal articles, academic theses and published reports are cited in both the endnotes and the bibliography. In this way full-length printed conference papers, dated by month and year, are distinguished from remarks made at conferences. The latter appear only in the endnotes, but with the day, month and year. Increasing availability of online sources raises other issues, both particular and general, regarding source citation. Transnational Broadcasting Studies is an indispensable source for research on Arab television. It existed exclusively online until 2005, when a hard-copy version was also produced. Citations reflect this, with the online journal referred to simply as tbsjournal.com and the printed journal by its full name and new numbering system. Journalistic reports and interviews from the online journal are fully referenced in the endnotes only. To avoid the technical problems caused by including the http://www prefix in online addresses, these are replaced with the words ‘Online at’. Although I consider it redundant to give the date of access for sources that are part of a recognized archive, I have given this date for ix

x

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

content that may be taken down or moved. There is little to say about transliteration, because it follows a very simplified and occasionally irregular system that mostly respects existing styles adopted by people and companies for transliterating their own names. This means that, for example, the apostrophe is sometimes used to indicate a hamza but may also occasionally represent the letter ain.

1

Publicity Machine or Complex Industry? For a phenomenon characterized by ever increasing diversity and contradictions, the epithet ‘Arab television’ may imply an undue sense of coherence. It is a favourite refrain of many commentators that the number of Arab television channels now runs into hundreds. It only runs into hundreds for television viewers with satellite access, but today in many parts of the Arab region such access is the norm. In countries like Algeria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, 90 per cent or more of television households are able to receive satellite channels. The same applies to more than half of television households in Syria and Jordan, and in Morocco and Egypt the level of penetration is approaching half.1 That is to say: at any given moment, a member of those households can zap through dozens of channels showing a seemingly endless array of drama, music, feature films, game shows, talk shows, documentaries, cartoons, sports, religious guidance, all types of news and all manner of current affairs. To someone watching so many varieties of ‘Arab television’ it may seem reductive to apply this single heading to a landscape crowded with national and pan-Arab players, involved in public and private companies, producing and transmitting information and entertainment. Too often, casual comment on the state of ‘Arab television’ is prone to sweeping generalizations driven by value judgements about taste and decency, relevance or political bias. This book, far from underestimating the range of content now on offer or the strong reactions it provokes, starts from a recognition that this range has major significance in terms of representation and social interaction in a group of countries where multiple injustices and grievances, felt deeply over generations, have given rise to intractable current-day policy dilemmas. As part of acknowledging this 1

2

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

complexity, the book seeks to draw out strands of development in Arab terrestrial and satellite broadcasting that can be examined on the basis of evidence, to see what they reveal about struggles for control. With that aim, it is plausible to take a broad view of Arab television as an interconnected set of cultural industries, where production and exchange takes place across a market circumscribed not by tariffs or jurisdiction but by language. To take such an approach is to lay open the possibility that development of more complex and differentiated social and economic relations in the industry might entail shifts in power over public communication and cultural expression. Raymond Williams has charted the ‘long period of overlap between patronal and market social relations’ in cultural production in parts of Europe, noting that there is ‘great practical complexity in the various stages of transition between these essentially alternative relationships’ and that modern forms of patronage are ‘common in advanced capitalist societies’.2 There is some agreement among Arab analysts that the arrival of satellite channels did not in itself rupture the relations of patronage that had previously dominated the region’s television output. A changing system of ownership, in which some owners were nominally private, did not immediately hand market power to consumers or to cultural producers and other professionals. It has been said of the socalled ‘new’ Arab media in recent years that they are ‘still effectively dealing with one consumer’, namely the head of state,3 and that they are ‘appendages of the ruling political and economic order in the Arab world, not challenges to it’.4 There is a view that the satellite stations ‘are detached from any broader history’, having been created as an ‘instant weapon’ at the time of the 1991 Gulf War without any accompanying legislation to oversee their independence.5 These observations are in line with the finding that governments in the region still had the upper hand in the evolution of Arab satellite television a decade after it took off.6 But the story continues. A further phase of expansion, which started in 2000–01 and gathered momentum in 2004, raised questions as to whether new paymasters or intermediaries were emerging, whose dealings would introduce new forms of patronage or stimulate market relations on a scale sufficient to erode the ruler-dependent patronage of the status quo. Such questions can be addressed in various ways. One is to consider whether any new institutions and interest groups, which may have

P U BL IC I T Y M AC H I N E OR C OM PL E X I N DU S T RY ?

3

formed in parallel with television ownership diversification, served to reinforce a process of de-linking or differentiation between the television industry and the state.7 To uncover such a process requires scrutiny on several levels. Studies have shown that the challenge of promoting media content that is independent of governments, political forces and business is not best served by drawing simplistic distinctions between market and state.8 The meaning of the state’s role in television ownership and regulation differs between situations where electorates can change governments at regular intervals and those where they cannot. Yet a tendency towards ownership concentration in all television markets means that even systems of democratic accountability do not always succeed in protecting the broadcast media against de-differentiation or refeudalization, in the form of encroaching domination and incorporation by a single force. The strength of safeguards may depend on political visions of the audiovisual market, as demonstrated by contrasting British and French routes to marketization during the 1980s–90s.9 It may, as demonstrated by Silvio Berlusconi’s dual roles as Italian prime minister and television magnate, be put to the test by personal ambition.10 For Arab television, the subject of enquiry at this point is not whether the grip of powerful political or economic forces is tightening, but the reverse. It is tempting, for example, to regard the rise of new kinds of broadcaster, new satellite platforms, licensing commissions, independent production houses, professional alliances, audience research agencies, advertisers’ trade associations, training bodies, media watch groups, and organizations advocating media freedom as evidence of formal and informal institutions putting down separate roots and establishing autonomous platforms for articulating shared or conflicting interests. Where such interests impinge on ownership patterns or controls on content, interesting possibilities would seem to exist for developments in the television industry to contribute to a process of differentiation between media and ruling elites. Later chapters of this book explore big changes and small adjustments taking place in various parts of the television industry. Chapter 2 tracks the new paymasters who have benefited from a changing licensing regime and considers whether a more liberal approach to licences has been matched by a relaxation of censorship. Chapter 3 highlights divergent trends in television journalism and evaluates the

4

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

support mechanisms available to journalists facing unfamiliar types of pressure. Chapter 4 probes the stimuli that have propelled women to prominent positions on screen and assesses how far the medium of television has lent itself to constructive public discussion of gender equality. Chapter 5 compares advantages and disadvantages of developments in entertainment programming in terms of the medium-term outlook for indigenous production, and Chapter 6 does likewise for other programme categories, especially news, sport and various genres of television talk. Issues of sustainability, thrown up by these chapters, are carried over into Chapter 7, where leading television companies’ strategies on expansion, branding, revenue diversification and location are discussed. Chapter 7’s conclusion pulls together strands from preceding chapters to answer the question posed in this introduction, as to whether the growing complexity of institutions and interest groups who play a part in Arab television has opened the way to increasing independence from forces that were traditionally dominant. Before proceeding to these elements of the investigation, the next step in this introductory chapter is to analyse the nature of the industry’s recent expansion. It is proposed to look first at the proliferation of channels and then at the potential for devolution of power in terms of the players and resources involved. Changes in the landscape, 2000–06 From a distance, it might seem reasonable to categorize new entrants to the Arab television landscape according to three pre-defined contrasting approaches to the business of broadcasting. In a dual-product model, in which advertising revenue finances content, television owners supply programmes to viewers as a means of supplying viewers to advertisers, in the sense that audiences form a potential market for items to be advertised in programme breaks.11 Advertisers’ interests can then influence programme development and scheduling on the basis of demographic calculations about viewers’ ages, purchasing power and daily leisure time, with programmes responding to some themes of public interest but not others.12 In television globally, there are two obvious alternatives to this model. On the one hand, based on a distinction in status between consumer and citizen, is the possibility of addressing television audiences not as a market but as a public with an exhaustive range of information needs.13 On the other is the

P U BL IC I T Y M AC H I N E OR C OM PL E X I N DU S T RY ?

5

distinction between satisfying market demand and satisfying demand for favourable publicity on the part of prominent political figures. As the broadcast equivalent of vanity publishing, loss-making television that caters neither to citizen nor to consumer but to the perceived self-interest of those with deep enough pockets is primarily concerned with organizing information so as to suppress or disseminate particular messages. Arab television channels launched during the first phase of expansion in the 1990s seemed to fit at least the first and third of these categories in some respects. Lebanon’s privately owned LBC is often cited in comparisons of leading channels as the most market-oriented and intent on making profit. Sebouh Alavanthian, its head of programming, implied strong conformity to the dual-product model at a conference in 2002. Describing LBC’s expansion into satellite transmission as a leap into the unknown, Alavanthian stressed the need to know ‘viewers’ expectations’, to receive ‘daily feedback’, and to establish a ‘direct, clear, daily rating system’.14 The Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), on the other hand, followed the favourable publicity model closely enough for some observers to joke that its initials stood for ‘My Broadcasting Company’.15 ‘My’ in this case referred to Saudi Arabia’s late King Fahd, who is believed to have helped his brother-inlaw launch MBC in a private capacity to further the political aims of certain members of the kingdom’s ruling elite.16 At the same time, however, other channels displayed the potential for overlap between the three models. It was clear, for example, from the high price of its subscriptions and from statements in its promotional literature that the Saudi-owned pay-TV network Orbit aimed, from its launch in 1994, to meet the needs of what its management saw as a niche market of affluent professionals. Samir Abdulhadi, the network’s chief executive, confirmed in 2002 that this was still the case, when he described Orbit as a ‘commercial business and not a public service enterprise’.17 Yet Orbit was the first to experiment, in 1994– 96, with Arabic-language news programming commissioned from a public-service source, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Al-Jazeera was created in 1996 with a mission to become self-financing within five years, through advertising sales based on expectations of healthy viewing figures. When its failure on this count exposed the politicized nature of advertising sales in Arab television, Qatar’s ruler,

6

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, continued to finance it anyway, portraying this decision as a public service consistent with Qatar’s project of turning itself into a parliamentary democracy.18 Al-Jazeera’s managing director at the time acknowledged that ‘Al-Jazeera brings the government non-financial benefits’.19 But these benefits appeared compatible with a model of state-funded broadcasting that Qatari officials regularly likened to the BBC. Meanwhile, early expansion into satellite broadcasting by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) lacked the attributes of being either a commercial enterprise or a public service, creating a situation at odds with its public funding. With its cumulative deficit of £E4 billion ($690 million) in 2004, increasing at a rate of £E800 million ($138 million) per year20 despite preferential access to advertising revenue, the ERTU was slow to seek financial recovery by enhancing its appeal or usefulness to viewers. Hassan Hamed, who was later to become the organization’s chief executive, said as head of the ERTU’s Nile News: ‘Ours is still official news. We have to weigh things very carefully.’ 21 The practice of weighing things very carefully appeared to explain subsequent delays and omissions in ERTU channels’ coverage of local events that might reflect negatively on the Egyptian government. An ERTU official rationalized the use of public funds to pay for pro-government publicity when she told two Egyptian reporters, ‘TV is state-owned and thus represents the views and policies of the government.’ 22 The proliferation of television stations that took place from 2000 onwards brought with it a further blurring of missions along with more intricate permutations of patronal and market relationships underlying sources of finance. In part, the expansion and diversification was facilitated by Egyptian state investment in Nilesat, the company created to give Egypt its own platform for transmission as an alternative to the pan-Arab but Saudi-dominated Arabsat fleet. Nilesat, presented from the outset as a public–private partnership that would more than cover its costs, had a commercial incentive to lease its satellite transponder slots to the largest possible number of newcomers to regional broadcasting. For small broadcasters, this option was attractive not only for its low cost but also because shared space on a transponder reduced the likelihood of a single operator’s uplinks being cut for censorship reasons, because of potential harm to other leaseholders on the same

P U BL IC I T Y M AC H I N E OR C OM PL E X I N DU S T RY ?

7

transponder. Nilesat accounts showed a sharp rise in revenue during the first four years after Nilesat 101 was launched in 1998. With the addition of Nilesat 102 in August 2000, the two satellites’ total capacity was nearly 230 digital channels. The change in Egyptian broadcasting regulations announced in January 2000 thus provided a timely government boost to Nilesat’s business. It allowed private broadcasters, both Egyptian and foreign, to operate exclusively by satellite from a designated free zone next to Media Production City and the Nilesat earth station. Among the Egyptian-owned channels created to take advantage of this opening, Dream TV and Al-Mehwar illustrated how crossover between commercialism and elements of public service is apt to occur in an environment marked by tight government controls and a general absence of state provision for pluralist public-service content. Whereas Al-Mehwar presented itself as the ‘voice of civil society’, Dream was quintessentially a ‘business project’ – a vehicle for advertising goods produced by the business empire of Ahmad Bahgat. Nevertheless, both found themselves juggling between governmentimposed constraints on their output and the imperatives of corporate survival in ways that produced examples of market-led programming on Al-Mehwar and public-service-style talk shows on Dream 2. While Dream’s widely watched Al-Aasher Masa’an (10pm) questioned public figures about current Egyptian affairs on viewers’ behalf, Al-Mehwar sought to boost ratings in Ramadan 2006 through a series on sexual health and personal relationships called Kalam Kabeer (Serious Talk). Both played safe in the 2005 presidential election, allocating 69 per cent and 41 per cent of election coverage respectively to the incumbent, Hosni Mubarak, who was one of ten candidates.23 Various forms of overlap between diverse broadcasting objectives can be found across the spectrum of Arab television start-ups, in line with the mix of stimuli and operating conditions from place to place. Later chapters consider these in more detail, showing how changing regulations in several countries opened the way to newcomers and how the established players behind companies like MBC, Al-Jazeera, Dubai TV and Rotana expanded their operations into groups of channels covering a range of programming types. In a region where religious guidance is highly prized, it was not incongruous for religious channels, from Al-Majd to Al-Resalah, to frame their efforts in busi-

8

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ness terms, not as spreading a message but as meeting a market need. Nor was it unusual for business or real-estate channels to tailor their coverage to avoid offending advertisers, even though the logic of maximizing viewership for advertisements might, if broadcasters and advertisers were less closely related, dictate the opposite approach. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the proliferation of channels, however, is the extent to which it appeared to contradict the usual tendency in media business towards mergers and acquisitions. Horizontal integration is common in the media industry because it helps towards maximizing profits through the economies of scale that are such a salient feature of media economics. Because the cost of producing a television show remains the same irrespective of the size of audience that actually watches it, financial benefits from increasing the number of viewers come at no extra cost. Since one way of increasing audiences is through taking over another company, there is an unusual degree of economic pressure towards ownership concentration in television.24 Resistance to such economic pressure was evident among the channels emerging in Dubai, Lebanon, Iraq, London and elsewhere after 2000. The forces behind these projects displayed a wide range of ambitions and a disinclination to collaborate or pool resources. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 prompted several private Arab entrepreneurs to found television projects based on early hopes that advertising would take off as part of a wider economic recovery. Not surprisingly perhaps, those responsible would sometimes hide their pecuniary ambitions behind a commitment to screening positive images of Iraq, implicitly acknowledging advertisers’ preference for feel-good content. Yet signs of other objectives underlying the financial ones could be seen in the sheer number of separate projects with funding from different sources outside Iraq. In Lebanon, despite its much smaller population, the growth of channels was clearly driven by their owners’ desire to disseminate their own choice of content. Al-Manar TV, owned by the Shia resistance movement Hizbollah, predated the country’s other Shia station, NBN, but NBN obtained its licence first. Once licensed, Al-Manar expanded from terrestrial into satellite transmission in 2000. Although linked to one sect and specifically intended to mobilize support for resistance to Israeli occupation, Al-Manar was seen in some quarters as transcending Lebanon’s sectarian television system, displaying ‘civic commitment’ through its interest in the concerns of

P U BL IC I T Y M AC H I N E OR C OM PL E X I N DU S T RY ?

9

ordinary people rather than a political elite.25 It achieved a big increase in viewers during the war in Lebanon in 2006. In light of this, the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun, having forged an alliance with Hizbollah in early 2006, might have been expected to take advantage of the latter’s access to the airwaves. Instead, it announced soon afterwards that it would set up its own television channel under the name Orange TV to counteract alleged misrepresentation of its policies on other channels.26 Indeed, after a period of intense activity throughout the region over several years, the rate of new channel formation showed no sign of let-up in 2006. One of the most prominent new arrivals, launched in March, was Al-Resalah (The Message), an ‘Islamic channel’ owned by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. July saw the launch of AlHiwar (Dialogue) TV from London, aimed primarily at Arabs living in Europe. As with many other projects of its kind, Al-Hiwar was framed in terms of its message rather than its business prospects. Supported by figures based in Europe, including Azzam Tamimi, Palestinian-born director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London and author of Hamas: Unwritten Chapters, the channel described its aims as connecting people and cultures and promoting tolerance, democracy and respect for freedom and human rights. According to its business manager, Adnan Faour, there would be no rush to try to measure audiences for at least the first year.27 In August another expatriate, this time from Saudi Arabia, announced his intention to start a Europe-based satellite channel ‘within three months’. Talal Mohammed al-Rashid, who has lived in exile in France since 1980, said his Saudi Democratic Opposition Front would broadcast calls to ordinary Saudis to ‘rise up against the tyrants and usurpers plundering public funds’.28 September 2006 saw the official launch of an altogether different project, designed to bring what Zoya Saker, its head of corporate communications, described as original ‘infotainment’ (food, fashion, family and news) to Arab women. Called Al-Aan (Now) TV and based in Dubai under the ownership of a holding group called Tower Media, the new channel allocated US$2 million to its initial marketing campaign and hired an in-house team of five people to bring in advertising. Even so, AlAan’s programme director, Ihab Hammoud, did not seem optimistic about imminent profits when questioned in November in Beirut.29 Projects like these indicated a continued pre-eminence of patro-

10

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

nal relations over market relations in Arab television. But a few also showed that patronal relations, far from restricting the aims of television output, could potentially sustain forms of broadcasting activity that would simulate the public-service model so conspicuously under-represented hitherto. The Ma’an (Together) network of local Palestinian television stations demonstrated this when, in November 2006, it announced a plan to establish its own satellite news channel. The network was formed in 2002 with the aims of encouraging Palestinian democracy through increased transparency and enabling direct contact between Palestinian representatives and their electorate.30 It could not depend on the market to meet these aims. Danish and Dutch financial support helped to create the Ma’an News Agency in 2004, to gather and distribute news in Arabic, English and Hebrew free of charge.31 Ma’an then met the costs of training reporters to deliver live television news by means of a grant from Search for Common Ground, a non-governmental conflict resolution organization based in Brussels and New York. While non-market operations might seek to increase transparency for its own sake, there were signs in 2006 that other projects might yet have an opportunity to do likewise for reasons of profit. ATV, Jordan’s first privately owned terrestrial channel with a licence to broadcast news, was set to launch in 2007, backed by investment from within the publishing venture that produced the Jordanian daily newspaper Al-Ghad. Al-Ghad made its name, contemporaneously with Al-Masri al-Youm in Egypt and Al-Wasat in Bahrain, as one of a new breed of business-backed Arabic newspapers to strive for financial viability by meeting the information needs of readers in their role as members of a national public. The terms of ATV’s terrestrial licence, and the investment ploughed into its brand-new custom-built studios in Amman, made it virtually unique in Arab television, at least in the run-up to its launch. Having secured Arabic rights to popular Western entertainment formats such as The Price is Right and Boss Swap, while also preparing news leads on Jordan ranked in terms of their relevance to Jordanian citizens, the station seemed to encapsulate possibilities for symbiosis between market-led entertainment and public-oriented coverage of national current affairs. Paul Hijazin, one of its first senior appointees, hinted at the combination when explaining how he handled the perennial question in Arab television about political

P U BL IC I T Y M AC H I N E OR C OM PL E X I N DU S T RY ?

11

agendas. He said, ‘I tell them my agenda is a modern Jordan.’ 32 Resources and forms of control Aspects of the landscape described so far seem to offer more openings for change and development than some accounts of the contemporary Arab media scene would suggest. For example, Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, painted an unpromising picture of Arab television on the occasion of Press Freedom Day in May 2006. Only ten channels out of 250 are political news channels, he wrote, and ‘the rest specialize in immorality, superficiality and exposing nudity’. He went on to say that music, sport and religious channels ‘reproduce like rabbits’ and noted the irony that ‘immoral channels’ and ‘so-called Islamic channels’ had the same financiers.33 In this remark, Atwan was assumed to be referring to Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owner of both the Rotana music channels and Al-Resalah. What Atwan did not seem to allow for was the possibility that, in the process of breeding ‘like rabbits’, television channels would spawn new layers of management, new programmecommissioning processes, new ancillary businesses in the fields of advertising and public relations, and new sets of contacts in the form of sources and suppliers. Since the Arab television industry became increasingly complex in all these dimensions during the period of expansion under review, any attempt to understand the significance of this expansion should examine whether complexity brought with it any devolution of power. That task in turn calls for closer scrutiny of the nature of the resources on which the industry depends and where control over these resources really lies. Graham Murdock, drawing on research by others to explore organizing concepts behind corporate power in Western media industries, distinguished between allocative and operational control and between legal and economic ownership. The first distinction differentiates between the power to allocate resources in terms of purpose and volume, and the lesser power to decide how to use resources that have already been allocated according to purposes already set. The second differentiates between nominal and real access to decision-making – the latter requiring effective representation on the board of directors or any subgroup responsible for allocative decisions.34 To make a preliminary excursion here into questions of control

12

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

and decision-making that underlie the remainder of this book, one obvious example of a possible reconfiguration of power is to be found in the sphere of satellite capacity. Expansion of capacity, driven in part by the launch of Nilesat 102, was a key factor in the proliferation of channels after 2000. But this is also an area, like some others, where fluctuations in the balance between demand and supply have combined to disturb the status quo. Satellite launches can fail, as happened to Arabsat 4A in February 2006, when a Russian-made rocket booster malfunctioned, leaving Arabsat as an organization dependent on emergency spare capacity leased from the Paris-based body Eutelsat, pending the November 2006 launch of Arabsat 4B. In the interim, Arabsat found itself competing for Eutelsat’s services with Noorsat, a newcomer to the Middle East satellite scene. Noorsat, the first satellite company to be wholly owned by private Arab interests, had announced its arrival in 2005 with plans to rent spare bandwidth from Eutelsat and elsewhere so as to lease it on to Arab broadcasters at regionally competitive rates. Given its prior commitment to Noorsat, which was due to take effect from July 2006, Eutelsat was limited in the number of transponders it could turn over to Arabsat.35 In other words, Noorsat made an impact on the satellite market without actually owning a satellite, while circumstances turned Eutelsat into an arbiter of transponder availability for Arab channels. It is relevant in this context that the Mawarid Group, which is behind the privately owned Saudi pay-TV network Orbit, took a 30 per cent stake in Noorsat. Omar Shoter, Noorsat’s chief executive officer, was previously director-general of Arabsat. Moreover, Noorsat said it would sell up to 30 per cent of its equity, probably to broadcasters that would become its customers. Its presence in the market for satellite capacity coincided with growing awareness that a move to high-definition television (HDTV) in the region would increase demand for bandwidth. Alongside questions of allocative versus operational control over physical infrastructure, there are others about control over an intangible resource such as information. Information about television audiences may be especially valuable to companies interested in buying advertising space. Here again, it is possible to tell the story as one of shifts and growing uncertainty, caused by new sources of data emerging at a time when the increase in channel numbers was already causing audiences to fragment. When Arab Advisors Group, a telecoms consul-

P U BL IC I T Y M AC H I N E OR C OM PL E X I N DU S T RY ?

13

tancy, turned its attention to television research in 2003 it entered a field previously dominated by two main players. The allocative control exercised by the consultancy over its own operations had implications for allocations of advertising revenue and thus, potentially, for the resources available to television companies. Its emergence coincided with the dissemination of findings from an unprecedented number of public opinion polls, some of which also probed audience preferences. The hostile reception accorded to a Zogby poll of six Arab countries in 2005 revealed the extent to which such data was feared to threaten the status quo. Zogby International reported Al-Jazeera to be the most popular news channel in the countries studied, provoking criticism of its methodology from Dubai TV, MBC, Saudi TV and Lebanon’s Future TV.36 The struggle for control over information about public media preferences was similarly evident when researchers, conducting face-to-face interviews with over 1,000 urban Egyptians in March 2006, were obliged to omit a question that was being asked of respondents in other countries for the same poll. The study, carried out for the BBC, Reuters and The Media Centre, found that 72 per cent of Egyptians relied on television as their first source of news in a typical week, 59 per cent spontaneously mentioned Al-Jazeera as being trustworthy and 43 per cent trusted international media more than their own national media. However, when it came to comparing trust in media and trust in government, the question about trust in government was not asked.37 Credibility and legitimacy are a form of cultural capital, and thus a resource, which the makers of television programmes can grant or deny to the sources they draw on from day to day. In a changing television landscape this is another area where shifts may take place. It has been argued that non-official or resource-poor organizations, by becoming ‘reliable, authoritative and routine suppliers [of information] for journalists’, can overcome institutional and economic disadvantages to gain positive media access; by the same token, official and corporate sources have sometimes been shown to ‘lose authority and legitimacy by proving unreliable and/or divided’.38 It is possible, as Philip Schlesinger has shown, to accept this apparently pluralist view of competition for media access without thereby rejecting a theory of dominance, which sees the playing field for achieving such access as far from level.39 For decades there was no perceptible competition

14

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

for access to Arab television channels that were controlled by, or on behalf of, governments. Today, if that control has been eroded, it would be seen in news sources’ changing relations with editors and journalists. Although no doubt limited to operational control within their own organizations, these people have the potential to influence the allocation of airtime to outside groups. If, for example, by virtue of the sheer expansion and diversification of television capacity, Arab television presenters came to treat human rights, environmental or other advocacy groups as regular interlocutors, the industry would have effectively shifted resources in this direction. Arab leaders have already shown they fear a loss of televisual legitimacy as more of the limelight shifts elsewhere. Thus Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, arranged unprecedented recourse to media advisors for his part in the 2005 presidential election campaign, which there was never any chance he would lose. Of the many questions to be asked about possible shifts in power and resources, a further set arises with regard to the balance of supply and demand between broadcasters and production companies. One outcome of growing demand for drama and other entertainment programming was a steep rise in the number of production houses and intensifying pressure to produce material that would, as Marlin Dick puts it, ‘take chances rather than play it safe’.40 Dick concludes from his research on Syrian television drama that the pan-Arab television industry ‘finds itself obliged to be controversial while remaining uncertain about what constitutes controversy’.41 The present study delves into some of the controversies and uncertainties surrounding the workings of Arab television, in an effort to weigh whether its increasing complexity reflects a redistribution of power and resources or masks successful resistance to such a change.

2

Law and Policy on Ownership and Content In the first decade or so of Arab satellite television, excitement that it would challenge the regional status quo often took precedence over the more sober realization that it actually served a useful purpose for ruling elites. Ruling elites were the ones with enough resources to make use of satellite technology and, by doing so, they ensured that its radical potential was contained.1 Conveniently, although satellite channels appeared to pose a threat to regimes by circumventing strict controls on national media, the channels’ existence left those controls in place. By opening safety valves for the expression of dissent that national media controls kept closed, transnational television could even be said to have weakened the build-up of pressure for the removal of bans on private terrestrial television ownership.2 However, such pressure could not be held back indefinitely. Although Arab government monopolies on terrestrial broadcasting survived the first waves of proliferating satellite channels and were still overwhelmingly the norm by 2006, the wall of resistance had by then begun to crack. Apart from Lebanon, which ended its state broadcaster’s monopoly back in 1994, and the dozens of private broadcasters who mushroomed on the West Bank after the 1993 Israeli–Palestinian Oslo Accords, the first purposeful steps towards opening Arab terrestrial television to private ownership took place in Morocco and Jordan in 2002. Allowing private competition in the national television sector poses challenges of law and policy that Arab governments did not face when such competition was limited to the printed press. Independent or opposition newspapers can be subject to prior censorship, unlike live broadcasts. Printing and distribution of newspapers can be physically disrupted in much more subtle and persistent ways than are available 15

16

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

for interrupting or blocking television transmission. For those reasons, licensing a private television channel is more of a risk for incumbent elites and the potential transfer of power is that much greater. To explore the television licensing choices made in different countries is thus to get a sense of where political power resides and whether it is concentrated centrally or becomes more diffused. For example, early verdicts on the allocation of licences in Lebanon were not optimistic about devolution of power. Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese parliament and himself the holder of a broadcasting licence, acknowledged on live television that broadcasting in Lebanon had been ‘monopolized by members of the regime’, prompting one scholar to talk of an ‘oligarchy where political power and media ownership converge’.3 Yet expectations were raised in Morocco that new licensing arrangements there would mark a new stage in democratizing the country. Noting that real competition for audiences and advertising budgets would undermine cosy relationships between the well-connected in media and political circles, a Moroccan commentator declared: ‘Le temps de copinages est fini.’ 4 Changes in broadcast regulation have been studied in some nonArab contexts against a backdrop of conventional wisdom about the role of elites in political transitions. Robert Horwitz, writing on South Africa, identifies two ‘axioms’ underlying analysis of transitions from authoritarianism. A political axiom holds that elites make pacts with each other that enable them to limit concessions to pro-democracy forces. An economic axiom holds that economic reform is imposed top-down, in the interests of global capital, in ways that ‘insulat[e] economic reform from the chaos of distributional claims’.5 Horwitz finds neither axiom adequate to account for the role of trade unions, political parties and civil society organizations in broadcast reform in South Africa, where the struggle against apartheid had set in train an internal mass movement and practices of participatory politics that set the agenda for transition. In contrast, studies of political contestation in a number of Arab countries suggest that incumbent and opposition elites do indeed reach accommodations with each other to marginalize more radical contenders. Such accommodations may even give a false impression that a transition from authoritarianism is under way. Based on her work in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, Ellen Lust-Okar argues that, in some cases, political concessions are deliberate manoeuvres to

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

17

preserve the regime. That is to say, ‘authoritarianism need not sustain itself primarily through repression’,6 but through the structuring of government–opposition relations in ways that give privileged opposition elites incentives to join with incumbent elites in excluding other groups by denying them the power to mobilize. In some countries, at certain points, opposition groups may fear each other; in others, or at other times, they may not. In Egypt and Morocco, for example, powers of patronage are said to determine the rules of the political opposition game and who may play. Raymond Hinnebusch describes a phenomenon of ‘political liberalization without democratization’, whereby the rule of law is advanced for property owners, party pluralism is increased for the middle class and barriers are erected against Islamist use of the party system to speak for ‘those below’.7 Joshua Stacher, exploring the rationale for Egypt’s National Human Rights Council, concludes that ‘an authoritarian regime adapts to adversity by expanding its power base and redistributing political power among its opponents’. He finds that the council’s purpose is primarily to redefine the field of opposition into ‘moderate’ and ‘rejectionist’ camps.8 Meanwhile Morocco’s rules of opposition distinguish between two Islamist groups, including one and excluding the other. According to one account, the Parti de Justice et Développement was allowed into the political system only after it accepted the ‘basic rules, … especially the king’s role as ultimate political arbiter and supreme religious authority’.9 The Justice and Charity Group (Al-Adl wa’l-Ihsan), which advocates a new constitution, was meanwhile placed in the rejectionist camp. Changes in television licensing, as in media regulation more generally, can help to reveal the authenticity of transitions from authoritarianism. Arrangements for television ownership and content could be said to affect the ability of political forces to ‘gain a voice or some measure of influence on political processes’, even if only from the periphery of the three concentric circles of power and influence that, in Volker Perthes’s model, make up the politically relevant elite.10 The rest of this chapter draws on insights about included and excluded oppositions to examine new rules and policies in a range of countries from Morocco to Oman. Its underlying question is whether the forces who gain a voice through liberalization of the broadcast sector are competitors who play by the rules of the game – a game in which

18

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

‘rulers or parts of the ruling elite try to accommodate or integrate dissenters’11 – or whether they are challengers who see representation via television as one step towards changing the rules. Who regulates? Basic to any national development plan for television are decisions about how to handle regulation. Governments everywhere are notorious for allowing a preoccupation with survival to influence their dealings with the media and this in turn provides a strong rationale for broadcast regulation that is independent of government. Broadcasters cannot be relied upon to act as a watchdog on government if the way they are regulated makes them subject to government control. Outwardly, the spectrum of arrangements adopted in Arab countries ranges from a system of regulation by royal or ministerial decree to one where a council or commission is specially created for the purpose, as in Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco. The regulatory bodies of these three countries, along with procedures adopted under the Palestinian Authority and a three-year restructuring plan proposed in Egypt in early 2006, offer some clues as to whether the apparent bureaucratization of television regulation in these contexts reflects the beginnings of a shift from personalized control by political leaders to one embedded in independent procedures and the rule of law. Since such a shift depends on internal power dynamics, this section does not examine Iraq’s National Communications and Media Commission (NCMC), established under the US-led occupation. Having been imposed by external forces and quickly downgraded by the Interim Government of Iraq in 2004, the NCMC did not owe its existence to any organic regionwide trend.12 In Lebanon, on the other hand, the first steps to regulate television after the 15-year civil war did set a precedent for the rest of the Arab world. Rafiq Hariri’s post-war government formally revoked the state broadcaster’s monopoly and authorized privately owned terrestrial broadcasting under the Audiovisual Media Law, Law 382, it issued in 1994. To a degree the law recognized the emergence of private media during the civil war, while at the same time attempting to end a situation in which such media could perpetuate the power of militias. A clause in the Taif agreement of 1989, which ended the war, provided for reorganization of ‘information media’, ‘within the framework of

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

19

responsible liberties that serve the efforts of reconciliation’. The postwar information minister, Ahmad Mansour, echoed this when he urged action to ensure that ‘the communication channels are not militia instruments which fire words instead of bullets’.13 With a French model of broadcast regulation openly preferred for reasons of history and the political value of emulating a European democracy, Michel Samaha, who followed Mansour as information minister, attended meetings of France’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA) to understand how it worked.14 Nevertheless, the first bill he drafted concentrated most key regulatory functions in the hands of the information minister. It was only after lobbying by media representatives that a compromise agreement accorded a greater role to an independent National Audiovisual Council (NAC), purportedly inspired by the CSA.15 The NAC eventually created was a ten-member body, half appointed by the cabinet and half by parliament, drawn from the ranks of artists, scientists and other professionals. Local critics at the time complained that as many as eight of its ten members were pro-Hariri.16 Yet it is questionable whether manipulation of NAC membership was strictly necessary given the limitations already imposed on NAC powers. Ultimately its role was as an advisory body, producing non-binding guidance for the council of ministers. Its remit was to advise on the allocation of broadcasting licences and the drafting of the Guidebook of Operating Conditions. If the minister of information decided to suspend a station’s licence for infringing the law, the NAC would be called upon to give an opinion but not to intervene. Ten years after its creation, pressure persisted for the NAC’s powers and independence to be strengthened. Nabil Dajani, a professor specializing in Lebanese media at the American University of Beirut, told a conference in November 2005, ‘what we need is an independent regulator’. His point was that existing provisions of the Audiovisual Law could overcome many problems, but first they had to be properly applied.17 Indeed, far from the NAC getting stronger, it had become apparent that neither the NAC – nor even the NAC and ministry of information together – were the only bodies regulating the media in Lebanon. The ministry of interior’s General Directorate of General Security (Sûreté Générale) was also heavily involved, with the Sûreté’s website declaring ‘media censorship’ to be its second most important function. It listed

20

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

three censorship responsibilities: controlling radio, television and movie cassettes; organizing media censorship and preparing related studies; and ‘ensuring the right implementation’ of censorship ‘laws and rules’.18 Nor was the NAC ever given control over the licensing of satellite channels based in Lebanon. While Law 382 dealt with terrestrial broadcasting, Law 531 gave the cabinet powers to grant or revoke licences for satellite channels. In Morocco, as in Lebanon, the creation of a body to regulate broadcasting came several years after the country’s first experience of private channels. The radio station Médi 1 started in 1980 under French and Moroccan ownership and this was followed in 1989 by the introduction of 2M as a private pay-TV service. The state saved 2M from collapse by buying a 68 per cent share in 1997 and taking over its management, after which it became free-to-air. But it was in 1998, under a new government headed by former opposition leader Abderrahman Youssefi, with former journalist and unionist Larbi Messari as communication minister, that efforts to liberalize broadcasting gathered momentum. Youssefi and Messari set up a taskforce to devise a reform plan but ran into resistance from the palace, which another communication minister, Nabil Benabdellah, later blamed on a lack of tact and diplomacy on Messari’s part.19 Mohamed Achaari, appointed by Youssefi to replace Messari, tried again in 2001–02, helped by the accession of a new king and a change of personnel at the ministry of the interior. But the new king then snatched the initiative. Three weeks before elections due for September 2002, Mohamed VI created the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle (HACA), comprising on the one hand a Conseil Supérieur de la Communication Audiovisuelle (CSCA, comparable to the CSA in France) and, on the other, a Direction Générale de la Communication Audiovisuelle to provide administrative and technical services. The HACA was instituted by a royal decree based on Article 19 of the Moroccan Constitution, whereby the king is the country’s prime legislator. Strewn with verbs like ‘advise’, ‘suggest’ and ‘monitor’, the decree left no doubt that the HACA exists to advise the king and the king holds its purse strings. Appointments to the nine-member CSCA are dominated by the king, who chooses five of its members, including its head (who is responsible for convening CSCA meetings), leaving two to be named by the prime minister and one by each chamber of

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

21

the bicameral parliament. No time limit was placed on the tenure of royal appointees, whereas those chosen by the prime minister were to serve a five-year term renewable once.20 A change of monarch also helps to explain liberalization manoeuvres in broadcasting in Jordan after 1999. Plans to end the government’s monopoly had been discussed several years earlier as part of reforms triggered by unrest in 1989, only to be set aside in clampdowns accompanying Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel in 1994. King Abdullah came to the throne in 1999 with a reformist agenda, which encompassed the television sector. A government plan for media reform, announced in July 2000, envisaged dissolving the information ministry and part-privatizing the wholly government-owned monopoly broadcaster, JRTVC. But things did not proceed smoothly between the decision to abolish the information ministry, which was taken in October 2001, and its eventual abolition, which took effect with the appointment of a new, smaller cabinet in October 2003. In order for the reforms to go ahead, the cabinet agreed to amend the law governing JRTVC so as to allow private domestic and foreign companies to invest in broadcasting, subject to cabinet approval in each case. But the information ministry’s responsibilities, which included operating the JRTVC, the national news agency Petra and the Press and Publications Department, still had to be assigned to a successor body while legislative changes were being made. In December 2001 the king appointed a Higher Media Council (HMC), led by academic and former foreign minister Kamal Abu Jaber, to replace the ministry. The council’s 11 members, drawn from the ranks of former ministers, army officers, editors and academics, were allotted three-year terms. Their brief was to draft media policy and oversee the drafting of related laws. One of their first steps was to set up two subsidiary committees, one for the press and the other for broadcasting.21 Progress was unsteady, blocked, according to some observers, by resistance on the part of the ‘old guard’. The HMC submitted draft laws to the cabinet for endorsement and these were duly passed by the prime minister’s office. But external events were souring the climate inside Jordan. The early part of 2002 saw Israeli incursions into Palestinian towns and refugee camps, triggering outbursts by Arab citizens against their governments’ inertia and prompting the Jordanian government to tighten its grip on media content. JRTVC’s own nine-

22

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

member board was reshuffled to put at its head the very information minister whose department was supposedly being phased out.22 In July 2002, Kamel Abu Jaber and another HMC board member resigned in frustration. Mohammad al-Adwan, minister of information at the time, expressed no regrets. ‘I didn’t notice any support from the government to implement any of the Council’s goals,’ he said.23 Finally, at the end of 2002, the king issued another royal decree reviving the HMC and instructing its head and the prime minister to work together to encourage independent media institutions. Nabil Sharif, an editor and HMC member, attributed the failure of the first HMC to its ‘executive role’, which, he said, had placed ‘the government and the council on a collision course’.24 Not surprisingly, when Jordan’s Audiovisual Commission was established under Provisional Law No. 71 of 2002, it was set up as a ‘governmental body’ under the prime minister.25 A further royal decree, issued in November 2003, authorized the prime minister to delegate responsibility for the commission to another minister. After the culture ministry was also abolished but then revived, a new prime minister decided in April 2005 to delegate the media portfolio to the culture minister, Asma Khader. Meanwhile Jordan’s Audiovisual Commission, under its director, Hussein Bani Hani, set about accepting applications for broadcasting licences. Its remit included studying applications and making recommendations to the appropriate minister, who was given 30 days in which to accept or reject the recommendation. Any eventual agreement with a licensee would, as originally envisaged, depend on cabinet approval. More than six years after Egypt used a prime ministerial decree (No. 411 of 2000) to put in place a licensing system for private satellite broadcasters operating exclusively in the country’s so-called media free zone, the increasingly dire financial losses and uncompetitiveness of the state-owned Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) prompted further moves towards liberalization, this time in terrestrial broadcasting. But no one was left in any doubt that the Egyptian ministry of information would retain control over any future body charged with media regulation. In February 2006, a year after his appointment as minister of information, Anas el-Fiqi presented a plan to the Culture, Information and Tourism Committee of the People’s Assembly, setting out a three-year timetable for changes to

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

23

the running of state-owned media. He spoke of a new national regulatory authority for media that would operate along similar lines to the established National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority, which issues licences to new telecoms providers. According to Fiqi, any such National Media Authority would come under his ministry.26 That statement did not fundamentally contradict reform proposals being drawn up behind the scenes, either through the Research and Development Committee of the state broadcaster’s Board of Trustees or the local office of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. In these consultations the focus was not so much on independence for the regulator as on achieving greater separation between the functions of regulation and state broadcasting. It was suggested, for example, that the state monopoly broadcaster, the ERTU, should have an adjustment period of two or three years ahead of the creation of a new regulatory body and that the government could retain control over the latter body by giving itself a majority of the votes. For the Palestinian Authority (PA), technically speaking, sovereign powers to regulate the use of multiple broadcasting frequencies did not exist. The Palestinian–Israeli Declaration of Principles (DoP) of 1993 opened only the smallest chink in the Israeli occupation, in the air as well as on land. Annex 1 of the Declaration specified that arrangements were to be agreed for the ‘possibility’ of licensing one radio and one TV station, with a further protocol obliging Palestinians to coordinate with Israel regarding communication and media. Having taken the only frequencies allotted under the DoP for use by the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, the PA had nothing to distribute. Instead, for reasons explained in the next section of this chapter, it informed the very large number of private Palestinian terrestrial broadcasters that it had no objection to their activities. But settling policy on structural regulation in this fashion did not resolve the matter of regulating television content. Daoud Kuttab recounts how his Al-Quds Educational TV (AETV), which grew out of an experimental Palestinian television news broadcast in 1993, helped to trigger a decision by the PA chairman, Yasser Arafat, to establish an embryonic regulator in June 1997. Kuttab was detained for a week by Palestinian security forces after AETV broadcast sessions of the Palestinian Legislative Council.27 Arafat, realizing the incongruity of this situation, was persuaded to establish a 13-member committee

24

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

to regulate private television and radio stations and ‘guarantee’ their ‘commitment to the rules, especially the Press Law [of 1995]’.28 The committee was headed by the minister of information, Yasser Abed Rabbo, and included the information ministry’s director of publications, Hani al-Masri, along with representatives of the ministries of interior, telecommunications, culture, finance and economy and trade, plus legal and technical experts, including the technical director of AETV. Hani al-Masri was named as the person to whom applications for a ‘temporary licence’ should be submitted. He was given the final say, after consulting with the ministry of the interior on security and the minister of telecommunications about the use of frequencies.29 All three ministries were involved in regulation thereafter. A January 2005 fax to private broadcasters notifying them of an increase in licence fees originated from the ministry of telecommunications and IT. In January 2006, when the Islamist resistance movement Hamas launched Al-Aqsa TV in Gaza ahead of elections to the Palestinian legislature, the Palestinian public prosecutor, Ahmad Maghni, threatened to close it because it did not have the necessary permission. Maghni said it would be up to the interior ministry and police to enforce the closure. As for the information ministry’s role in the process, Rael Abu Deir, head of Al-Aqsa TV, said his station had been trying to obtain a licence for the past year but had been told by the minister of information that he was not taking applications.30 The minister, Nabil Shaath, who was also deputy prime minister, had an excuse for this delay. In April 2005 he initiated steps to revamp broadcast legislation and create an independent National Council for the Media. The draft law, prepared by local jurists with reference to existing models in France and elsewhere, included provisions to protect the proposed council’s independence by means of the appointments process and the qualifications and tenure of council members.31 In the crisis that followed the January 2006 elections, including Israel’s arrest of elected government ministers and MPs, the proposals remained in draft form. Licensing and licensees Resistance to the launching of Al-Aqsa TV contrasted with the licensing policy adopted by the Palestinian information ministry in previ-

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

25

ous years, during which it had freely issued ‘no objection’ notices or ‘temporary licences’ to dozens of applicants without regard to fragmentation of audiences and advertising revenue. Walid Batrawi, a Palestinian journalist and researcher, recorded the PA’s rationale for this policy in 2002. Hani al-Masri, the man responsible for implementing it, gave Batrawi three reasons. First, he said, the PA had ‘wanted to create facts on the ground for future negotiations with Israel’, in terms of occupying as many frequencies as possible. Secondly, it was afraid that Israel might, at some point, ‘close down or attack the government-owned broadcasting corporation’. This had already happened when Israeli forces destroyed PBC transmission towers and other facilities in October 2000. Thirdly, ‘the people at the Ministry of Information, especially the minister, believe in freedom of expression’.32 In other words, just as Israel was seen to be creating ‘facts on the ground’ through occupation and settlement, the PA’s policy, as summarized by Daoud Kuttab, was to create ‘facts in the air’.33 The result, according to a survey in 2004, was a total of some 40 radio and television stations, with private television channels numbering around 27 and most of these covering only their immediate surrounding area; only a few, such as AETV, Amwaj, Watan TV and Al-Mahd, could be received beyond the towns where they were based and no private channel was based in Gaza.34 Eleven stations, including AETV and others, took their own initiative to overcome some negative effects of fragmentation by grouping together in the Ma’an Network. Self-regulation within Ma’an covered such issues as paid election advertising. The profusion of private Palestinian broadcasters, representing different political currents and interest groups, continued to offer a stark contrast with the rest of the Arab world, notwithstanding a sudden upturn in the number of Arab countries granting licences to private television stations over the period 2003–05. Lebanon, Morocco and Jordan were relatively unusual in creating regulatory commissions before they licensed private operators, but they were not alone. Oman’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos, decreed in 2004 that private broadcasting should be allowed in Oman and, accordingly, a Commission for Private Radio and TV Companies was created under the responsibility of the Omani ministry of information. Yet an increase in the number of countries issuing licences did not mean that many licences were issued in each one. Across the region, the overwhelming impression

26

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

was of governments clinging to control of television by licensing only trusted associates and, even then, taking almost no chances with terrestrial stations carrying political content. The Kuwaiti information ministry announced in July 2003 that it was lifting its ban on private broadcasting and simultaneously awarded licences to three private stations to broadcast by satellite from Kuwait. The ministry said it reserved the right to monitor these stations’ output and to halt any content that contradicted government objectives or endangered relations with friendly states.35 Following that decision, two Kuwaiti channels launched in 2004 but only one of these offered political content as well as drama, film and religious programming. This was Al-Rai TV, owned by Jassem Boodai, who had recently acquired a licence to publish the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai al-Aam. A long-established Kuwaiti conglomerate with interests in trading, construction and transport, the Boodai Corporation had no previous experience of broadcasting before it set up the Boodai Media Group. Its entry into the media sector paralleled its near simultaneous entry into Kuwait’s aviation sector, also newly liberalized, since Jazeera Airways, also launched by the Boodai group, became the country’s first private airline in mid-2004. With a breakthrough to private ownership of television operations having occurred in Kuwait and Oman, pressure increased on neighbouring governments to follow suit. Saudi Arabia’s culture and information minister, Iyad Madani, said in 2006 that 20 applications had been received for private radio stations and would be looked on favourably once a regulatory structure and licensing system had been devised and put in place.36 Campaigners in Yemen lobbied for a project called the Democracy Channel, backed by Sheikh AbdelQawi Ali al-Showai. But Yemen’s ministry of information refused a request to licence the channel, saying there was no law to regulate it. Tunisia’s government made its first move to liberalize broadcasting in November 2003, apparently after coming under pressure from representatives of the advertising industry, dismayed at plummeting audiences for state TV.37 The privately owned Radio Mosaic, run by associates of President Ben Ali, was first on the scene; it started on the same day that Ben Ali announced his liberalization decision. It was followed in early 2005 by Hannibal TV, owned by the Tunisian businessman Larbi Nasra and aimed at a youth market interested in music, films and sport. The channel’s unimpressive ratings a year later

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

27

were blamed on its unmistakable deference to Tunisia’s political leadership. In Oman, the first private broadcasting licences were issued in October 2005 to two established local businesses. One stuck to radio. The other, Oman Holding International (OHI), was authorized to set up a radio and television station. OHI’s head, Maqbool Hameed alSaleh, indicated that he had no intention of competing with the state broadcaster, which the information minister, Hamad bin Mohammed al-Rashidi, had pledged to preserve and boost. Instead al-Saleh described the OHI broadcasting project as ‘non-political’. ‘We have to watch our steps and do it the right way,’ he said.38 Syria also went with the trend, albeit slowly. The government in Damascus allowed the official news agency to report in January 2002 that private radio stations would be permitted, provided they restricted their output to music, entertainment and advertisements. Four licences were issued in 2003, but it took until March 2005 for the first two, Al-Madina and Al-Arabiya, to begin broadcasts. Sham TV, a private channel owned by one of the country’s biggest television production houses, started test broadcasts in June 2005, running programmes from state television archives and elsewhere. The man behind Sham TV, Mohammed Akram Jundi, brother of a Syrian MP and head of Arab Art Production and Distribution, obtained a provisional licence from the Syrian government according to which the right to broadcast news bulletins was initially left unconfirmed. Significantly, however, he decided to operate the channel on a test basis from Dubai, pending new legislation in Syria that would clarify the status of private media. In January 2006 an announcement in Libya suggested that private media, including television, would also be allowed there. The first proposal for a new television channel came from a company created by Seif al-Islam Qadhafi, son of the Libyan leader, Muammar Qadhafi.39 Television licences issued in Kuwait, Tunisia, Syria and Oman point to governments favouring trusted business associates as licensees. A decade earlier this is more or less what happened in Lebanon, when the first round of licences issued under the Audiovisual Media Law was seen to demonstrate what Druze MP Walid Jumblatt described as the ‘octopus of money and power’.40 Dima Dabbous-Sensenig’s painstaking research has shown that licences were issued to applicants who must have been pre-selected on grounds other than the strength

28

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

of their application, because the process selectively overlooked the fact that some had failed to meet basic stated requirements in terms of company registration, paid-up capital, or distribution of shares. Evidence of disregard for the rules gives credence to allegations that Lebanese broadcasting had been ‘seized’ by a power elite of confessional and business leaders with a web of interlocking interests in banking, investment, construction and ties to other regional powers.41 It was only with the replacement of one Lebanese government by another that rejected applications would be reviewed, as happened in the case of New TV. New TV, owned by a Lebanese businessman, Tahsin Khayat, predated the 1994 Audiovisual Law and was closed down after being denied a licence in the first round. At the time it was considered no coincidence that Khayat and New TV had criticized the Hariri government. But the original decision was reversed in June 1999, under a government headed by Selim al-Hoss, and the station reopened in October 2001. Egyptian business leaders with close relations to President Hosni Mubarak were the ones to benefit from the Egyptian government’s decision in 2000 to allow private Egyptian-owned satellite broadcasters to start transmitting – with certain restrictions – from a designated media ‘free zone’ in Media Production City. A number of prominent families and their conglomerates had gained ground in Egypt during the 1990s, becoming increasingly linked to the government through the circulation of subsidized funds and the protection of monopolies or oligopolies holding exclusive agency agreements with major foreign companies. Far from questioning the legitimacy of personal day-to-day dealings between cabinet ministers and company owners, the government appeared to encourage such dealings in 2006 by appointing six cabinet ministers with active business interests in the same sectors as their ministerial portfolios.42 One study of ways in which the state allegedly became ‘increasingly beholden to the interests of a narrow class of financiers and entrepreneurs’ notes that Ahmad Bahgat, head of the Bahgat group and the man behind its Dreamland leisure and residential complex near Cairo, was ‘reputed to be a front-man for members of the presidential family, which may explain why the express roads out to Dreamland were built in such rapid time’.43 Another author writes of Bahgat’s ‘ties with the military for contracts and patronage’ and the benefits that he and other ‘elite businessmen’ derived from

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

29

making themselves ‘politically relevant to the regime’ so as to fend off competition from outside their ranks.44 Bahgat was the first person to respond to the government’s limited opening to satellite channels when he launched Dream TV in 2001. Naguib Sawiris of the Orascom group initially spurned the chance to broadcast by satellite only. Indignant at the implication that a group with ‘more investments in Egypt than any other’ would seek to harm the country if given the opportunity to transmit terrestrially, Sawiris pointed out that, if the only option was to broadcast by satellite, he could ‘do that anywhere’.45 But the burgeoning phenomenon of music television seems to have induced a change of heart, along with signs from the government that media reforms would eventually bring an opening to private terrestrial channels. As chief executive of Orascom Telecom Holdings (OTH), part owner of the Egyptian mobile phone company MobiNil, Sawiris was no doubt encouraged by the revenue spin-offs of text messaging to music television channels and technological developments in television transmission to mobile phones. After entering a partnership with Gamal Marwan, grandson of former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser, in Melody Entertainment (a media free zone licensee), he declared in 2006 that he would be launching a new station, called OTV, by the end of the year.46 Sawiris had previously joined with other local commercial music interests to open the first Virgin Megastore in Cairo in September 2003. Partners in this project, besides Melody TV, MobiNil and two new FM radio stations, were said to include Ashraf al-Sherif, son of Safwat al-Sherif, then Egypt’s information minister.47 In 2005, after OTH appointed a former Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, to its board, Sawiris proclaimed himself fully confident that Egypt offered a transparent business environment where it was not necessary to pull political strings to get on. Asked by CNN’s financial editor, Todd Benjamin, what he thought was the biggest misconception held in the West about doing business in the Middle East, Sawiris answered: I think they think you need some relations, some corruption, stuff like that, and it’s not true. Where you need to have a partner that is politically linked and (sic) I will never do that again; I’m out of these countries now. But if you come to Egypt, you don’t need anybody, you can start any kind of business and the investment environment is friendly and open.48

The two new FM radio stations involved with Melody and others in

30

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

the Virgin Megastore were Nogoum FM and Nile FM. These were launched in June 2003 by the Good News Group, founded and headed by Egyptian media magnate, Emadeddin Adeeb. Their status as licensees was not entirely clear, since ERTU officials maintained that the state’s terrestrial broadcasting monopoly (stipulated by Law 13 of 1979) prevented the Good News Group from doing anything more than managing the frequencies on the state’s behalf.49 Nevertheless, the status of Good News itself was clearly that of an expanding and well-connected operation, with six publications and interests in filmmaking and links to the Saudi-owned pay-TV network, Orbit. Emad’s brother, Amr Adeeb, said the government had licensed the Nogoum and Nile radio stations because they had ‘nothing to do with politics, religion or news’ and the Good News Group had shown it could be trusted to abide by the country’s ‘media code of ethics’.50 The group honoured this trust in 2005 when one of its newspapers, AlAlam al-Youm, gave favourable coverage to promises made by President Mubarak in Egypt’s first multi-candidate election campaign. Lamis Hadidi, editor of Al-Alam al-Youm and wife of Amr Adeeb, was also media officer for the Mubarak campaign. Meanwhile Amr Adeeb’s election coverage on Orbit was highly critical of Mubarak’s opponents.51 In light of this, Emad Adeeb was widely seen as a likely candidate for eventual ownership of a private terrestrial television licence. In considering how far Egypt’s television licensing process in 2001– 06 reflected a particular configuration of government–business ties, it should also be noted that arrangements put in place by Decree 411 of 2000 did not give licensees carte blanche to broadcast the content of their choice. Companies such as Dream and Mehwar, which were the first to register, accepted to be part owned by the ERTU. The ERTU meanwhile, as shareholder in the companies behind Media Production City and Nilesat – both essential to private broadcasters’ operations – is also understood to have been represented in stakes held by these two bodies in newly formed private broadcasting ventures.52 The ERTU’s stake in Dream restricted Dream’s scope for producing independent news output, since the ERTU’s own news departments had no interest in promoting competition.53 Moreover, companies operating in the Media Production City free zone are subject to intervention by the Public Authority for Investment and Free Zones, which is authorized to suspend licences.

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

31

As noted in the introduction to this chapter, liberalization of broadcasting in Morocco raised expectations that competition for audiences, combined with a lively advertising market, would create pressure for transparency and thereby undermine controls exerted through unseen webs of money and power. Anticipation heightened as April 2006 approached, since this was the date on which the CSCA, after some delay, had said it would announce the names of successful licensees. By late 2005 the CSCA had reportedly received 49 applications for radio licences and seven for television channels. It then shortlisted 31 radio proposals, including one from the son of the prime minister, Driss Jettou, and another from Younes Mehdi, son of an army general of the same name.54 Four of the television bids also went through to the next round. One, with Italian backing, aimed to create a music channel called Ritmo TV. Another, backed by a French investor called Pierre Lambert, proposed regional coverage of Casablanca and Marrakesh. A third, envisaging national coverage and general programming, was the project of a former Al-Bayane journalist, Abdelkader Jamal, together with Italian financiers. The fourth, submitted by the group behind Morocco’s long-established private radio station Médi 1, was said to have ambitions to transmit news in French and Arabic to an audience in Morocco and beyond, developing a television version of its existing formula for radio output. The fact that this formula had so far avoided breaking editorial taboos led one knowledgeable blogger to suggest that a prospective Médi 1 TV would compare more closely to the Saudi-owned pan-Arab channel AlArabiya than to its more probing rival, Al-Jazeera. In the event, when the CSCA finally came out with its decision on 10 May 2006, Médi 1 was the only successful applicant for a television licence, obtaining permission to transmit nationally and internationally. A CSCA press release said that other projects would be considered in due course. Jordan, which is often compared to Morocco as an outward-looking monarchy under a relatively young, reform-minded king, was similarly cautious in issuing licences for private terrestrial TV. Applications were not in short supply. Total applications for radio and television networks were reported at 17 in early 2004; two years later, according to Hussein Bani Hani of the Audiovisual Commission, this had risen to 50.55 Of these the commission approved 14 FM radio stations, with fees fixed in accordance with each station’s geographical coverage and

32

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

type of output, depending on whether or not this included political content. Applications for 13 satellite channels were also said to be under active consideration in early 2006. But the ten-year terrestrial television licence awarded to the Jordan United Company for TV Broadcasting (ATV) in May 2005, following cabinet approval in late 2004, remained the only one granted by late 2006. This in turn gave ATV time to enter a television market where its only competitor would be JRTVC. The man behind ATV was Mohammed Alayan, owner of Jordan’s second-highest-selling daily newspaper, Al-Ghad, and licence holder for a radio station called Fun FM. Alayan’s family, originally from Hebron, succeeded in agro-industrial trade with Gulf countries, endowing Mohammed with the finance and business acumen to launch the highly profitable Al-Waseet, a vehicle for small classified advertisements, and a ticketing scheme for sports events that offered lottery prizes. Married to a relative of Jordan’s king, Alayan did the government a favour in 2005 by paying JD2 million ($2.83 million) to lease JRTV’s Channel 2 for use by ATV. He was also given a satellite licence and decided to use it, since the extra expense of satellite transmission was minimal compared to the cost of the television venture as a whole. Nevertheless, ATV’s purpose was to fill the gap in television coverage of Jordanian affairs. Although Alayan said his channel would air a mixture of entertainment and political content, he stressed that the latter would aim to ‘shed light’ on local issues.56 The status of state broadcasters Covering local issues was a strong point of neither satellite channels nor state broadcasters in the era before regulatory reform. Television viewers in Morocco complained of being treated like aliens by Gulf-based pan-Arab channels, while people in countries like Syria or Bahrain could not look to pan-Arab channels to deal with their local issues because hindrances placed on local reporters affected correspondents for satellite television too. State broadcasters were meanwhile notorious for neglecting key domestic questions and concentrating instead on the doings of heads of state. In a fairly typical example, Daoud Kuttab recalls how, on the day that news agencies around the world were reporting the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Bethlehem, the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation led its television news bulletins with a package about Yasser Arafat visiting a hospital in Gaza.57 Even

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

33

as late as August 2006, after various attempts to upgrade news reporting within Egypt’s ERTU, Nile News coverage of a train crash north of Cairo gave airtime to officials who promised future safety improvements but shied away from comment or analysis of previous safety lapses and why they had occurred. Examples like these illustrate the potential of competition among terrestrial stations as a means to keep national audiences informed about national or local issues. In those countries without any history of competition at this level, state broadcasters were shielded from pressure to provide the very content that they should have been the first to provide. As competition intensified, either through changes in national regulation or through the impact of the region’s increasingly crowded satellite television landscape, governments finally faced the challenge of deciding their state broadcasters’ value and purpose. Ayman Safadi put his finger on the unmet demand for investigating domestic issues when he was director of Jordan’s state-owned JRTVC. He said in 2003 that JRTVC could stand up to competition if it addressed citizens’ concerns with ‘professionalism and credibility’.58 Safadi repeated this recipe for achieving competitive edge in 2006, only this time he was talking about ATV from his new standpoint as editor of Al-Ghad.59 By giving prominence to a local pollution story neglected by other media, Al-Ghad had just succeeded in triggering remedial action by Jordanian MPs and ministers. In doing so it had demonstrated that covering local stories serves the dual purpose of boosting readership and reminding politicians to represent their constituents. It remained to be seen at that point whether JRTVC would fulfil its promise to use the JD2 million paid for its Channel 2 frequency to improve the quality of programmes on Channel 1. A new JRTVC board, with overall responsibility for quality, was appointed in March 2006. The cabinet put the minister of public sector reform in charge of the corporation and, along with five civilian board members, it named a brigadier general and the head of the Armed Forces Moral Guidance Directorate. Given the risk of private commercial interests silencing coverage of local business controversies, privatization of publicly owned broadcasters is rightly contentious. Despite this, successive Lebanese governments tried hard between 1996 and 2006 to offload the financial burden of maintaining the state’s publicly owned and only non-

34

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

confessional television station, Télé-Liban. Its monopoly having been removed without warning under the 1994 Audiovisual Media Law, Télé-Liban had been plunged into competition with more terrestrial channels than Lebanon’s small population and relatively limited pool of local advertising could readily support. An attempt at restructuring Télé-Liban in 2001 started with the government laying off 500 staff, cancelling collective bargaining for the remaining workforce and suspending broadcasts for three months. Then, despite concerns about the national broadcaster falling into non-Lebanese hands, talks took place that appeared to envisage a sale to Saleh Kamel, the Saudi owner of the private pay-TV network, ART.60 By the spring of 2002 negotiations had switched to a ten-year management contract, whereby ART would rent Télé-Liban studios and undertake to upgrade them.61 Ministerial differences of opinion caused that deal to be dropped and, in June 2003, a new information minister put forward a new vision for Télé-Liban. Noting that Lebanon’s economic, legal, political and environmental concerns were not well covered in existing television programming, Michel Samaha said Télé-Liban should deal with these issues in a way that served everyone and not just ‘the privileged’.62 But 2005 saw yet another policy switch, with Télé-Liban’s cumulative losses approaching $100 million and another new information minister urging the cabinet to agree to merge the state television and radio stations as a first step to selling off part of the government’s stake. The minister, Charles Rizk, was quoted as saying that, after privatization, Télé-Liban’s remit would be to serve Lebanese emigrant communities around the world.63 While ERTU losses greatly surpassed those of Télé-Liban, official statements about how to deal with them were equally contradictory. Overstaffing was a contributory factor, but on an altogether different scale; in the absence of precise data about the ERTU workforce the consensus estimate in 2006 was 40,000. According to Mamdouh Beltagi, who held the information portfolio in 2004–05, the ERTU’s cumulative deficit had then reached £E4 billion ($700 million) and was increasing at a rate of £E800 million per year.64 Two years later this looked to have been an underestimate, as most insiders were quoting figures closer to £E7 billion ($1.2 billion). Any plan to tackle the deficit would inevitably involve major redundancies, which in turn would involve costs. One option, carried over from the late 1990s, was

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

35

to sell off one or more of the ERTU’s dozen Nile Thematic Channels. Indeed, Beltagi was rumoured to have promised to sell a channel to Sawiris, in a deal that was scuppered when Fiqi arrived. Fiqi hired Hassan Aboul-Ela, a former BBC journalist and director of Sawiris’s Nahrain channel for Iraq, to serve as deputy information minister with special responsibility for reforming the ERTU. Answering a question about possible privatization, Aboul-Ela said, ‘I can assure you that the family silver is not for sale.’ 65 Yet Fiqi, addressing a parliamentary committee, did raise the possibility of private interests being invited to take strategic stakes in Nile Thematic Channels. His main reservations were that the government should retain control of Nile News and the stake of any private sector partner should not exceed 49 per cent.66 Meanwhile, parliamentary elections in November 2005 provided a chance for the ERTU to try competing with other channels by boosting its credibility. Abdel-Latif al-Manawy, hired from the London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat to become head of ERTU News, increased exposure for viewpoints of candidates not affiliated to the ruling National Democratic Party. However, without formal guarantees of ERTU independence from government, backed by independence for the broadcasting regulator, there was nothing to stop Manawy’s changes from being reversed. Control over Morocco’s broadcast regulator by the Royal Court dampened hopes for the future independence of that country’s state broadcaster. Article 53 of the audiovisual law adopted by parliament in December 2004 said that RTM should become a publicly owned company, the Société Nationale de Radio Télévision (SRNT) du Maroc. SRNT would in turn incorporate the previously separate Service Autonome de Publicité (SAP) as its advertising sales arm, to ensure financial security. Collaboration between RTM and 2M led to higher rates being charged for television advertising in 2004–05, but no sense of a clear broadcasting strategy or mission beyond supporting government policies. As for the publicly funded Palestinian broadcaster established in 1993, it also caused disappointment for those who had imagined that Palestinian television could break with the precedent of government censorship set almost everywhere else in the Arab world. During the first year after the 1993 Oslo Accords, the newly created Palestinian public broadcaster operated from an East Jerusalem office belonging to its self-appointed head, Radwan Abu Ayyash. Abu Ayyash

36

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

and his colleagues rejected the title Palestinian Broadcasting Authority in favour of ‘Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation’ (PBC), inspired by the BBC. However, once Arafat was installed in Gaza as head of the PA, and with access to transmission facilities in Ramallah affected by continuing Israeli occupation, Palestinian television’s West Bank headquarters became subordinate to its Gaza control room, housed inside Arafat’s Gaza base and headed by Hisham Mekki.67 Mekki was assassinated in 2001 in a killing claimed by the ‘anti-corruption unit’ of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. After Arafat’s death in 2004, the PA’s new president, Mahmoud Abbas, initiated changes in oversight of the PBC and the Palestinian Satellite Channel. Whereas these had previously come under the PLO Executive Committee and PA presidency, they were transferred in April 2005 to the ministry of information. The information minister, Nabil Shaath, merged them into a single corporation, in a move that was said to make the PBC publicly accountable for the first time, for both its budget and appointments. But, pending further restructuring, it also put the corporation firmly under the executive branch of government. When the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, was elected to form a Palestinian government in January 2006, Abbas moved all official media outlets, including PBC, away from the ministry of information and affiliated them to his own presidential office. Moves to separate the state broadcaster from the government made slow headway in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Saudi Radio and Television and the Saudi Press Agency, formerly part of the ministry of information, were turned into public corporations in 2002, but under a board of directors chaired by the minister of culture and information.68 The transition was followed by expansion of the state television network to include a sports channel and a 24-hour satellite news channel. According to Iyad Madani, the information minister, speaking in 2005, the network needed to be strengthened and its regulations revised before the private sector could ‘take part’ in its activities.69 In Kuwait, the state broadcaster’s eventual sale to the private sector was raised as a possibility in May 2006. But the information minister, Mohammed al-Sanousi, said that both Kuwait TV and Kuwait Radio would remain affiliated to the government for the time being.70 For the UAE, with seven constituent emirates, questions about the future of state broadcasting applied to more than one organization,

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

37

as recognized in the presence of representatives of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah television on the National Media Authority that replaced the ministry of information in 2006. Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Media Incorporated agreed in March 2006 to let Al Nisr Publishing take over the running of two of its radio channels in a deal that covered both advertising sales and editorial. As producer of the long-established daily Gulf News and numerous other publications, Al Nisr’s Obaid Humaid al-Tayer had proved himself to the UAE leadership as a safe pair of hands. Abdel-Latif al-Sayegh, representing the governmentowned radio network in Dubai, stressed that private investors had to prove their loyalty to the government if they wanted to get involved in the broadcasting sector. Sayegh said that people who used the airwaves to complain about life in the UAE should ask themselves whether they should be in the country. ‘If we want our government to open up we have to show them we have to be loyal,’ he said.71 Content regulation If structural regulation of Arab television ownership and licensing is designed to minimize government critics’ access to the airwaves, the density of additional regulations controlling the content of television programmes shows that senior government figures are not prepared to leave anything to chance. Private channel licensees risk going out of business if they upset the licensor. MTV in Lebanon, one of the first four terrestrial channels to be licensed under Lebanon’s Audiovisual Media Law of 1994, found to its cost in 2002 that certain types of content could lead to long-term closure, as will be discussed below. But private channels also risk going out of business if non-government advertisers suspect that they are failing to attract viewers. Repeated warnings issued to Egypt’s Dream TV about its political content72 demonstrate the fine line between, on the one hand, attracting audiences by showing programmes that are relevant and different from other channels and, on the other, abiding by vaguely worded prohibitions on criticizing people in power. In order to gauge how such prohibitions affect the business of expanding television coverage of localized issues, especially political ones, it is necessary to look beyond the restrictions attached to licences and focus on media laws, penal codes and intimidation of television professionals. Legislation restricting public speech has first to be seen in the

38

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

context of states of emergency declared in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Sudan, and secondly in the context of constitutional curbs in countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Bahrain. Emergency laws confer powers of censorship, arbitrary arrest and detention, and authorize the use of special security courts whose verdicts are not subject to appeal. Although an emergency is by definition temporary, emergency laws introduced in Arab states have generally lasted decades. Bahrain’s State Security Law, in force from 1974 to February 2001, empowered its authorities to hold government opponents without trial. Jordan was ruled under martial law from 1957 to 1989, after which time emergency-style curbs on political rights were invoked periodically. Algeria’s government rejected calls in 2004 to lift the state of emergency it had imposed in 1992. Although Arab governments have cited security threats as justification for these measures, the 2004 edition of the Arab Human Development Report pointed out that ‘repugnant terrorist crimes have occurred in a number of Arab states during a declared state of emergency’.73 The report noted that a state of emergency ‘strips the citizen of many constitutional rights, such as inviolability of the home, personal liberty, freedom of opinion, expression and the press, confidentiality of correspondence, rights of movement and assembly’. According to a member of the team behind the report, even countries without declared emergency laws have devices, such as security courts and military tribunals, which place similar restraints on the exercise of civil and political rights.74 One of the first acts of the interim Iraqi government installed by the occupying powers in Iraq in mid-2004 was to pass a security law, after which it banned Al-Jazeera from operating in Baghdad. Two years later the government of Nouri al-Maliki, after warning that it regarded reporting on violence as tantamount to inciting sectarianism,75 ordered AlArabiya to close its Baghdad office for a month. Egypt and Syria are two countries where emergency legislation remained in force alongside new licensing arrangements for private television channels. In Syria’s case, news of plans for a new media law allowing independent outlets coincided with the Baath Party congress in June 2005, at which it was agreed to relax the State of Emergency Law that had been in force for more than 40 years, since 1963. Relaxing the state of emergency did not mean lifting it, however. Instead, according to Syria’s state-run television, the agreement was to

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

39

‘limit its scope to national security violations’.76 Since national security is the only internationally accepted reason for emergency legislation in the first place, and since no clarification was offered as to the meaning of national security in this context, any potential private broadcaster familiar with Syria’s legal record would assume it meant the security of the regime. President Mubarak promised during his presidential campaign in 2005 to end Egypt’s State of Emergency Law, which had been in force almost continuously since 1981. In April 2006 this promise was broken; the People’s Assembly extended the law to 2008 pending the introduction of anti-terrorism legislation to replace it. According to Mubarak, interviewed by the French daily Le Figaro, the emergency law commanded support from a large part of the population and its repeal would cause chaos. ‘In Egypt’, he said, ‘only the Islamists demand the abolition of this law. But I will never let chaos prevail.’ 77 Causing chaos was the charge laid against Hussein Abdel-Ghani, Egyptian citizen and Al-Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief, after he reported on three bombings at the Sinai resort of Dahab in April 2006. AbdelGhani, with nine years’ experience of working in Egypt for Al-Jazeera and BBC experience before that, mentioned reports of attacks at Bilbeis in the wake of the Dahab bombings. When the Egyptian interior ministry denied the Bilbeis reports, Al-Jazeera carried the denial. The Dahab bombings killed 24 people and injured 85. Yet Egypt’s prime minister, Ahmad Nazif, said he blamed Abdel-Ghani’s report about Bilbeis for spreading panic and causing share prices to fall.78 Abdel-Ghani was detained by security forces and charged with ‘propagating false news that can disturb national security and cause chaos’. He was released on bail the next day, having been questioned and warned that the penalty for his alleged offence would be three to five years in prison.79 In Saudi Arabia, media obligations regarding national security are set out not in a state of emergency law but in the country’s Basic Law of 1992. Article 39 of the law states that media shall ‘contribute to the education of the nation and the bolstering of its unity’. The same article prohibits ‘all acts that foster sedition or division or harm the state’s security and its public relations’. It was in line with these provisions that a lawyer acting for reform campaigners in Saudi Arabia was arrested in March 2004, after speaking about the case to Al-Jazeera. The

40

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

campaigners were detained after planning to call for an independent human rights watchdog in the kingdom. An interior ministry spokesman told the official Saudi Press Agency at the time that they had been held for questioning about plans to issue ‘statements that do not serve the unity of the homeland’. Abdel-Rahman al-Lahem, a lawyer who discussed the detentions by telephone with Al-Jazeera, was imprisoned the next day. Only those detainees who pledged not to talk to the media were released. Dubai, which is often pictured as operating a far more liberal media regime than Saudi Arabia, also outlaws material on security grounds, whether in print or broadcast media. Alim Jumaa, head of the Dubai censorship office, set out the principles underlying UAE media law when asked to explain cuts made in the film Syriana before it was shown locally in 2006. He said, ‘We would never allow anything that is disrespectful to the country or the president, causes security problems, insults religions, exhibits immorality like nudity, or promotes vices like alcohol and drugs.’ 80 Under Morocco’s constitution, issues put off limits for discussion include the institution of the monarchy and the king himself. Article 28 of the 1996 Constitution states that the king’s speeches to both houses of parliament ‘shall not be subject to debate’. Articles 3 and 9 of the country’s Broadcasting Act, passed in 2004, echo these taboos by prohibiting anything that undermines the kingdom’s ‘sacred institutions and values, moral standards, and the people’s dignity’. The sacking of three managers from 2M in April 2000 had clearly signalled that the term ‘people’s dignity’ stands for, among other things, Morocco’s territorial claim to the Western Sahara. Communications minister Larbi Messari ordered the sackings after an episode of 2M’s regular review of the weekly press had shown an image of the latest edition of Le Journal, featuring an interview with the Polisario leader, Mohammed Abdelaziz. Explaining its reaction, the government said it would deal ‘severely with those who plan to hurt national feelings’.81 In passing its Broadcasting Act, Morocco joined Lebanon and Jordan in the vanguard of Arab countries where the opening of terrestrial broadcasting to privately owned companies necessitated a rethinking, or at least a restatement, of restrictions to be placed on the content of television programmes. As noted earlier, a draft Palestinian broadcasting law ran into a succession of obstacles, leaving television content subject to the 1995 Press Law. Elsewhere, governments that remained

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

41

in control of terrestrial television were also effectively editorial directors, able to regulate content internally in line with taboos identified in press laws and penal codes. The likelihood of these taboos being applied equally to any new private television channels licensed in future was demonstrated in 2004–06 when much heralded changes to press laws in several countries failed to abolish imprisonment as a punishment for certain journalistic transgressions. When the possibility of a new media law allowing private television channels was discussed in Bahrain’s Shura Council in mid-2004, it was made clear that such channels would be expected to abide by what were described as ‘Islamic and social values’. Bahrain’s revised press law, issued in November 2005 amid much controversy,82 put religion and the monarchy together in a special category when it retained jail sentences of at least six months for journalists convicted of insulting or criticizing the king, denigrating the state religion, promoting national disunity or sectarianism, or calling for the overthrow of the regime.83 Kuwait’s National Assembly unanimously passed a new press law in March 2006, after successive amendments to a 1961 law that predated Kuwaiti independence had created confusion and frozen the issuing of newspaper licences.84 The 2006 law imposed jail terms of up to one year, as well as fines, for media content deemed insulting to God, the Prophets, members of the Prophet Mohammed’s household, or the basis of the Islamic faith. Material calling for overturning the ruling system by force or other ‘illegal means’ was banned under the press law by cross-reference to articles in the penal code, which make such calls punishable by imprisonment for life. Insults to the ruler of Kuwait were made punishable by fines of up to $70,000. Following the election of a new secretary-general at the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate in 2004, President Mubarak responded positively to calls for an end to the jailing of journalists. Yet the new press law that passed its first reading in Egypt’s People’s Assembly in July 2006 was so unwelcome to journalists that independent and opposition newspapers protested against it with a one-day strike and demonstration. A clause was altered at the last minute that would have imposed jail terms for journalists whose reporting raised questions about the financial integrity of officials or state employees. But the draft retained jail sentences and heavy fines for other ‘offences’, including (under

42

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Article 178) the production, publication or possession of material that could ‘harm the national reputation’. The bill came too late for journalists such as Amira Malash of Al-Fajr, sentenced in March 2006 to a year in prison for mentioning the name of a judge in connection with a bribery scandal. In some cases during 2006 prison terms were handed down to journalists who work across Egypt’s media sector, in both television and the press. Ibrahim Eissa, editor of Al-Destour and Sawt al-Umma, is known for his appearances on Dream TV. In 2004 he complained that his programme on Dream, Aala al-Qahwa, had been dropped the previous year at the instigation of the prime minister, as a price paid by Dream TV’s owner, Ahmad Bahgat, for the rescheduling of his debts to Egypt’s state-owned banks.85 In June 2006, Eissa was one of two people on Al-Destour to receive a one-year prison sentence after reporting a legal case that had accused President Mubarak of misusing public money in the privatization of public companies. Mubarak’s accuser, Said Abdullah, was also given a year in jail but all three were freed on bail pending appeal. Wael al-Ibrashi, a Dream TV presenter and journalist on Sawt al-Umma, was one of three journalists put on trial the same month for publishing the initials of judges accused of condoning electoral fraud while overseeing parliamentary elections in November 2005. Under the press law, the penalty for publishing the list of initials was up to two years in prison. The problem for private broadcasters is that laws with vaguely worded prohibitions relating to notions of security, national unity and ‘reputation’ can be applied according to the personal interpretation of people in power, whenever they are inconvenienced by media reporting. Instead of being used to provide safeguards, Lebanon’s pioneering 1994 law was sidelined in 2002–03 when members of the country’s executive acted against Murr TV and New TV. The fortunes of both stations were affected by the complexities of Lebanon’s international relations at that time, including Syria’s heavy military presence in the country and Saudi Arabia’s heavy financial support, encouraged by close personal ties between the Sunni Muslim prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, and senior members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family. Murr TV, owned by Gabriel Murr, was one of two Christian-owned stations to obtain licences in the first round of licensing under the 1994 law. But it ran into trouble after the Lebanese general election in June 2002. Gabriel Murr, uncle to the interior minister at the time (Elias Murr)

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

43

and brother to a former interior minister (Michel Murr), ran as a parliamentary candidate against Michel’s daughter, Myrna, and won. Gabriel Murr was a known critic of Syrian domination of Lebanese politics. As a shareholder in Beirut’s Virgin Megastore, he was not served when internal security forces raided the store in January 2002 and seized large amounts of stock for allegedly offending religion and public morals. Michel and Elias, as ministers responsible for security, disagreed with Gabriel’s stance on Syria – Elias as the son-in-law of Lebanon’s pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, and Michel having declared Syria’s involvement in Lebanon to be off limits for media discussion. The Constitutional Court later annulled Gabriel’s election victory on a technicality. Meanwhile Lebanon’s Court of Publications ordered the permanent closure of his Murr TV for contravening Article 68 of the electoral law, which banned media outlets from advertising for parliamentary candidates. Three years later, after the withdrawal of Syrian troops and fresh parliamentary elections, a new parliament decided in August 2005 to allow Murr TV to reopen. Comments triggered by the decision confirmed that the closure had been a political manoeuvre that contravened Lebanon’s media law. Ghazi Aridi, information minister at the time of the closure and again in late 2005, had said in September 2002 that it was ‘political’, indicating that it stemmed from Syrian pressure on Lahoud.86 In August 2005 he repeated this explanation, saying that Lahoud and ‘ministers who were loyal to him’ had caused Murr TV to be closed. At the same time Abdel-Hadi Mahfouz, head of the National Audiovisual Council, pointed out that the closure had contravened the Audiovisual Media law’s three-day limit on the closure of any media outlet covered by the law.87 Their family feud over, MP Michel Murr supported the reopening of his brother’s station. If Syrian interference was blamed for the Murr TV saga, the interruption experienced by New TV was blamed on Rafiq Hariri’s personal friendship with close relatives of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd. Its reinstatement was likewise attributed to personalities, on the grounds that Lahoud saw in New TV an instrument to defend his interests against Hariri. Hariri took action against New TV in January 2003 after it trailed a programme in the series Bila Raqib (Without a Censor) that was to host Saudi government and opposition figures discussing

44

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Saudi–US relations, the Saudi budget, and the likely impact on Saudi Arabia of a US-led invasion of Iraq. Since the programme was to be transmitted on New TV’s satellite channel, cabinet jurisdiction over satellite broadcasting came into play. The state prosecutor warned New TV not to show the episode and, when compliance was not forthcoming, the telecommunications ministry acted on a memorandum from the prime minister’s office to cut New TV’s satellite link.88 The channel was then reconnected on orders from Lahoud, even though the reconnection was in principle something to be decided at a meeting of the cabinet. No one had any doubts about the reasons for stopping the programme. The state prosecutor said it was to protect good relations with Saudi Arabia, where 150,000 Lebanese are employed. Aridi said the Saudi government had warned the Lebanese foreign ministry that it would cut aid payments if Bila Raqib went ahead. Hariri said broadcasters were not permitted to attack any Arab country. ‘Those who have problems to settle with Saudi Arabia cannot come and cause trouble in Lebanon,’ he said.89 Episodes like these demonstrate the scope for overlap between media laws on the one hand and the personal whims of political leaders on the other. Al-Jazeera offices were closed in numerous Arab countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia) when the channel’s political debates upset powerful people. They were occasionally reopened if other debates were deemed sufficiently critical of the same powerful people’s enemies or opponents. But laws, whether used or abused, are also not the only vehicle for controlling television content in Arab states. Alternative methods range from self-censorship, as when Egypt’s own investment minister, Mahmoud Mohieddin, was reportedly asked not to use the word ‘corruption’ on Egyptian television,90 to outright thuggery, by gunmen or bombers acting for unknown figures and targeting media offices and television crews. Of the very numerous deadly examples in Iraq, discussed in more detail in the next two chapters, Al-Arabiya proved a particular target. But a Gaza correspondent for Al-Arabiya was also hospitalized after being attacked by masked men in January 2004. In between these two extremes are cases of heavy-handed action by security forces, resulting in loss of film or equipment and sometimes broken limbs. Abeer al-Zibn, correspondent for Al-Arabiya in Amman, reported having cameras confiscated at both a hospital and a hotel in

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

45

the Jordanian capital while trying to report in the aftermath of suicide bombings there in November 2005.91 Egyptian security forces stood guard while female demonstrators and journalists were subjected to physical attacks in 2005.92 Although the deliberate targeting of women was new, the type of attack was not: Al-Jazeera’s cameraman reportedly suffered a broken leg and its soundman a broken arm while attempting to cover Egypt’s parliamentary elections in 2000.93 If the authorities themselves appear to condone unlawful actions, there is less guarantee that others will act lawfully if they find programmes on Arab television objectionable. When LBCI satirized the Shia leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in June 2006, street protests by Hizbollah supporters left three people wounded and two highways blocked.94 Kuwaiti protestors took the law into their own hands in October 2005, breaking windows at the offices of Al-Rai TV in Salmiya, because they claimed the channel had insulted a tribal group in one of its shows. Three policeman and four others were reported hurt.95 As for Palestinian stations, already at risk of confrontation with the PA, the vandalism they suffered at the hands of Israeli troops in April 2002 was verified by the Israeli press.96 Conclusion It emerges from this chapter that legislative changes to open the broadcast sector to private local companies featured increasingly frequently in political discourse in the mid-2000s, right across the spectrum of Arab monarchies and republics. But the chapter also shows significantly greater reluctance to open up to television as compared with radio. Whereas the governments of both Egypt and Syria allowed private radio stations to start in 2003 and 2005 respectively, even before new laws had formally lifted the state’s monopoly on terrestrial broadcasting, private entrepreneurs with plans to register terrestrial television stations were left waiting for a green light. Private radio started two years ahead of private television in Tunisia, while in Jordan and Morocco the number of radio licences issued far outnumbered those for television stations. Licences were also more forthcoming for satellite than terrestrial channels in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait. Whatever officials said in public about reform and liberalization of broadcasting, it was clear that Arab governments’ executive branches intended to keep a firm grip on the power to license television channels, whether

46

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

satellite or terrestrial. Commissions set up to consider applications for television licences did not advertise their direct subordination to the king, prime minister or information minister. Nevertheless, in every case considered here, that was the ultimate line of command. An attempt to make Jordan’s first Higher Media Council independent set it on a collision course with government. Independence was consequently non-existent in commissions already created and ruled out in those, such as Egypt’s, still under discussion. This in turn had ramifications for publicly funded broadcasters, which were also kept under direct government ownership and control. Without independent regulation, independence in state broadcasting was put beyond reach. Perhaps because of state television’s persistent failure to meet demand for informative coverage of local affairs, there was no shortage of applicants to set up local non-government television channels. Requests were submitted even in countries, such as Yemen, where licensing changes had not yet been considered. Experience in Lebanon in the 1980s and the West Bank in the 1990s demonstrated that, left to themselves, a large and diverse body of private broadcasters would readily get on with the job. Al-Quds Educational TV did not wait for authorization to film the Palestinian parliament. By grasping the initiative it triggered a clampdown but eventually achieved an accommodation with the PA. In most places, however, regimes held on to the initiative, as when a new king in Morocco surprised his ministers by decreeing his own reform. The next step was to approve far fewer applications than received, causing the much vaunted redistribution of power to be limited to business associates of incumbent elites. A single private terrestrial television channel was initially licensed in each of Morocco, Tunisia, Oman and Jordan, with the licence awarded to a proven ‘safe pair of hands’. The successful applicants had either shown their loyalty through the output of an existing newspaper or radio station, or they had declared it in public. Business dealings of Egypt’s private media entrepreneurs highlighted their close personal ties to the country’s political leadership, even though this was something that one of those entrepreneurs, in a CNN interview, emphatically denied. If further proof were needed that television licensing offered ruling elites a means to expand their power base by accommodating milder

L AW A N D P OL IC Y O N OW N E R S H I P A N D C O N T E N T

47

critics while pushing harsher ones beyond the margins of power and influence, that proof existed in multiple laws making certain kinds of content taboo. Liberalization of television licensing was not accompanied by repeal or amendment of laws imposing jail sentences for vaguely worded offences against national security, religion or the head of state. By reserving the right to accuse television professionals of such acts as harming national unity, disturbing national security, hurting national feelings, or harming the nation’s reputation, incumbent regimes maintained a clear dividing line between television content they were prepared to accept on the one hand, and threats of ‘chaos’ and ‘panic’ on the other.

3

Conflicting Influences on Arab TV Journalism Expansion of the television industry, including growth of private ownership, but still a limited ownership base: these are trends emerging from this book’s analysis so far. They are comparable to global trends identified in a survey of media employment released by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in 2006. But it is not clear that these trends have had the same negative impact on standards of journalism in Arab television as the IFJ fears may be the case for journalism on a broader global scale. Pointing to growing reliance on young journalists without permanent contracts, the IFJ report warned that the more journalists’ work becomes casualized or precarious, the harder it is for them to resist pressure to select and report news in accordance with government or commercial agendas.1 Even if the same concerns apply to Arab television journalism following the industry’s latest phase of expansion (which they may), their relevance is not immediately obvious. On the contrary, in a region where all but a small minority of journalists were once disdained as mere government scribes or mouthpieces, the proliferation of satellite channels has given rise to a situation in which the occupation of journalism has started to enjoy prestige. Today, anchors and reporters on pan-Arab television have become public personalities in their own right, in a way that seems to be independent of the channel on which they appear. Faisal Al Kasim, the presenter of one of Al-Jazeera’s most watched and talked-about talk shows, suggested that ‘for the first time ever in the Arab world’, a television anchor could attain celebrity status.2 Heightened competition among channels might be expected to work in favour of credible journalism. Indeed the logic of competition may explain the frequency with which words like ‘objectivity’ and 49

50

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

‘professionalism’ occur in the contemporary discourse of Arab television journalists. If autonomy, credibility and viewer appreciation go hand in hand,3 then highly rated journalists who become the distinctive public face of a television station warrant careful treatment on the part of management. Things are not that simple, however. Quite apart from structural constraints on editorial content, which are considered elsewhere in this book, any study of the re-basing of standards in Arab television journalism has to recognize that definitions of objectivity and professionalism change over time and from place to place. It may seem reasonable to pinpoint satellite television’s disruptive impact as a starting point for the spread of a ‘new’4 or different kind of journalism in the Arab world, with MBC in the early 1990s creating an unprecedented Arab outlet for original television reporting and exclusive stories.5 But whose criteria can serve to judge whether the ‘new’ journalism is more objective or professional? Journalists are not independent professionals but employees. Whereas professionals like doctors, lawyers and architects act on ‘their own interpretation of the client’s best interest’, media employees are liable to be constrained by an interpretation that is decided by owners, advertisers or consumers.6 It is for this reason that UNESCO declarations have urged that news media professionals should be enabled to set down standards and guidelines for themselves,7 an exhortation endorsed by the IFJ, which speaks for journalists within the UN system and the international trade union movement. The existence of an international body like the IFJ implies that international consensus is possible on professional norms and ethics for journalists. It was even once suggested that international associations of professionals, by creating cross-border channels of communication, could help to ‘maintain world order’.8 However, just as general theories of professions differ between those that see them as contributing to cohesion and stability (to the point of preserving the status quo), and those that see them as a force for change (as elite memberships are opened up on the basis of competence rather than gender, ethnicity or class),9 there are also diverging views on whether professional norms for journalists are sufficiently universal to produce consensus, let alone whether such consensus protects existing power imbalances in politics and society or implicitly aspires to redress them. Kai Hafez compared formal journalism codes adopted in a number of European

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

51

and Muslim states and organizations over a period of 30 years and noted enough points in common to challenge bipolar assumptions about a predominantly individualist approach in Western communication ethics and a communitarian or collectivist approach in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. In regard to the latter, Hafez concluded that ‘many of those collectivist aspects of journalism codes that restrict media freedom seem closely connected to the power structures behind ethics codification’.10 His argument aligns with those who blame journalists’ failure to report important local Arab news over many years not on journalists but on the same authoritarian political systems that deprived Arab populations of citizenship rights and led to what one Arab journalist has called the Arab intelligentsia’s ‘collective resignation from critical enquiry’.11 Have changing ownership patterns in Arab television consequently begun to erode the hold of government-approved codes of journalistic ethics? If so, what influences are contributing to the elaboration of new ones, both formal and informal? In order to explore such influences without getting caught up in ‘utopian discourses’ or spurious claims to the moral high ground, there may be advantages to treating journalism in the way Mark Deuze suggests, as an occupational ideology – in the sense that journalists ‘in all media types, genres and formats carry the ideology of journalism’, but apply this ideology in ‘a variety of ways to give meaning to what they do’.12 It should be possible by this means to gather some sense of the values, strategies and codes that inform the work of Arab television journalists without privileging preconceived definitions of professionalism or getting sidetracked into defining what those journalists themselves often refer to as ‘ceilings on freedom’. As already noted, uncritical understandings of journalistic professionalism risk serving as a smokescreen for protecting one set of interests against others. Mohammed el-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar sought to capture this with their phrase ‘contextual objectivity’.13 In reporting on the Middle East, a phrase that seems fair to outsiders may sound like further injustice to those affected by the object or act to which it refers, be it Israel’s separation wall/security fence on the West Bank, Palestinian suicide bombings/terrorist operations or Israeli targeted killings/assassinations. In such a context, the ‘wrong’ terminology may be perceived as stripping people of their rights. Equally, journalists have a choice between placing the viewer in the position

52

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

of passive spectator or that of concerned citizen.14 Alternative traditions of journalism, such as development journalism, emancipatory journalism and public or civic journalism, question absolutist notions of objectivity.15 This chapter therefore begins by exploring Arab television journalists’ ideas about their own work, before going on to assess their efforts to work collectively to honour the public’s right to know. It also takes account of stimuli behind certain ideologies of journalism. Whereas the 1991 Gulf War may have been a turning point for Arab media, the 11 September 2001 suicide attacks in the US are widely regarded as a turning point for media in North America and Europe. Not only did September 11 transform the ‘everyday contexts within which many journalists routinely operate’,16 but the rush of emotion and opinion that it triggered is also said to have shaken journalistic norms.17 Given the importance of television as a visual medium for live reporting of breaking news, the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq raised pressing safety issues for television journalists, and ethical issues about combining accuracy and decency with speed. They also highlighted the ‘human face’ of war reporting, causing controversy about the acceptability of reporters displaying emotion on screen.18 Combined with the so-called ‘war on terror’, USled bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq had implications for journalistic access to sources and adherence to international agreements about the treatment of journalists carrying out journalistic assignments in war zones. Civilians are protected in time of war under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949; governments signing up to the Additional Protocols of 1977 explicitly guaranteed, under Article 79 of Protocol I, that they would consider journalists to be civilians, as defined by Article 50. War correspondents are to be treated alike, whether or not they are accredited by military authorities and whether or not they possess an identity card attesting to their journalistic status. The point is that they are to be protected as civilians ‘provided that they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians’.19 Thus proximity to a military target may bring about a de facto loss of protection, but not a loss in principle to a journalist’s right to be protected as a civilian. Given the possibilities for selective application or non-application of international humanitarian law, and selective evocation of professional norms of journalism, the third body of data in this chapter documents pressures on Arab television journalism from the inter-

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

53

national environment. According to Lisa Hajjar, discussing what she called the American ‘domestication’ of international law, the issue is ‘not whether international law will survive the war on terror, but how it will be made, interpreted and used in the future’.20 In the early 1950s, with colonial powers still very much in evidence in Arab countries, Tom McFadden studied the daily practices of Arab journalists. He was struck by the level of consensus among them: that struggles against imperialism and Zionism were priority causes for journalists, followed by promotion of Arab unity.21 But he was also sure that ‘at least as many Arab journalists [were] sincerely and unselfishly trying to serve the public interest as would be found anywhere in the world’.22 After a further half-century of external intervention in Arab affairs, through foreign military support to authoritarian governments and occupation of Palestinian territory, modalities of interaction with foreign forces have to be seen as a possible influence on television journalism. Aspirations and frustrations At the most basic level, jobs are created for journalists by an increase in the number of television channels competing with each other by means of their treatment of news and current affairs. How journalists regard these openings can be assessed in part from what they say about themselves and their work. For instance, one experienced Arab television presenter expressed disquiet at journalists in US-owned media who seemed anxious to protect their jobs by neglecting to challenge politicians with awkward questions. You can figuratively ‘die in silence or die screaming,’ he said. ‘I want to die screaming.’ 23 In an expanding television sector, even one constrained by government interference, it may be possible to scream about some things and stay alive. There are numerous examples in Arab television of journalists being denied an outlet for their political coverage in one medium, but finding an alternative elsewhere. This may result from political infighting inside countries. Zaven Kouyoumdjian says he had to leave his long-running weekly talk show 5/7 on Télé-Liban in 1998, after hosting an episode on poverty and unemployment. Later that year he joined Future TV, going on to attain star status for his talk show Sireh w’infatahit (A Way of Life Revealed). At that particular moment, Future TV, backed by the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, was evidently less concerned to project a positive image of Lebanese government

54

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

policy because Hariri was briefly out of office. Similar openings can occur through differences between editorial policies and taboos from one country to the next. Daoud al-Shirian, a Saudi known for his writing in Al-Hayat, had his work banned more than once before being dropped from the paper altogether in late 2003. Shirian had earlier shared his exasperation at Saudi censorship with a colleague on Arab News. Complaining about government resistance to ‘anything even a little negative’, he rejected the official line that journalists needed to be more ‘professional’ before they could have more freedom. ‘Freedom cultivates professionalism,’ he said. ‘If you always tell me to do this and to do that, how can I grow up?’24 Soon after disappearing from Al-Hayat, Shirian reappeared on Dubai TV as part of what the channel’s publicity material described as a ‘galaxy of Arab television personalities’. The galaxy included at least one other media refugee in the person of Hamdi Qandil, known for his biting critiques on Egyptian state television and Dream TV. Hala Sirhan’s move from Cairo-based Dream to Beirut-based Rotana was likewise precipitated in part by restrictions affecting Dream. On leaving ART for Dream in 2001, Sirhan had said Dream’s mission was to be ‘credible’, ‘honest and straightforward’, because ‘we have not had that before’. She believed Dream would be ‘open to all types of opinions and ideologies – socialist, western, capitalist, left-wing, right-wing, fanatics and extremists – [so as to] let people choose what to believe in and what not to believe in’.25 By late 2002, however, her optimism proved unfounded as official objections to a discussion about sex in one of Sirhan’s talk shows were followed by her departure from Dream and subsequent move to Rotana. Arab politics are such that moving from channel to channel may offer more scope for saying some things but not others. This in itself reveals little about norms and benchmarks for the practice of journalism. Nevertheless, there is evidence to suggest that, as high-profile television journalists switch jobs, they are increasingly likely today to insist on a degree of editorial freedom as a condition of signing a contract. The ramifications of such conditions should not be exaggerated, as money is also often a factor in the move. One rumour has it that Zeina al-Yaziji left her $400 monthly salary as a Syrian TV news anchor for a $7,000 monthly salary at Al-Arabiya. Al-Arabiya certainly poached staff from Al-Jazeera by offering to double or treble their sala-

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

55

ries. But some of those who took up the offer let it be known that they negotiated parameters of their future coverage alongside their remuneration before accepting the post. Even if such agreements, whether with Al-Arabiya or other channels, were not honoured in all cases, their claimed existence is a measure of evolving standards and an indicator that standards can be set through peer pressure. According to Ibrahim Eissa, his contract with Dream TV guaranteed that he would be allowed to express himself freely and use his programme Aala al-Qahwa to ‘present what people are feeling’.26 Hafez al-Mirazi, Washington bureau chief for Al-Jazeera from 2000 to 2006, says he deliberated before joining Al-Jazeera because of worries about interference from Qatari leaders. When these were allayed he still warned that, if the bureau ever became subject to censorship from Doha, he would leave.27 Muhannad al-Khatib, having quit Al-Arabiya to become managing director of Jordan’s first private terrestrial television channel, ATV, told a conference in Amman how much he objected to politically motivated controls. He recalled how Al-Arabiya’s non-stop eulogies for King Fahd after his death in 2005 had prevented attention being paid to the assassination of the Sudanese rebel leader John Garang. Recounting the means he had employed at Al-Arabiya to resist covering stories that suited a political agenda but lacked a news rationale, Khatib left no doubt that he intended to serve public information needs rather than partisan interests in his new job.28 Some journalists who are vocal about editorial freedom were educated outside Arab countries and gained professional experience while working in Europe or the US. Hala Sirhan and Muhannad al-Khatib once worked for Voice of America and Khatib stayed in Washington throughout the 1990s. Jassem Azzawi worked at the US State Department before joining Abu Dhabi TV. Hisham Milhem, presenter of Al-Arabiya’s popular programme from Washington, Abr al-Moheet (Across the Ocean), previously lived and worked in Washington for some 30 years. Salah Negm, chief editor at Al-Jazeera, then Al-Arabiya, then the reincarnated BBC Arabic Television, worked at one time with Netherlands Radio. Negm, like Sami Haddad, Faisal Al Kasim, Ahmad al-Sheikh, Hussein Abdel-Ghani and several of AlJazeera’s start-up team, was also previously employed by the BBC. But there are journalists with other backgrounds who are no less concerned to report freely, and there is a strong sense among those with foreign

56

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

experience that they are reaching for a kind of reporting about Arab affairs that was possible neither inside nor outside the Arab world in the past. Nabil Khatib, chief of MBC’s Jerusalem bureau for several years and then executive editor of Al-Arabiya, studied socialist journalism at the University of Minsk in Belarus in the 1980s and went on to teach journalism at Birzeit University on the West Bank. His view of how Arab journalism needs to change has much in common not only with that of Milhem but also Kasim and Ibrahim Helal, chief editor of Al-Jazeera during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Like Khatib, Helal has worked in journalism training, in his case for the BBC World Service Trust, before returning to the Al-Jazeera group, to work on Al-Jazeera English, in 2006. All are convinced that local news in most Arab countries has been neglected for so long that, in Khatib’s words, ‘For 50 years, all Arabs have heard about is Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Arab summits and so on, and nothing about real answers to the real questions of why he is poor, frustrated and unhappy with the level of health care and education for his kids.’ By attempting to overcome that background, Khatib feels: ‘We are inventing the basic tradition of being sensitive to the public interest and we need to fight for it.’ 29 Milhem had already complained, more than a decade earlier, that ‘society’ was ‘largely ignored’ in Arab media treatment of the Arab–Israeli conflict and US–Israeli relations, leading to ‘one-dimensional’ coverage characterized by ‘stereotypes’ and ‘caricature’.30 Kasim, who gained his doctorate in the UK, wrote in 2005 that it was time to ‘start from the bottom up’ to ‘humanize the Arab media’, by tackling ‘human and social problems’. Recalling how he was initially ‘shocked’ by British television news values in the 1980s, which could make a lost child the lead story on the national evening bulletin, Kasim explains that ‘little by little’ he realized that a ‘liberal and democratic culture … regards human beings as the hub of life’, who must take priority over ‘hollow slogans’.31 Helal, noting the attention devoted to US and Israeli policy on Arab channels, asked rhetorically in 2004, ‘How much day-to-day coverage [is there] of our poor citizens and their hard life?’32 Recounting his experience of leading training sessions at Egypt’s Nile News at a moment when constitutional change was at the forefront of Egyptian debate, Helal said that Nile News journalists habitually ranked the Palestinian uprising and war in Iraq higher up their agenda than news

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

57

dealing with change to Egypt’s constitution. He attributed this to a longstanding neglect of the audience, which ‘left priorities unfixed’. Arab journalists, whether in broadcasting or the press, seldom realized that ultimately ‘it’s the public who pays their salaries’, he said.33 A concern to reorder priorities between pan-Arab political news on the one hand, and local politics or social and human interest stories on the other, also emerges when television panel debates are discussed. Mahmoud Abdel-Hadi, director of the Al-Jazeera Media Training and Development Centre, found – while carrying out programme evaluation for Al-Jazeera in his previous post – that Palestine accounted for 70 per cent of episodes on the channel’s three top talk shows. In Abdel-Hadi’s view, news media should not wait for crises to force them to cover countires and issues; they should not, as happened with Mauritania, ignore them until there is a coup.34 Others see the need for reordering as a matter not so much of themes and topics as one of treatment. They may acknowledge the logic of pan-Arab topics dominating talk shows on pan-Arab television, but still pinpoint an essential difference between the forced pan-Arab unity of old and what Kasim calls the ‘liberal’ pan-Arabism of television today, with its ‘many voices’. Whereas, under forced unity and censorship, assumptions were made about what everyone was thinking, Kasim considers that television journalism has helped to break that ‘wall of silence’.35 Muhannad al-Khatib says he sometimes gets ‘furious’ when officials suggest that 22 Arab countries should ‘speak with one voice’ since, as far as he can see, the sum total of pan-Arab agreement would barely fill 15 minutes of television.36 Ghassan Ben Jeddou, Beirut correspondent of Al-Jazeera and host of Hiwar Maftouh (Open Dialogue), also thinks that the difference between old and new lies in pluralism of opinion, which was ‘absent before’. He is conscious that, for someone talking on Arab television, this is ‘often their only chance to talk’. ‘So they do it with a vengeance,’ he said. Whereas participants in the US or UK might be satisfied with a 45-minute programme, Arab guests ‘don’t just answer the question, they have to expatiate’. ‘No one [on Arab television] thanks you for the chance to speak,’ Ben Jeddou continued. On the contrary, they complain about not having long enough.37 Ben Jeddou’s comments highlight contrasts between the contexts for Arab and Western journalism. Sami Haddad reflected on the contrast when he told a media awards ceremony in London that the

58

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

task of meeting the ‘real needs’ of Arab viewers through ‘different views, not sanitised views’ had been long overdue. But, he said, it was also a challenge – not just to ‘change from our training of reporting the world from the viewpoint of London but, even more challenging, reporting on an Arab world where freedom of expression is curtailed’.38 The contexts differ on several levels; relationships between journalists and officials are the most frequently mentioned example, but ordinary people’s views and expectations are another, as is the level of moral support television journalists can expect from managers or colleagues in other media, including commentators in the printed press. Jihad Ballout, after quitting his job in press relations for Al-Jazeera for a similar post in Al-Arabiya in August 2005, noted that Arab journalists are treated with more ‘respect … abroad in the West’ than they are by the authorities in Arab countries.39 Kasim has emphasized the insecurity of working in Arab television. ‘The BBC exists regardless of [British prime minister Tony] Blair,’ he said on one occasion. ‘Arab satellite channels are not like that. Their future is in danger and anything might happen.’ 40 Lack of respect and insecurity translate into lack of access to sources, especially, as Abdel-Ghani put it, for media outlets whose journalists are trained to be ‘independent of government and opposition at the same time’. Abdel-Ghani explained in 2003: ‘We have to get authorization in Egypt and we don’t always get it, but after seven years in Egypt they started to respect us and they invite us to some official events.’ 41 His optimism about respect looked somewhat premature when the Egyptian authorities charged Abdel-Ghani with spreading false news in 2006.42 Crucially, however, many see poor treatment by government being echoed by public suspicion of journalists, a suspicion born of fears that coverage of more than one side to a conflict will undermine unity or promote hidden agendas. Among other things, this suspicion makes it harder to bring people from opposing sides into the same studio. Ghassan Ben Jeddou says it became particularly hard in 2005 to ‘reflect the reality’ in Lebanon because ‘we found that those who were pro-Syria wouldn’t accept to sit with those who were anti on the grounds that these are promoting a Western agenda’.43 Answering a question about Arab media coverage of minorities in the early 1990s, Milhem had described the media’s ‘inadequacy’ on this subject as ‘almost scandalous’. One of the ‘biggest intellectual

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

59

scandals’, he said, occurred after Iraq invaded Kuwait, when there was an ‘absence of debate in the Arab world … even in those societies where you had relative openness’. Milhem, who says he was criticized for being ‘harsh on Saddam’, said he blamed the ‘Arab intelligentsia more than the journalists, because [debate] is the function of people who claim to think critically’.44 A decade later, notions of fairness and accuracy in reporting had yet to take root among Arab viewers, as demonstrated by the credence given to allegations that Al-Jazeera was in the pay of Osama Bin Laden, the CIA, or ‘Zionists’, simply because the channel allowed Al-Qaida, US or Israeli representatives to speak. As Abdel-Ghani put it, ‘Al-Jazeera is a new experience. [Its approach is] not strange in the UK but here they think we are party to conflict.’ 45 It would seem from journalists’ experience that the public not only assume they take sides but positively expect them to. Nakhle el-Haje, Nabil Khatib’s boss at MBC, says he used to get negative feedback because of viewers’ perceptions that Khatib, himself a Palestinian, was ‘neutral on Palestine’.46 In other words, Arab television editors, reporters and presenters who regard objectivity as desirable do not reflect a consensus on this issue in their own societies. Describing for Bitterlemons the kinds of phone calls he receives from viewers every day, Al-Arabiya’s Nabil Khatib suggested that conflicting pressures were making it hard for the so-called ‘new’ Arab media to take ‘difficult decisions about priorities’ or disseminate ‘news about issues those in power do not want the public to know’.47 Journalists’ anecdotes abound about pressure in Egyptian, Saudi and Lebanese channels to praise political leaders; the decision by Al-Arabiya’s managing director, Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed, to devote three days of non-stop coverage to King Fahd’s death was an extreme example. But praising leaders is not the only form of lack of balance. Hizbollah’s channel, Al-Manar, was designed to be equally heavy-handed, having been set up to promote ‘resistance forces’48 to reawaken a ‘spirit of struggle in the Arab nation’.49 ‘Are there any media without a political message?’ was the rhetorical question put by Egyptian journalist and television presenter Emadeddin Adeeb to a News Xchange conference in 2004.50 Raised in a society where onesided and opinionated reporting has been the norm, staff in their 20s and 30s may see nothing untoward in putting their own opinions into their work. That is when the different modes of journalism that co-exist

60

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

in Arab television newsrooms are liable to clash. American reporters have observed Nabil Khatib at Al-Arabiya confronting impassioned editorializing in the newsroom. One watched him in 2004 replay a tape from a young reporter in Falluja, in which visual evidence contradicted the reporter’s words. Khatib, who was later heard urging the reporter to be accurate and not exaggerate in future, attributed the reporter’s mistake to a desire to convey the message that ‘the people of Falluja are suffering in many ways’.51 In another incident Khatib was seen deleting part of a script asserting that ‘Iraqis are still paying the price [for the US-led invasion] with their souls’. He then admonished the reporter: ‘You’re speaking as a citizen, not as a journalist.’ 52 The way more senior reporters deal with their emotions is something that several have had occasion to speak about as they have come under fire themselves, or witnessed colleagues being injured or killed, or seen the effects of bombing on whole communities. Jivara al-Budairi, known for her reporting on Israeli–Palestinian and Israeli– Lebanese conflicts for Al-Jazeera, described to an audience of Arab women journalists what it feels like to be in a vehicle that can be hit any time by missile fire going on all around. ‘Inside I was scared, but I had to hide it from my team. Beside the fear there was a psychological side,’ she said of her feelings during the Israel–Lebanon war of 2006, ‘because for the first time I felt that US networks like Fox and CNN were on the Israeli side.’ 53 Budairi dreads hearing the names of the dead in case a friend or relative is among them. In September 2006 she said, ‘My address book had 200 names in it. Now there are 35 left. The rest are in their graves or in jail.’ Asked how she felt about bias, Budairi continued, ‘You can be objective and not express your feelings, but it’s hard. They will always accuse me of being sympathetic.’ Nabil Khatib has said that, while working on the West Bank, Israeli forces treated him as a Palestinian first and a journalist second, holding him at checkpoints for long periods on the way to appointments. He has been quoted as saying that, at times, the struggle to offer calm reports about a painful situation was overwhelming: ‘I am tired of the process and the constant tension to hold my emotions at bay.’ 54 When media workers are killed on duty, their colleagues may succumb to emotion on screen. Ghassan Bin Jeddou cried while reporting to camera on the assassination of fellow journalist Samir Qassir. Rashid Hamid Wali, an Al-Jazeera technician, was shot by machine-gun

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

61

fire in Karbala in May 2004 while filming clashes between US forces and followers of the Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Referring to Wali as a shahid (usually translated as ‘martyr’), Al-Jazeera later interviewed its own journalist, Abdel-Azim Mohammed, who had been standing near Wali when he was killed. It was forced to cut the interview short when Mohammed broke down.55 Does emotion in this context reflect lack of objectivity? According to Hussein Abdel-Ghani, who has fought off tear gas sprayed by Egyptian security forces while reporting for AlJazeera on a demonstration, both the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and the US government expected his channel to be on their side during the war on Iraq. ‘Neutrality is very hard to achieve,’ he continued, ‘but objectivity is possible. When I discuss Israeli forces hitting Palestinians, I’m Arab and Muslim so I’m not neutral. But I can be objective by covering the Israeli point of view as well as the Palestinian one.’ As for covering the bombing of Al-Jazeera offices in Kabul and Baghdad in November 2001 and April 2003 respectively, ‘we tried to control our feelings’, he said.56 Jihad Ballout, who moved from Al-Jazeera to Al-Arabiya in 2005, made a similar comment about coverage of the Israel–Lebanon war. ‘A journalist cannot be isolated from his roots and feelings,’ he told AFP. ‘I cannot imagine feelings being impartial. … But there are certain measures in practice to preserve objectivity.’ 57 Judging from the comments of Arab television journalists themselves, aspirations to objectivity are subject to conflicting pressures from all sides. External pressures were intense during the invasion of Iraq, when the invaders and their allies preferred the term ‘liberation’ to ‘invasion’ and objected to the word ‘resistance’, saying it carried too much prestige. Salah Negm argued at the time that Al-Arabiya had chosen the terminology of its coverage before the conflict, on ‘journalistic and professional, not emotional, grounds’.58 For those reporting to Negm, however, terminology remained an area of struggle and debate. Dana Suyyagh used Al-Arabiya’s Arab audience as justification for not using the term shahid in news reports. Precisely because AlArabiya addressed Arabs, she said, it had no need to ‘spoonfeed’ them. Viewers could decide for themselves whether someone was a shahid or not, whether in Palestine, Algeria or anywhere else.59 Ibrahim Helal, speaking on behalf of Al-Jazeera, had earlier drawn the opposite conclusion from the same argument about addressing Arabs. Challenged by

62

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman to justify use of the term shahid to refer to ‘somebody killed by an Israeli soldier’, Helal answered: It is a different environment in the Arab world. … Here … you call somebody a martyr because he was killed accidentally. …. I cannot call a child murdered by an Israeli soldier just a child killed. Our viewer will not understand that. He will understand it, or she will understand it, as a biased statement to Israel. So I have to be very careful. I have to tell things with the language our viewer can understand. If I transmit these events in English, I would change the language because the audience is different, the mentality is different and the environment is completely different.60

As emerged from Helal’s statement, his objective was to avoid being perceived as biased by an Arabic-speaking audience, for whom shahid is the term customarily applied to a person killed by enemy action. Helal was thus consistent in his stance when he responded robustly in September 2004 to a discussion about whether media can have a ‘democratic agenda’. ‘Surely we’re begging to have no agenda,’ he said. ‘We’re proud to say our agenda is to have no agenda.’ 61 The ‘noagenda agenda’ seems to be shared by a small but influential group of senior Arab journalists who have put their views on record. Ben Jeddou has said, ‘I do not respect the journalist who uses journalism for his own agenda or to support his political positions.’ 62 Ballout maintained, after moving to Al-Arabiya, ‘I believe that it is difficult to defend any journalist who cannot view the news with professional objectivity.’ 63 Asked about broadcasting videos from extremist groups, Ballout said that professionalism dictated that the observer has the right to see the whole picture and it is the media’s responsibility to convey the information in its proper context, that is without any ideological additions that serve this or that purpose. This should also be accompanied with fair debate including different views concerning the same issue.64

Suyyagh’s argument that ‘it is not the job of a news outlet to criticize’ is in line with this view.65 It is an argument often expressed alongside dismay at changes in the news values apparent on US television, which have left the ‘no-agenda’ Arab journalists feeling isolated. Hafez alMirazi is proud that, during his time as Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Washington, the bureau’s expansion enabled it to carry several hours of news, analysis and commentary live from the US capital. But he is also aware that in ‘trying to explain America to the Arab world and

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

63

trying to explain the Arab world to America’ the journalist is ‘caught in the middle’. Mirazi describes what is effectively an unequal tug-ofwar. When you talk to the Arab world you give the impression that you’re pro-American or biased against Arabs, but you’re trying to bring reasons to the discussion. … And when you talk to Americans you’re trying to do the same thing. You end up sounding very Arab. But … you find that in the Arab media we go out of our way to …. present their [US] views. But look at what they do. They have Arab English speakers, they don’t even need translation. And they don’t host them. They bring in someone from a so-called Middle East think-tank that is flagrantly biased. … And they have these people talk about us, never with us.66

Mirazi likened the situation in the US to ‘the official media of some Arab regimes’, saying he felt ‘sorry that people volunteer to do bad media, to be biased, to cheer the leaders in the Pentagon and to take what they say as unquestionable truth’.67 According to the late Maher Abdallah of Al-Jazeera, what happened to US media in the war on Iraq was an example of ‘globalization in reverse’. Alluding to government pressure on media in Arab countries, he told a group of Arab and non-Arab journalists and academics shortly before his death in a car accident in 2004: ‘We Arabs are giving you [in the West] our ways.’ Citing examples of partisan practice in US media, he said that Arab media needed to ‘look for another model, not the US one’.68 Arab journalists also express disappointment that, in their view, the US state-financed Arabic-language channel Al-Hurra has failed to meet the standards they once associated with journalism in democratic systems. One cited the example of an interview with the Tunisian foreign minister shortly after Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, had publicly raised concerns with the minister about one-party politics and allegations of torture in Tunisia. Despite having Powell’s words as a potential cue for a tough interview, Al-Hurra’s reporter failed to ask the minister for his response to Powell’s concerns.69 Observing embargoes on military information is another area of professional conduct where standards and expectations have been known to differ between US and Arab television channels. Steve Tatham, a Royal Navy officer, records an instance in which a British officer briefed Arab and Western media that a humanitarian aid ship was being held back pending operations against Iraqi insurgents in the area. According

64

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

to Tatham’s information, when the officer asked the media to delay reporting this information for security reasons, Fox News disregarded the request whereas the Arab media ‘scrupulously complied’.70 In this uneven situation, Arab television journalists aspiring to internationally recognized norms of fair and accurate reporting were less able to counter pressure from Arab governments, commentators and viewers because they could not hold up examples of such reporting in mainstream television in the US. Aidan White, secretary-general of the IFJ, told a gathering at the World Summit on the Information Society in December 2003: ‘Arab media are being criticised and punished for doing what comes naturally to journalists – revealing information and comment from all sides.’ 71 What White meant by ‘punishment’ is considered later in this chapter. For the moment, since this section examines journalists’ aspirations and frustrations in their own words, it is relevant to note that, at the very moment when the language of stardom was being adopted to refer to some prominent figures in television, others were still liable to lose their jobs or be punished by the courts. Al-Jazeera’s first managing director, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, was removed in May 2003 after Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the USbacked Iraqi National Congress and a favourite of the Bush administration at that time, accused him of colluding with the government of Saddam Hussein – a charge that al-Ali denied.72 Akram Khuzam, head of Al-Jazeera’s Moscow bureau from the channel’s start-up in 1996, was dismissed without explanation in September 2005 after Geidar Dzhemal, head of Russia’s Islamic Committee, accused him of making remarks that insulted Islam – a charge that Khuzam and two other organizations of Russian Muslims denied.73 In late 2004, Walid Kurdi was removed suddenly from his position as editor-in-chief of the business news channel CNBC Arabiya, with no reasons given. A subsequent change in the channel’s output seemed to bear out suggestions that its owner had decided to have the economic coverage watered down in a bid to boost advertising revenues from Saudi sources. Meanwhile, as Chapter 2 showed, tight controls on content meant that journalists appearing on television could face a legal summons. This is what happened to Ghada Eid, summoned for questioning for allegedly defaming the Lebanese judiciary in an episode of NTV’s programme Al-Fasad (Corruption) aired on 10 March 2006. It also happened to Zahi Wehbe, host of the Future TV talk show Khaleek

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

65

bil Beit (Stay at Home). Described by veteran print journalist Jihad alKhazen as a ‘diligent professional who prepares his show each week as though it is the first one he presents’,74 Wehbe was sued for defaming Lebanon’s president Emile Lahoud by writing an editorial in the daily Al-Mustaqbal in which he criticized Lahoud’s unwillingness to resign. Collective action and codes of conduct In theory, journalists have a number of options to contest the power of detention or dismissal that government authorities and employers have over them. They can form unions to defend their interests collectively across companies. They can collaborate to establish benchmarks for professional conduct against which to judge the legitimacy of action taken for or against individual journalists. As originators of media content they also have opportunities to use media output to acquaint the public with the workings of the media industry and how far these workings serve the public interest. All three methods have been tried at various times by journalists in Arab television, but their implementation is not straightforward because of legal constraints that Arab governments impose on any organizing activity that is perceived to be political. Unionization, which may provide a platform from which to undertake other forms of professional collaboration, is a fraught issue for television journalists in many Arab states. Whereas a form of national union representation is accorded to journalists in the print media, government monopolies over terrestrial broadcasting have resulted in union membership being denied either in law or practice to journalists who work primarily in privately owned television channels. This matters because officially recognized unions for journalists are often themselves monopoly bodies, and efforts to liberalize this area of activity have met with strong resistance from the establishment. An Egyptian journalist who tried in the late 1990s to create a body called the Syndicate of Independent Journalists was sent to jail.75 For years, broadcast journalists have been excluded from Egypt’s sole Journalists’ Syndicate because, as employees of the state-owned Egyptian Radio and Television Union, they have been controlled directly by the ministry of information. This division between journalists according to their place of work not only reduces opportunities for collective action but actually creates a conflict of interests between print and broad-

66

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

cast journalists. The conflict arises partly because of numbers: ERTU editorial staff are so numerous that they would swamp the Journalists’ Syndicate with members who depend on government for their jobs. But it also stems from the fact that union members who have overcome the barriers to membership imposed on journalists working in non-government newspapers (such as length of service criteria and the need to show a work contract that makes their employer subject to labour laws) are anxious not to undermine the capabilities of their only existing mechanism of representation. It was reported in mid2006 that almost 2,000 broadcast journalists in the ERTU had signed a petition to the information minister for permission to establish a union of their own.76 However, creating a separate body for broadcast workers goes against international norms, whereby a journalist is defined as someone who engages in the ‘gathering, preparation and dissemination of news, information and comment’, without distinction as to the mode of transmission.77 IFJ affiliates also include ‘photographers, camerapeople, creative artists, designers, layout staff and web-site personnel’ in their definition of the term ‘journalist’.78 Thus, under government broadcasting monopolies, the authorities in a country like Egypt were able for years to object to a separate broadcasting union on the apparently principled grounds that ‘journalism is journalism regardless of the medium through which it is practised’.79 Yet, all the time, they knew that applying this principle to the already much constrained Journalists’ Syndicate would further limit its independence. Variations on the no-win situation for television journalists seeking union representation are found even in Lebanon, where private television ownership has been legalized since 1994. Lebanese print journalist Rasha al-Atrash notes that colleagues working in the audiovisual sector ‘have not been allowed to obtain membership of the journalists’ trade union, because their huge numbers would overturn the precarious balance holding now’.80 As to how they are excluded, Atrash explains that membership applications are routinely ‘lost’ before processing, by which means applicants are legally barred from working as journalists, since union membership, albeit prohibitively expensive, is a legal requirement of any practising journalist.81 A failure to enforce this prohibition in practice, or to extort payment of membership fees from those fortunate enough to be counted as

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

67

members, leads Atrash to describe the union as a ‘closed club’ and a ‘sectarian and tribal association under the eternal leadership of one person’. The club protects some journalists as individuals but makes it very difficult for them to ‘form a viable force to act as a pressure group … under the banner of worker solidarity’.82 Discrepancies between law and practice have also been observed in Jordan, with adverse impact for more than 30 reporters employed by the country’s first private terrestrial station with a licence to broadcast news. According to Muhannad al-Khatib, managing director of ATV, ATV journalists recruited in 2006 were in a ‘legal limbo’. They could not join the Jordanian Press Association (JPA) because of rules restricting its membership to journalists in the printed press. Khatib pointed out that, despite this, employees of the state broadcaster, JTV, were allowed into the JPA, and that, technically, without JPA membership, ATV employees would not be permitted to work in Jordan as journalists. Were police to seize the camera of an ATV reporter, the company would consequently have no legal redress. Khatib asked the Jordanian Press Centre, which acts on the government’s behalf, what his reporters should do in case of a clash over their right to cover an event. He was promised a letter of introduction asking other authorities to facilitate their work.83 With these worries in mind, ATV included sessions on legal protection in its training workshops. By contrast, any private television station allowed under the new licensing regime in Morocco should not face such anomalies. The Syndicat national de la presse marocaine (Snpm) not only accommodates journalists from different branches of media, but, in 2002, created a private, non-profit body called the Instance nationale indépendante pour la déontologie de la presse et de la liberté d’expression to act as a ‘moral authority at the heart of the profession to watch over respect for ethics and as a pressure mechanism to put an end to violations of freedom of expression and opinion’.84 The Instance has six objectives, all aimed at defending journalists in accomplishing their mission, preserving the public’s right to information and defending media freedom ‘against all attack’.85 With unions open to broadcast journalists in some countries but not others, and only a minority of countries (notably Kuwait) allowing non-nationals to register with the local journalism union, attempts at pan-Arab cooperation among television journalists have faced serious

68

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

hurdles. There is an umbrella body for Arab press syndicates in the shape of the Cairo-based Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ), but this has been beset by the same contradictions as many of its members. FAJ quarrelled with the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate after the latter elected a new change-oriented leadership in 2003, and a number of FAJ delegates demonstrated a disregard for free speech when they disagreed with the IFJ’s suspension of the Association of Tunisian Journalists, after the latter awarded its ‘golden quill for press freedom’ to the Tunisian president, Zine el-Abidin Ben Ali.86 Where there have been initiatives aimed at promoting pan-Arab professional solidarity among television journalists, these have generally been triggered either by crises affecting pan-Arab channels based abroad or, within the region, by foreign physical and verbal attacks. Early developments in the news content of pan-Arab television were achieved because companies took advantage of the more relaxed regulatory environment of bases in London and Rome. That environment also made it easier for managers to end contracts and cut staffing levels. When that happened, non-Arab labour unions got involved. Orbit’s shortlived contract with the BBC for an Arabic television news service was a formative experience for many in terms of unionization, because the UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) negotiated on behalf of 90 journalists made redundant when the contract was terminated in 1996.87 In 1998 a major round of cost-cutting redundancies at MBC headquarters, then in London, put 40 journalists out of work, while Al-Jazeera also downsized its London office, affecting eight jobs.88 MBC staff reacted by joining the NUJ. The BBC’s decision in 2005 to create its own Arabic Television service raised the prospect of further NUJ involvement in various forms of solidarity action: in 2006, for example, the union organized a protest in London against an assault on BBC journalists in Cairo, who had been pulled from their car and beaten while uniformed Egyptian security officers looked on.89 Ibrahim Nawar, having led NUJ members at MBC at the time of the London redundancies, went on to make journalists’ solidarity a central plank of his efforts to promote media freedom through an advocacy body he created in 2000 under the name Arab Press Freedom Watch (APFW). But APFW, despite its links with the NUJ and IFJ, was envisaged not as a union for journalists but as a regional pressure group.90

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

69

As a regional advocacy body for Arab journalists, APFW was neither the first of its kind nor the last. The aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was eventful for Arab reporters as they saw colleagues killed, injured and imprisoned in Iraq and elsewhere. In September 2003, Taysir Allouni, an Al-Jazeera reporter with Spanish nationality who had interviewed Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested in Spain. Shocked at the implications of this arrest for their own ability to work freely, a group of some 160 Arab journalists working in Dubai signed a joint protest letter to the Spanish embassy. As more shocks followed, so did joint action. In March 2004, two journalists working for Al-Arabiya were shot near a US military checkpoint in Baghdad. Ali Abdel-Aziz, a cameraman, died at the scene and Ali al-Khatib, a correspondent, died in hospital the next day. Around 20 Arab journalists in Baghdad used a news conference given later that month by Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, to protest at the killings. As Powell walked into the room, one journalist read a statement demanding ‘an open investigation’ and guarantees of security for the media, after which the group walked out.91 Shortly afterwards Al-Jazeera staff in Doha formed the Arab Committee for the Defence of Journalists (ACDJ). The Committee’s first priorities were to defend Taysir Allouni and Sami al-Hajj. Allouni’s trial had started in March 2004, descending at times into what a Financial Times account described as a ‘farce’ and part of a ‘Kafkaesque’ ordeal for the defendant.92 Al-Hajj had been seized on the Pakistan border in December 2001 and flown to the US military base at Guantánamo, where he was still held five years later as the only known journalist in the camp. Investigating his plight, the Committee to Project Journalists in New York said public documents showed that Al-Hajj was being held on the basis of ‘assertions of wrongdoing without the documentation or testimony’ that a court would normally consider to be evidence. The CPJ pointed out that, if supporting evidence existed, it was being withheld from Al-Hajj, his lawyer and the public.93 Wadah Khanfar, director-general of Al-Jazeera, said in 2006 that, although the ACDJ’s formation had been prompted initially by the cases of Al-Hajj and Allouni, the committee would ‘take this initiative further for all journalists, all who are detained, not only ours’.94 Even so, journalists elsewhere did not necessarily share the priorities of the ACDJ. In Lebanon, for example, two relatives of journalists targeted

70

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

by car bombs in June and September 2005 disagreed with the idea that the fight to protect journalists is a single cause. Giselle Khoury of AlArabiya, whose husband Samir Qassir was killed, told Habib Battah that she objected to Qassir being ‘placed in the same category’ with someone accused of involvement with the Taliban. Baaklini, sister of LBC anchor Mai Chidyac, who was seriously injured in an assassination attempt, said her sister had not ‘interfered in another country’ but had simply fought for her own country’s independence.95 Meanwhile, with indigenous but separate solidarity initiatives focused on simply keeping correspondents alive or getting them out of jail, the strongest stimuli for devising formal codes of ethics and professional standards came from non-journalistic sources. In particular, the Al-Jazeera Code of Ethics, formally introduced in July 2004, appeared to respond to US government pressure on the government of Qatar. The Code was unveiled at an international media forum in Doha after a period in which US complaints about Al-Jazeera, besides being aired in public, had been directed to the Qatari government through diplomatic channels. These complaints reached a crescendo in early April 2004 when US occupation troops in Iraq tried to recapture Falluja after the killing of four private military contractors in the city, in a spectacle that, like other images of war casualties, had been reported on Al-Jazeera. US officials in Iraq denounced the showing of scenes of violence against US troops as incitement. They also accused some Arab television journalists of having advance knowledge of car bombs and other attacks. US secretary of state Colin Powell declared that US–Qatari relations had been ‘clouded’ by Al-Jazeera’s coverage of events in Iraq and, after discussing the subject with the Qatari foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr, in late April 2004, Powell described the talks as ‘intense’.96 A few days later Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem held talks with US vice-president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington and left them saying he would tell Al-Jazeera to review its coverage, to be more professional and not to disseminate ‘wrong information’.97 The Code of Ethics that was released a few weeks after this episode stressed the validity and accuracy of reporting as a higher priority than getting a scoop. It promised to give ‘full consideration to the feelings of victims of crime, war, persecution and disaster, their relatives, our viewers, and to individual privacies and public decorum’. According

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

71

to one of Al-Jazeera’s presenters, the initiative was essentially a safeguard to distance the channel from Qatar’s ruling family and save its members from future embarrassment caused by coverage that might be hard to defend.98 Representing a big practical step beyond the channel’s simple founding motto, ‘The opinion and the other opinion’, the Code was not immediately popular with everyone at Al-Jazeera. Faisal Al Kasim told an international conference in September 2004 that he was ‘very worried about it’. Alluding to the ‘honour code’ (mithaq al-sharaf) that passes for ethics in official Arab media but is actually designed to protect officials from public scrutiny, he said, ‘It reminds me of the code of the meek that meant that no Arab radio or TV station should talk about certain things. I hope this one will be different.’ 99 Feelings about the Code within Al-Jazeera evolved over time, as the original ten points prioritizing the ‘journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence and diversity’ started to be fleshed out by a drafting committee. Despite being framed within a ‘vision and mission’ aiming at ‘plurality’, ‘professionalism’, ‘public awareness’, ‘tolerance, democracy and the respect of liberties and human rights’, the one-page Code was compared somewhat unfavourably with copious guidelines in force at the BBC. The BBC introduced new guidelines for its editorial staff in June 2005, to take account of criticism of its reporting on the invasion of Iraq. Like the Al-Jazeera Code, the new BBC standards stated that ‘accuracy is more important than speed’. But, in stark contrast to the ten-point Code, the BBC guidelines could fill a book. Ahmad al-Sheikh, chief editor of Al-Jazeera, said in early 2006 that he and others at the channel were compiling something of similar length to ‘cover every possibility’. AlSheikh mentioned kidnappings, scenes of violence, and election advertising as issues that were already covered under the Code. ‘We had an issue over the Palestinian Electoral Commission showing people how to vote,’ he said. ‘We debated whether our Code allows us to do this. In the end we used the footage and told viewers that it came from a paid-for advertisement. But there is no way we would show political advertisements.’ 100 Al-Sheikh also attributed a change of policy on tapes of kidnap victims to the influence of the Code. Suggesting that it was wrong to air statements made by kidnap victims under coercion, he asserted, ‘We shouldn’t give kidnappers an opportunity to get their

72

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

voice on air. When I see scenes of violence also I say don’t use it.’ 101 Although it was never Al-Jazeera practice to screen tapes of beheadings, the Code did surface at a time when such tapes were in circulation, with heavily edited clips appearing on Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and LBC.102 A video showing the beheading of US businessman Nick Berg by militants in Iraq had been released in May 2004. This had been followed soon afterwards by a tape showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life, with kidnappers standing around him. According to Al-Jazeera producer Samir Khader, the channel had a humanitarian reason for screening kidnap tapes. ‘If we don’t air them,’ he said, ‘the person might be killed immediately.’ Nevertheless, he said, the decision was always taken in consultation with the ambassador of the kidnap victim’s country. He added that the technique for showing such tapes had changed. ‘What we don’t do is play the voice of the kidnapped person pleading. And the tape is edited to focus only on the victim and not show the armed gunmen around.’ 103 Deep in AlJazeera’s editing suites, however, there may have been times when the Code of Ethics was used as camouflage for politically motivated decisions. One occasion occurred after bombings in Amman in November 2005, and Al-Jazeera considered whether to show footage of a woman captured by Jordanian forces before she had detonated her bomb. Whereas the Code was reportedly cited as the reason for not showing the clip, it is suggested within the channel that the real reason was fear of exacerbating already shaky Qatari–Jordanian relations. In view of Al-Jazeera journalists’ efforts in 2004 to free incarcerated colleagues, it is noteworthy that the tenth clause of the Code of Ethics released that year explicitly upholds the principle of solidarity. The clause enjoins journalists to ‘Stand by colleagues in the profession and offer them support when required, particularly in light of the acts of aggression and harassment to which journalists are subjected at times.’ It adds, ‘Cooperate with Arab and international journalistic unions and associations to defend freedom of the press.’ In 2005–06, efforts to put this principle into practice took various forms. One was the introduction of a new weekly talk show called Kawalis (Stage Wings), devoted to the subject of media and freedom of expression. Topics addressed on Kawalis in 2006 included the ethics of investigative journalism, digital technology, trade in television rights to sports events, spying on journalists in Germany, the party press and the inde-

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

73

pendent press in Arab countries. Khanfar said the programme aimed to track media challenges and the human rights of media laws and regulations. He explained: It aims to raise the public’s awareness so that they know what happens behind the camera as well as in front of it. Still we are a long way from giving enough importance to these issues. It’s important to say that this approach is warranted from a news perspective. … And it’s necessary because public awareness of violations of freedom of expression can help to protect us. We have continually suffered from complaints motivated by governments and security services, but public support for us has survived for ten years.104

Khanfar also used Al-Jazeera’s second international media forum, in January 2006, to highlight the issue of solidarity. Opening the event, under the theme of ‘Defending Freedom, Defining Responsibility’, he started by calling on the abductors of Jill Carroll, an American reporter kidnapped in Iraq, to release her. He went on to reject any notion that the forum was a public-relations event, warning: We need to safeguard our right to say what we want without politics or money intervening. Our institutions should save some space and time to create awareness with readers and viewers so that, when a colleague is attacked and their rights denied, we need to bring this to the public because they should know.105

External pressures Insights into what Kai Hafez calls the ‘power structures behind ethics codification’106 help towards an understanding of influences on journalism, but there are also power structures behind the struggle to distinguish between journalism and propaganda. These structures stretch well beyond the Arab region and their impact is seen in measures aimed at delegitimizing Arab television reporting as propagandistic. Such measures range from the direct and coercive to the more subtle and apparently consensual. Coercion over recent years has extended to outright bombing of television facilities, with minimal censure except from some international groups representing journalists. Ten days into the Israel–Lebanon war in July 2006, Israeli air attacks on television transmitters and telephone towers in northern Lebanon killed Suleiman al-Chidyac, head of LBC’s transmission facility at Fatqa, northeast of

74

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Beirut, and destroyed the facility. The same day warplanes wounded two people when they struck towers near Tripoli belonging to TéléLiban, Future TV and Al-Manar. Al-Manar is linked to the resistance group Hizbollah, whose abduction of two Israeli soldiers was followed by Israel’s bombardment of Lebanese dwellings and infrastructure. ‘It’s important to understand why the attack was carried out,’ Israel army spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal told news agencies. ‘This will disrupt their ability to communicate.’ In the US, a syndicated feature based on agency reports added another ‘largely unspoken reason for Israel’s focus on the transmission towers’. It said, ‘Propaganda is also a critical weapon on the Lebanese battlefield, and Israel wanted to limit the images of civilian casualties rocketing around the world.’ 107 Journalists’ representatives on the other hand, basing their protest on the Geneva Conventions,108 said that bombing media outlets was not legitimate. Joel Simon, CPJ executive director, said that the aerial bombardment of Lebanon had caused ‘tremendous hardship to civilians, including journalists who are covering the humanitarian crisis’. He added, ‘We have seen no evidence that these media outlets are serving any military function.’ 109 Aidan White of the IFJ highlighted the risks to journalism generally of media outlets being targeted for destruction. ‘Once media are attacked with impunity,’ he said, ‘journalists on all sides are at risk. We insist that journalists and unarmed media must be regarded at all times as non-combatants and must not be attacked by military forces.’ White described the bombardment of media facilities as ‘a deplorable assault on the democratic infrastructure of Lebanon’, saying that media staff would inevitably become the victims of such a policy.110 Abdullah Qassir, director-general of Al-Manar, said that his staff had escaped when Israeli bombs flattened the channel’s headquarters during July, but had since been forced to operate from secret locations. He described the act of ‘striking Al-Manar and the antennas of LBC and other television and radio stations’ as a ‘precedent’ in media history and expressed surprise that the act had not been widely condemned. ‘We do not feel that the positions on the Arab and international levels were commensurate with the gravity of the incident,’ Qassir said.111 Qassir’s surprise was itself surprising, given the number of times television facilities had been bombed or destroyed before July 2006. NATO set a precedent for such activity in April 1999, when it

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

75

deliberately bombed Radio Television Serbia (RTS), killing 16 people. NATO and UK government officials said that the TV station had been a legitimate target because it was a ‘ministry of lies’ that was part of a military machine stirring up ethnic tension and creating the climate for atrocities.112 Amnesty International, in contrast, identified the bombing as a war crime. It pointed out that UK prime minister Tony Blair had appeared to hint in a subsequent BBC documentary that one reason for targeting the station was ‘because its video footage of the human toll of NATO mistakes … was being re-broadcast by Western media outlets and was thereby undermining support for the war’.113 In October 2000, Israeli forces sought to justify an attack against Palestinian national broadcasting facilities by saying that Palestinian television had shown scenes inciting violence against Israelis.114 The destruction was repeated in December 2001 and January 2002, drawing a protest to the Israeli defence minister from Reporters Sans Frontières.115 It was followed in April 2002 by large-scale vandalism perpetrated against private Palestinian stations by Israeli troops reoccupying West Bank towns.116 Al-Jazeera fell victim to bombing in November 2001, when US forces striking Afghanistan hit the Kabul office of Al-Jazeera, killing no one in the office but causing great alarm to the BBC correspondent next door. Journalists who probed the incident found evidence to support suspicions that Al-Jazeera had been deliberately targeted to silence its reporting from Afghanistan.117 A US State Department source revealed in private that senior members of the US military had advocated bombing Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha.118 The question of intention returned with a vengeance in April 2003, when Tariq Ayyoub, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera, was killed and Zuhair al-Iraqi, a member of his crew, was wounded by a US missile strike on Al-Jazeera’s offices in Baghdad. With Abu Dhabi TV offices nearby, staff from the two stations, including Maher Abdallah and Taysir Allouni, cooperated to help the victims to safety. But then Abu Dhabi TV also came under US attack. One of its correspondents called for help on air, saying that a total of 25 media workers were at risk from missiles and shells. In AlJazeera’s coverage of the event, Majed Abdel-Hadi, one of the channel’s Baghdad correspondents, identified himself as an involved commentator rather than a reporter when he told viewers, ‘I will not be objective about this because we have been dragged into this conflict. We were

76

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

targeted because the Americans don’t want the world to see the crimes they are committing against the Iraqi people.’ 119 US military representatives emphatically denied that the missile strike had been deliberately aimed at Arab reporters. Many other media workers from all countries and outlets also lost their lives in Iraq during the invasion. While Al-Jazeera insisted that it had kept the US military informed of the whereabouts of its office to avoid a repetition of the Kabul bombing, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark was equally insistent that ‘A war zone is a dangerous place’. ‘We continue to warn news organizations,’ she was quoted as saying, ‘you should not be there.’ 120 A subsequent trail of leaked memos and politicians’ recollections convinced many observers that, whether or not the attack on Al-Jazeera’s Baghad office was intended, there had been calls within both the US and UK governments for Al-Jazeera to be bombed. In November 2005 the UK’s Daily Mirror claimed to have seen the record of a conversation between Tony Blair and US president George W. Bush at the White House on 16 April 2004, during which Bush mentioned the idea of bombing Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha. Two men charged under the UK’s Official Secrets Act with disclosing the memo learned in October 2006 that their case would definitely be tried in secret, after a judge agreed with British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett that publishing its contents would cause ‘a substantial risk of harm to national security’.121 Al-Jazeera representatives said that, if true, the contents of the memo would undermine claims that earlier US military attacks on Al-Jazeera offices in Kabul and Bahgdad were accidental. After seeking clarification from both the UK and US governments, Khanfar told La Stampa in Italy that his channel would ‘be silent only when we get the truth’.122 He told the Italian news agency AKI, ‘For three years now, the continual attacks, the continual criticism that the American authorities have directed at our work, has created a climate of fear in which it is difficult to work.’ He added, ‘Our journalists are information professionals and are not part of any war.’ 123 A US diplomat quoted in the Washington Post remarked that if Bush had suggested bombing Al-Jazeera he could have meant it as a joke. That interpretation was undermined in October 2006 when the UK’s former home secretary, David Blunkett, told a Channel 4 Dispatches programme that he had urged Blair in March 2003 to destroy Al-

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

77

Jazeera’s Baghdad transmitter. Brushing aside concerns about the illegality under humanitarian law of hitting a civilian target, Blunkett told Dispatches reporter Isabel Tang: ‘I don’t think that there are targets in a war that you can rule out because you don’t actually have military personnel inside them if they are attempting to win a propaganda battle on behalf of your enemy.’ 124 This revelation followed soon after another, about the Kabul bombing in 2001, contained in the book The One Percent Doctrine by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind. Explaining that ‘each one of the disclosures in his book’ had been ‘sourced with many impeccable sources’, Suskind told Amy Goodman of the independent US broadcaster Democracy Now: There was great animosity toward Al-Jazeera at that point. It was felt inside the administration they were the mouthpiece for Bin Laden … and they wanted to send a message. They asked Al-Jazeera to proscribe things it was doing. Al-Jazeera said we’re a media organization, we don’t do that sort of thing. And the headquarters [sic] was bombed. It’s part of a really secret interchange between the US government and Al-Jazeera and the emir of Qatar. … There’s not a doubt about … the thing we’re mentioning, as to the Kabul bombing.125

The US-led wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and the Israel–Lebanon war took place in a formative period for what Dina Khawaja calls the ‘new profession’ of television journalism in the Arab world.126 Arab television correspondents’ exceptional access to people involved in, or caught up in, these wars seemed to give them a newsgathering advantage. But it was an advantage that was turned against them because the very language differences that gave Arab journalists certain advantages also made it harder for them to counter allegations of propaganda. At the same time the ‘newness’ of Arab newsgathering on this scale meant that reporters and editors had a somewhat limited history of editorial decision-making to fall back on when considering how to deal with videotapes from Al-Qaida extremists or how much to show viewers of the carnage of war. Narratives of how they faced the challenges have been recorded in books, television documentaries and film.127 It is clear, for example, that Al-Jazeera’s early handling of such a tape on 7 October 2001 was both a ‘sensational scoop’ and the cause of its being viewed with suspicion.128 It is also clear that Al-Jazeera newsrooms had to grapple simultaneously with their own policy dilemmas under heightened scrutiny from the rest of the world. ‘I think the conflict-

78

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ing accusations are good,’ Ibrahim Helal said at the time, explaining that Al-Jazeera could display plenty of evidence of its adherence to the principle of reporting opinions from all sides.129 Hafez al-Mirazi, in contrast, was concerned at the way evidence was being stifled in US discussion about Al-Jazeera, through selective translation and reproduction of the channel’s material. ‘We’re a channel whose motto is “both sides” … and people are only shown one side,’ he argued – ‘they don’t have the opportunity to check the source.’ 130 These contradictions set the scene for the new-style Arab television journalism of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya to be portrayed, via dominant US-based media, as taking sides in the war on Iraq. Thus US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld felt able to ignore growth and diversification in Arab television newsgathering when, in November 2003, he accused ‘irresponsible journalists and irresponsible television stations, particularly like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya’ of reporting ‘so many things that are untrue’.131 The next month Rumsfeld asserted that US troops in Baghdad had evidence that Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera were cooperating with Iraqi insurgents attacking US troops. ‘How it happens is for time to tell, but it happens,’ he said.132 Robert Tappan, director of strategic communication for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, complained on US National Public Radio in April 2004 that stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya were being ‘used in the most disgusting way to further political or terrorist ends’.133 When Dorrance Smith, a former CPA media advisor, made a similar charge in the Wall Street Journal in April 2005, under the title ‘The Enemy on our Airwaves’, Ballout wrote back that it was ‘outrageous and defamatory’. He said that the ‘wholly unsubstantiated claim that employees of Al-Jazeera may have had prior knowledge of terrorist attacks’ had been proved ‘baseless by a US government investigation’.134 To treat journalists not as reporters of conflict but as parties to it has repercussions for their ability to gather news. For Arab governments disinclined to grant access to well-informed local reporters, Western hurdles to Arab newsgathering provided a welcome excuse. The New York Stock Exchange briefly banned Al-Jazeera reporters from its trading floor in 2003, even though they had been broadcasting daily from that vantage point for several years. Al-Jazeera also had difficulty getting anyone embedded with US or British troops during the invasion of Iraq; the US-led coalition would only embed

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

79

reporters who had press accreditation with the authorities in Kuwait or Bahrain, which was denied to Al-Jazeera. Amr al-Kahky, who did have a Kuwaiti press card, gained a place with Coalition troops just before the war began, only to be excluded from the morning briefing given by the commanding officer of the unit he was embedded with on the grounds that Al-Jazeera ‘had a reputation’.135 A decision by the Iraqi Governing Council in August 2004 to suspend the Baghdad operations of Al-Jazeera was extended indefinitely. A similar ban on Al-Arabiya was lifted after three months, but reimposed in September 2006 by the elected Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki. The Saudi authorities persistently denied visas to Al-Jazeera staff from 2002. Even so, difficulties of access are not the only deterrent to new-style Arab journalism. There are also major concerns about being accused of collusion with terrorists. The IJF’s Aidan White warned that the seven-year prison sentence handed down to Taysir Allouni ‘could have the effect of closing down sources of information that journalists need, to get the facts behind the propaganda that dominates the socalled war on terrorism’.136 A further generator of hostility to Arab journalists, coinciding with successive peaks of US and Arab government pressure, was the dissemination of translations from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). MEMRI was founded in Washington in 1998 by a former Israeli military intelligence officer, Colonel Yigal Carmon. MEMRI’s work purported to provide non-speakers of Arabic with insights into media output in that language. In such a politically fraught context, however, any mistranslation had the effect of amplifying already negative portrayals. Mohammed el-Oifi, a Paris-based political scientist, cites the example of an exchange on the Al-Jazeera talk show Akthar min Ra’i after the London suicide bombings of July 2005. MEMRI opted to translate a contribution by Hani al-Sebai, an Islamist living in Britain, on whether the concept of civilian status exists in Islamic jurisprudence. Sebai stressed in his comments that Islam prohibits the killing of innocent people. But the translation was so loose that it introduced a contentious expression, dar al-harb (parts of the world where there is war against Islam), which the speaker had not used, and omitted any mention of the prohibition on killing innocents.137 Worrying inaccuracies in other MEMRI translations were pointed out in a document prepared for the London mayor, Ken Livingstone, to

80

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

rebut attacks on his decision to meet Yousef al-Qaradawi, known to television viewers through his contributions to Al-Jazeera’s Al-Sharia wa’l-Hayat.138 Since some very ill-informed and inflammatory media debate undeniably takes place in Arabic, as in other languages, the challenge facing Arab television journalists with high aspirations was how to encourage readers of MEMRI material to discriminate between new and old-style news reporting, and between news reports and the opinions of panellists and interviewees. One more strand in the complex web of external influences stems from the high hopes, harboured by supporters of the invasion of Iraq, that the invasion would plant the seeds of a whole new media landscape across the Arab world. A Media Development Team advising the CPA in 2004, backed by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, saw the introduction of media legislation under the CPA (notably Orders 65 and 66 on the licensing and regulation of broadcasting and telecommunications) as a means to lay down the ‘best democratic principles’ in the sector, ‘to which the rest of the Arab world aspire’.139 In line with this objective, a considerable volume of US and UK financial support was directed towards journalism training programmes in Arab countries. In May 2004, Al-Jazeera journalists underwent a training course in Doha paid for by the Media Outreach Center at the American embassy in London and run by Search for Common Ground, an NGO based in Washington and Brussels that tries to encourage collaborative approaches to resolving conflict. As part of the training, Al-Jazeera staff were encouraged to choose new vocabulary when reporting suicide bombings, Palestinian casualties and hostilities in Iraq. By this stage, Al-Arabiya had already minimized the potential for attracting non-Arab disapproval on this score. But even the term ‘occupation’, adopted by Al-Arabiya, misrepresented the CPA’s function in Iraq, according to Nabeel Khoury, the Media Outreach Center’s deputy director. Arab news channels were ‘still young’, he told Arab journalists and academics in March 2004, ‘and they act like young people who sometimes rush to judgement and may need to exercise more self-restraint’.140 In foreign-funded journalism training programmes, notions of ‘self-restraint’ are often those of funding bodies and their partner organizations in the Arab region. There is concern among Arab journalists that ‘the implementation of journalism training programs is

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

81

sometimes entrusted to … state-controlled media or press syndicates friendly to governments’.141 Similar criticisms have been made of the US government’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), aimed at addressing the deficits of knowledge, freedom and women’s empowerment identified in the first Arab Human Development Report in 2002. A review of MEPI’s first two years highlighted a basic contradiction between external support for ‘democratization’ alongside the persistence of Arab government measures to prevent groups from organizing independently to protect their interests.142 For example, Egyptian government insistence on approving foreign grants for media training and technical support reportedly ensured that Egyptian TV would be a main beneficiary.143 After MEPI attracted criticism for being an exclusively US programme, efforts were made to widen consultation among Middle East, North African and G8 countries.144 One outcome of these talks was the creation, in November 2005, of a non-profit institution called Foundation for the Future, with $50 million to disburse on projects to ‘advance democracy’, including promotion of gender equality and development of political parties and ‘independent media’.145 The Foundation’s board, as announced in 2006, included two prominent personalities with a close interest in Arab television. They were Naguib Sawiris of Egypt and Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed of Saudi Arabia.146 Conclusion Some assessments of the practice of Arab television journalism and the satellite channels through which it is practised have described the journalism as constituting a ‘new profession’ and the channels as ‘young’. But listening to the professionals themselves suggests that, whatever the newness of their professional status or their employers, it is a nascent new-style journalism that matters most because, regionally, it is not yet a matter of consensus. It is clear from the statements of a number of senior television editors, reporters and presenters, including those who have trained other staff, that their particular approach to journalism differs strikingly from the pan-Arab cause-led occupational ideology which McFadden described in the colonial 1950s and which, as suggested by pressures on journalists from viewers, managers and owners, remains widely espoused today. Proponents of a new-style journalism in Arab television explicitly reject the practice

82

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

of the past half-century as complicit in a forced, top-down unity of ‘hollow slogans’ that dehumanized the media and left citizens without the information needed to explain deficiencies in local political systems and social services. Recognition of the need for a new-style journalism predated satellite television, and it is individual journalists who now lead the way in practising it, not television companies or channels. These individuals have found themselves at odds over their ‘no-agenda agenda’ with others in their immediate environment. At critical moments, such as during the bombing of Afghanistan, Iraq or Lebanon, precedents for the practice of fair and probing journalism were also lacking from colleagues further afield, whether in US television networks or Al-Hurra. But scope for putting a new-style journalism into practice in Arab television increased nonetheless, thanks in part to a proliferation of jobs that the rise of 24-hour news and other channels helped to bring about. There is arguably a link between the degree to which journalists believe in the type of journalism they practise and the degree to which they feel motivated to defend it. Where reporters break ranks to pursue new avenues of journalism in the public interest, they have an incentive to organize together to stop their efforts from being undermined. Despite this, creation of institutional mechanisms in Arab countries for defending the new-style journalism did not keep pace with creation of jobs for television journalists. In many countries, rules on unionization continued to block print and broadcast journalists from acting in solidarity with each other, and denied adequate protection from local security agencies to broadcast journalists employed by non-government or foreign channels. The biggest efforts towards collective action were consequently reactive rather than proactive, being triggered by physical violence against journalists. But a lack of consensus on the purpose of journalism also hampered efforts among journalists to treat professional solidarity as a seamless single cause. The chapter showed that those who position journalists in relation to struggles for independence or other political causes do not necessarily identify with those who see the primary struggle for journalists as defending the right to report. Structural changes in Arab television did not lessen the risks involved in asserting the right to report. On the contrary, those risks appeared to mount as journalists worked to bring images and narratives

C O N F L IC T I N G I N F L U E N C E S O N A R A B T V J OU R N A L I S M

83

of invasion and occupation to television screens. Dangers arising from Arab governments’ objections to free reporting were compounded by new objections from elsewhere. Just as ‘no-agenda’ journalists said they were trying to suppress their personal feelings to develop an understanding of objectivity that was novel in Arab media, foreign powers showed signs of being ready to flout international humanitarian safeguards by treating selected war correspondents not as civilians but combatants. While ‘no-agenda’ journalists were developing indigenous models of news reporting unfamiliar to Arab viewers, foreign powers were collaborating with officially approved organizations to provide journalism training as part of externally funded democratization programmes. The contradiction here was not between conflicting ideals of professionalism, but between international norms on the one hand and the organizational structures to support and realize them on the other.

4

Women in the Public Eye: ‘Advancement’ via TV? Among the many lively arguments that take place about Arab television are those that consider its implications for power balances between women and men, and between different groups of women. Some people think television channels could do more to improve women’s lot. Queen Rania of Jordan, as president of the Arab Women’s Summit in 2002–04, created an advisory council called the Arab Women’s Media Campaign to remind heads of satellite channels and other media leaders that they had a role to play in correcting ‘misconceptions’ about Arab women.1 Supporters of this approach see satellite television as having particular potential for women in the region as a medium of education, a means to exchange ideas and a platform for ‘empowerment’.2 But pessimists, pointing to commodification of female performers on music channels, take a different view. They fear that ‘women’s issues’ have been put on hold in the rest of the media pending resolution of the moral crisis that music television has stirred up, and they see the crisis being deepened by the ‘discourse of patriarchal fundamentalism’ said to characterize certain religious talk shows.3 A third interpretation comes from Fatema Mernissi. Pleased to see confident and intelligent female role models on screen, Mernissi credits the phenomenon of satellite channels that she dubs ‘digital Islam’ with demonstrating that large numbers of male viewers have rejected the archaic notion that their masculinity is threatened by powerful women. The novelty, she writes, is that these men, who ‘crave their own emancipation from authoritarian censorship, have become alert enough to disconnect power from gender’.4 Such arguments tend to view television content as a catalyst for, or amplifier of, social and political change taking place in wider society. 85

86

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

As such they focus attention on television itself, citing examples to support a view that things are getting ‘better’ or ‘worse’. Yet research is often more illuminating when it is not framed in terms of ‘eitheror’. James Curran, tracking rival narratives of British media history, distinguishes between ‘affirmative narratives’, including those tracking progress in media treatment of changing gender norms, and a radical counter-narrative that is less reassuring because it highlights ways in which the ‘forward march of the people was halted or reversed’.5 His response is to construct a synthesis that folds media histories into a more comprehensive narrative of society. He finds that contextualizing media history ‘dissolves linear narratives’, replacing them with a ‘more contingent view of ebb and flow, opening and closure, advances in some areas and reverses in others’.6 It is an approach in tune with that of several scholars of women’s advancement in the Arab world, whose contextualizations reveal that even the very term ‘advancement’ connotes the existence of agendas that have changed over time and need to be understood in their own right. Notable among such work is the collection of essays edited by Lila Abu-Lughod, which engages with various colonial, nationalist and religious ‘projects of remaking women’. In it Abu-Lughod reveals how dichotomous categories such as traditional versus modern, radical versus conservative, or indigenous and culturally authentic versus Western-oriented and inauthentic, obscure complexities and contradictions that should be central to scholarly stories about gender and power. ‘Remaking’ projects tend to be based on these dichotomous categories, which are themselves social constructs; as such they are liable to produce unintended consequences and/or prove less emancipatory than first thought. The task of research is therefore to identify who is defining advancement and to ask how ideas that inform ‘projects of reform and political struggle around women’ are deployed as part of ‘projects of power’.7 As Abu-Lughod goes on to show elsewhere, in a study comparing the experiences of women who write, act in and watch serialized dramas on Egyptian television, projects of remaking women persist in the twenty-first century. They are undertaken by people who see television as a pedagogical and developmental tool for improving the status of women whom they classify as poor and uneducated. The problem is that notions of advancement implicit in the consciousness-raising projects of well-meaning writers and direc-

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

87

tors are too often framed in moralistic and paternalistic terms that reaffirm the ‘authority of the educated’ and the dependency and ‘ignorance’ of marginalized or rural communities’.8 On the basis of her evidence, Abu-Lughod cautions that ‘pronouncements about media’s contribution to progressive change for women need to be questioned carefully’.9 Since one reason for the rapid growth of Arab television is the rise of private commercial channels competing for audiences and advertisers, it is also important to remember that female viewers are attractive to channel owners as consumers. Women’s magazines are a profitable area of publishing because the areas they cover, namely fashion, food and family, are rich in advertising potential. The advertising sales effort behind Al-Aan, a channel aimed at ‘Arab women and families’ that launched in 2006, testifies to the assumption of its backer, the Dubai holding group Tower Media, that certain kinds of infotainment can be financially self-sustaining. Here again, as in Abu-Lughod’s Egyptian examples, questions arise about the different kinds of access that are available to television for different groups of women. To investigate television is to discover who is using the medium to communicate with whom. Lisa McLaughlin has noted the ‘antagonism that is ripe for intervention’ today, between ‘an expanding, merging, and increasingly powerful for-profit media and those who are unable to access this media except as consumers’.10 It may be admirable to talk of dialogue among the world’s heterogeneous women, in ways that can account for differences in individual and collective experiences. But, McLaughlin warns, efforts in this direction should be ‘accompanied by an awareness’ of the ‘levels of economic, political, and ideological power that can constrain or sabotage dialogue among women’.11 In the case of Arab television, that injunction points to a two-fold research agenda. Alongside the need to better understand women’s differential access to the medium is a need to be alert to obstacles that television may place in the way of dialogues that could improve women’s lives. Being alert to constraints on dialogue entails being aware that women’s resistance to gender inequalities takes many forms – so many indeed that the term ‘resistance’ as generally understood may not incorporate them all. Saba Mahmood’s exploration of the discourse of piety among some Muslim women has shown that the ‘binary terms of resistance and subordination’ fail to embrace many women’s ‘projects,

88

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

discourses and desires’.12 Amal Treacher and Hala Shukrallah note the heavy price that may be exacted for explicitly challenging patriarchy, the state and global capitalism in the Arab region, where many nations are in ‘perpetual fear of losing their boundaries, of being taken over and engulfed economically’ by Western forces, including the US.13 This fear means that nationalism cannot be treated as a masculinist discourse, since women too are ‘necessarily implicated in a fight to live in material comfort, dignity and freedom’.14 Treacher and Shukrallah wrote those words before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and before US interest groups attempted to co-opt the Arab Human Development Report analysis of ‘freedom deficits’ as a rationale for promoting the Middle Eastern Partnership Initiative (MEPI). By identifying the aim of ‘empowering’ women as one of its pillars, the MEPI project effectively closed off options for resistance on the part of women who wish to resist US hegemony along with whatever else they find offensive in their lives. As pointed out in another work on gender and global restructuring, the political space for women and men to articulate sources of and remedies for inequality is greatly reduced when global power imbalances conspire to associate feminism with Westernization, secularism, liberalism, state socialism, and/or sexual and social licence.15 The rich literature that is accumulating on gender, citizenship and communication in Arab settings offers an abundance of insights to inform studies of how women use Arab television channels and how those channels position women. The present chapter draws on notions of differential access, the demonstrable existence of agendas for ‘remaking’ women, and an understanding that resistance to unfairness may take unfamiliar forms. It begins with some reminders about women’s agency in Arab television over previous decades and goes on to consider channel owners’ motives for recruiting women reporters, presenters and producers, comparing these with the outcomes of this recruitment. Finally, the chapter explores whether new strands of dialogue have been possible through television and draws some general conclusions about the use of Arab television as a medium of communication to benefit women. Historical perspectives Too often, mainstream media coverage of developments in Arab satel-

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

89

lite television provides incomplete or selective background. In doing so it tends to blot out the contributions of many people who, despite not living in the satellite era, helped to shape the way it would come to be. The tendency is particularly strong in Western accounts, where ruptures affecting international relations with Arab states are routinely treated as though they mark the beginning of Middle Eastern time. Eric Davis noted, soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, that a considerable amount of writing about the Arab world ‘suffers from a “presentist” fallacy, in which historical forces are given only cursory attention’. This in turn, he argued, contributes to constructions of the region as ‘something “unique” and “exotic”, thus providing yet additional encouragement for viewing [it] in terms of political spectacle’.16 Generations of Arab women journalists and activists are among the neglected historical forces. To take just one example, leaders of the pan-Arab feminist movement that grew along with nationalist struggles across the region in the 1920s and 1930s may have communicated with each other by letter,17 not electronically, but their evident sense of belonging to and participating in a pan-Arab community adds an essential strand of historical perspective to claims that ‘Satellite television has created a sense of belonging to, and participation in, a kind of virtual Arab metropolis’.18 Television took off in the Gulf in the 1960s and 1970s and, in some Gulf countries, a few local women gained the backing of their families and the ruling establishment to appear on screen or work on sets from the very earliest days, despite the strong disapproval of more conservative sections of society. Having been brought up not to mix with men or show their faces outside close family, women faced particular challenges and dilemmas in the television industry. These were summarized in the late 1970s by a Qatari headteacher who recounted how she had reacted angrily to being headhunted for a job in Qatari TV, seeing it as an insult to herself and her family. Explaining her reaction later, she said: I was afraid because people really gossip a lot here and I knew that they would say that so-and-so who gets up in public and is seen by everybody can’t really be the daughter of a good family, or that she has no one to look after her. This offer was made six or seven years ago. In twenty years or so from now, it might be possible.19

Naima al-Mutawwaa, an information specialist in Qatar’s ministry

90

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

of foreign affairs, leaves no doubt as to the degree to which Amina Mohammed and Aisha Mohammed ‘challenged all social circumstances’ when they appeared on Qatar TV at its launch in 1970. Mutawwaa names Fawzia Saleh, who followed them as a presenter of children’s programmes and news bulletins, as ‘one of the pillars’ of the station, who stayed with it through to the 1990s. The significance of this is implicit in the fact that others who were influenced by wider society’s negative views of female broadcasters ‘preferred to withdraw’, while constant advertising by Qatar TV to recruit women and opportunities for women to study for media qualifications abroad failed to produce much of a response.20 Whereas the rise of magazine publishing aimed at Qatari women readers led to articles being published about women working in television, along with their photographs, some of the women writing for these outlets continued to reflect family fears about publicity by adopting pseudonyms, such as Bint al-Khalij (Daughter of the Gulf). Against this backdrop, the appearance of local actors in Qatar TV’s early programmes about social issues becomes especially worthy of note. A series that ran in the 1970s, based on letters sent in by members of the public, consisted of dramatizations followed by discussion between a presenter and a local official. The topics dramatized included forced marriage, dowries and childlessness.21 Kuwait TV had similar programmes involving female actors and presenters. As Haya al-Mughni and Mary Ann Tétreault explain, few families in the 1960s or 1970s allowed their daughters to appear on television or take up acting as a career, but the work of women like Fatma al-Hussein and Suad Abdullah in these spheres helped to encourage the entry of others.22 A British author, visiting Kuwait in 1980, declared himself astonished to see a ‘young Kuwaiti woman’ with her own theatre troupe performing a series of sketches on television about subjects such as drunkenness, bureaucracy and marriage to foreigners. At the end of each sketch, she would ‘come before the curtain and discuss it with the audience’.23 Internal resistance to the introduction of television in Saudi Arabia in 1965 is well documented, partly because of suspicions that the assassination of King Faisal ten years later might have been in revenge for the killing by police of an anti-television protester who was a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founder, Ibn Saud. Conservatives objected not merely to the appearance of women in public but to any image of

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

91

the human form, and an armed group attempted unsuccessfully to storm the television station and destroy its transmitter. Religious leaders and lawyers had already protested at hearing a women’s voice on Radio Makkah for the first time in 1963, to which King Faisal had replied that they might soon see women on television.24 Nawal Baksh, director of family and society programmes for Riyadh Radio, recalls speaking on Saudi radio as a teenager in 1964 and becoming the first Saudi girl to appear on Saudi TV in 1966.25 Her subsequent career as programme-maker and presenter took her into television as well as radio, where one of her programmes, Al-Beit al-Saeed (The Happy Home), ran for 30 years. But women’s presence on television became a casualty of state politics. Some of those directly affected see the siege of the Makkah Mosque by religious extremists in 1979 as marking the start of a wave of anti-women activity within parts of the state apparatus. That activity was reinforced after US troops were stationed in the kingdom for the 1991 US-led war to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. Douglas Boyd reports that, after the Makkah siege, Saudi women were banned from television altogether for a short time, after which written rules for Saudi television continued to include a ban on women appearing on screen during the month of Ramadan.26 Nevertheless, developments in the first decade of television in the kingdom help to explain why Saudi media women of an older generation feel hurt and misrepresented by suggestions that efforts to raise women’s profile on television began from scratch in the aftermath of the suicide attacks by Saudi and other hijackers in the US on 11 September 2001. At the same time it cannot be assumed that recent increases in the general visibility of women on Gulf television indicate anything in particular about wider attitudes as to what constitutes acceptable behaviour for women. Sheikha Yousef Hassan al-Jiffri, the only winning female candidate in Qatar’s 2003 municipal elections, told a seminar in Kuwait in 2005 that her family in Qatar, despite supporting her candidacy, had refused to let her show her face on her own campaign advertising.27 In other parts of the Arab world, as in the Gulf, women had a presence in terrestrial television that was significant in terms of national media development, even though it may have been small in purely numerical terms. Again, in some countries there were constraints on women in journalism because of objections to their mixing with unrelated men. Social customs also meant that non-journalistic work

92

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

by women on radio did not automatically open the way for them on television. In light of these considerations, appearances on television deserve to be noted. Heba Assaf mentions the Palestinian women who worked with Huna al-Quds and Al-Sharq al-Adna radio stations in the 1930s and 1940s and who were among those displaced to other Arab countries by the establishment of Israel in 1948.28 From then until the Israeli–Palestinian Oslo Accords of 1993, there was no Palestinian television on Palestinian territory for anyone, male or female, to work in. Even so, the rise of a generation of Palestinian women journalists able to report for television from inside the Occupied Territories took place during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising), which began in December 1987. As foreign media arrived to cover the intifada, they became increasingly dependent on Palestinian counterparts, including female photographers and university graduates with foreign-language skills who were able to assist with interviews conducted inside people’s homes.29 In July 1993, a Palestinian NGO, the Jerusalem Film Institute, led a television workshop to film an experimental Palestinian evening news programme complete with live interviews, field reports, local sports and weather. In this programme, according to one of its contributors, there were three women – Iman al-Sharif, Shuruq alAssaad and Benaz Somiry – and one man, Bassam Abu Sumayah. Each of the three women went on to work in channels created subsequently: Sharif for Palestinian TV, Assaad for Nile TV and Somiry for the privately owned Al-Quds Educational TV.30 While these developments were taking place, the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), a coalition of Palestinian political parties and NGOs, was working to raise gender awareness in politics and the media. Its creation was a reaction against the virtual absence of women from technical committees set up under the framework of multilateral peace talks in 1991.31 The WATC campaigned for women to have a quota of 30 per cent of seats on the Palestinian Legislative Council when it was first elected in 1996, and finally succeeded in getting a 20 per cent quota system adopted in 2004. Of 314 candidates standing for election to the Council in 2006, 71 were women. According to Filistiniyat, an NGO that monitored media coverage of the election campaign, not a single one was covered on Palestine TV, the official station. Nevertheless, female candidates, including Khalida Jarrar, Hanan Ashrawi, Siham Barghouti and Amal Khreisha,

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

93

were shown for varying lengths of time on two local stations, Watan TV and Al-Amal TV, and on Al-Jazeera.32 The Palestinian experience, in which the emergence of female television journalists can usefully be viewed in the context of active NGOs and multiple private television stations, contrasts strikingly with the trajectory of women’s presence in television in Egypt. Television was launched there as a wholly governmental enterprise in 1960, by an administration that appointed the country’s first female minister in 1962 and created an equal-opportunity environment in the government sector. The latter policy resulted in what some describe as ‘feminization of the government sector’, along with a measure of progress for women in gaining access to senior positions.33 But the policies were geared more to reinforcing presidential power than creating space for women-friendly agendas; being introduced by decree by Egyptian governments that lacked a popular mandate, the policies themselves were tainted with authoritarianism.34 Thus women’s visibility in broadcasting was interesting in terms of comparative numbers, but not much else. For example, there were plenty of female candidates for posts created when Egypt launched its own satellite, Nilesat, in 1998 and created new channels to take advantage of Nilesat’s digital technology. Names of women who have held senior posts at various times include Soheir al-Etrebi and Mounira Kafafi, head and deputy head of television within the state-owned Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU), Sana Mansour and Doreya Sharafeddin as successive heads of the ERTU’s satellite department, Soheir Hafez, deputy director of ERTU news, Zeinab Sweidan, head of Channel 1, Mervat Ragab, news announcer on Channel 2 and head of ERTU international relations, Nagwa Abul-Naga and Tahany Halawa, head and deputy head of the Nile Thematic Channels. It is also true that the impact of this phenomenon was felt when private satellite channels were finally allowed to operate from a designated free zone inside Egypt under legislation introduced in 2000. Sana Mansour played a role with Dream TV during 2004, after retiring from the ERTU. Magda Kotb, who took on the top job at Egypt’s Al-Mehwar channel when it started in 2002, was reportedly chosen from a list of about eight candidates of whom five were women. The others besides Kotb were Etrebi, Mansour, Hala Sirhan and Nagwa Ibrahim.35 However, the Egyptian case equally demonstrates that women’s

94

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

seniority in television need have little bearing on their representation in the executive branch of government, the legislature or the judiciary. Women rarely account for more than two seats on the Egyptian cabinet, out of around 32. They occupy around 15 seats out of 264 on the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament, 1 per cent of seats on local councils, and are virtually absent from leadership posts on professional syndicates.36 Before legislative elections in November 2005, seven women were elected to the 454-seat People’s Assembly; another four filled seats reserved for presidential appointees. In the 2005 elections the total number of women elected to the Assembly fell to four.37 As of 2006, Egypt had 6,000 judges, all but one of whom were men. Access to the airwaves Contextualization in terms of history, politics and society puts the presence or absence of women in television in perspective. A minimal presence may still be politically and socially significant if it reflects contests about gender norms going on between different parts of the establishment. In contrast, large numbers of senior women in television may have little to do with countering inequality if women are all but absent in other areas of public life. With the arrival of satellite channels in the 1990s a new transnational context was created, in which disparities between women’s visibility in different countries were exploited in the emerging competition to attract viewers. Lebanese channels put on morning aerobics and glitzy late-night cabaret which, in the words of one analyst, was like beaming Beirut nightlife into Gulf homes.38 The hiring of female presenters in news studios was part of the same approach. It is often said that LBC and Future, the two Lebanese satellite channels that started in 1996, used women anchors in low-cut attire in a bid to woo Gulf audiences, who were unaccustomed to seeing women on their own television screens. A joke circulating at the time held that LBC actually meant ilbissi (feminine singular form of the Arabic for ‘get dressed’) and recollections of women working in the industry suggest the joke had an element of truth. Najat Sharafeddine of Future TV remembers a Lebanese director telling female presenters that viewers wanted to see them, not listen to them.39 ‘TV works according to the “star” system, empowering women through their beauty,’ Gebran Tueni told one of his reporters on Al-Nahar.40

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

95

Whatever the motives behind recruitment of women presenters, the outcome was a situation in which individuals could make their mark as professional personalities popular with both male and female audiences. In a survey of eight Arab countries in August 2004, viewers of both sexes named Khadija bin Qenna of Al-Jazeera and Muntaha alRamhi of Al-Arabiya as being among their five most preferred television anchors.41 The survey was conducted before Bin Qenna had the added exposure of hosting Al-Jazeera’s popular weekly programme Al-Sharia wa’l-Hayat (Sharia and Life). She took over that role in September 2004, after Maher Abdallah, the previous host, was killed in a car crash. Bin Qenna, an Algerian, who started covering her head on screen in 2003, had gained a reputation for her interviewing skills. Fatema Mernissi, after seeing Bin Qenna interview Algeria’s president, Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, described her as a ‘ferocious interviewer’.42 Professional reputations are important in television, where news anchors and talkshow hosts build a relationship with their audience and may take that audience with them from one channel to another. Al-Arabiya realized this when recruiting for its launch in 2003. It poached Muntaha al-Ramhi from Al-Jazeera and Giselle Khoury from LBC, along with famous field reporters from other channels. Mai Chidyac and Shada Omar became known for their shows on LBC, Maria Maalouf for hers on New TV, while Leila al-Sheib, Joumana Nammour and Fairouz Zayani became established on Al-Jazeera, bringing with them experience that, in Nammour’s case, included spells with both Future and New TV. Expansion into satellite transmission and longer broadcasting hours at the Hizbollah channel, Al-Manar, brought with it a growing presence of female presenters, attired in accordance with their religious beliefs.43 It so happened that the rise of the female studio host took place at a time when the risks of any job in television were becoming increasingly severe. Eruption of the second intifada in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2000, Israeli assaults on Palestinian towns and refugee camps in 2002, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, car bombings in Lebanon in 2005, followed by the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006: the sequence of events not only made reporting more dangerous for those in the field but also brought dangers even to people working in the studio. Mai Chidyac survived a car bombing in September 2005, losing limbs and suffering multiple burns. This assassination

96

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

attempt was one of a series in Lebanon that year, the others killing the prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, Samir Qassir, former Communist leader George Hawi, and Gebran Tueini, editor of Al-Nahar. On the day she was attacked, Chidyac had hosted a programme discussing Syria’s possible involvement in Hariri’s assassination. Despite her injuries, she reappeared on LBC 60 days later, becoming a symbol of resistance by vowing not to abandon her job. Wars in the region led to an increase in the number of women reporting to camera in war zones. Viewers became accustomed to seeing Shirin Abu Aqla reporting for Al-Jazeera on the frontline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but there were other conflicts to come. The killing of more than 90 journalists in Iraq in 43 months after the invasion was to mark it out as one of the deadliest conflicts to cover. This was not foreseen in early 2003, when, as with the early hiring of female presenters, there appears to have been some calculated manoeuvring by certain Arab television channels for reasons of competition. Facing better-resourced competitors, it appears that Future TV opted to send three women to cover the invasion of Iraq in 2003, reportedly hoping that they would compensate in charisma for what the channel lacked in advanced technology. The reporters, Najat Sharafeddine, Diana Moukalled and Najwa Qassim, did not receive safety training like Western journalists, being expected to apply whatever they had already learned from their work on other conflicts. Sharafeddine had previously reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan. She recalls being accused by her editor of demoralizing viewers when she reported expectations that Baghdad would fall ‘in five days’.44 Moukalled, who went to Kurdistan in 2003, had previously covered conflicts while making her documentary series Bi’l-Ain al-Mujarrada (With the Naked Eye). This was something she went into after seeing Israeli forces bomb civilians sheltering at a United Nations post in southern Lebanon in 1996.45 Working on her documentary series she collected the personal testimonies of Algerian women who survived the mass slaughter of villagers and abduction and rape of women during the civil war, Kurdish and Kuwaiti women who suffered at the hands of Iraqi forces under the regime of Saddam Hussein, and Sahrawi women living in camps near the southern Algerian town of Tindouf.46 Writing about her experiences, Moukalled questioned the traditional view of women as victims of war or ‘silent defenders of

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

97

their homes’. She noted that, even though women were fighters and politicians as well as victims, and protestors against the war on Iraq or supporters of it, the strongest and most enduring images of women that ‘lingered in viewers’ minds’ were those of women mourning lost family members.47 Women reporters fell victim to violence in Iraq like their male colleagues and thus, in a sense, became part of the story. But the journalists, like the people whose lives and deaths they reported on, were not unresisting victims. Najwa Qassim, who covered the Iraq War for Future TV, went on to join Al-Arabiya. She was at AlArabiya’s Baghdad bureau in October 2004 when it was attacked by a car bomb, which killed seven people, including five journalists, and wounded 14 others.48 Cut by broken glass and badly shaken, Qassim reported live by telephone and then by video feed to tell her audience that the bodies of her dead colleagues were too badly mutilated to identify. Threats were then made against her life on an insurgent group’s website, accusing her of spreading lies against the Iraqi ‘resistance’.49 October 2004 saw the roadside killing of Liqaa Abdel-Razak of Iraq’s Al-Sharqiya station, whose husband, an interpreter, had been murdered two months earlier. In February 2006, Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi journalist who had left Al-Jazeera in December 2005 to join AlArabiya and whose face was known across the Arab world, was killed with two colleagues. The four-member crew had driven to the edge of Samarra where a huge bomb had destroyed a Shia shrine. Blocked by checkpoints from entering the city, Bahjat remained on the outskirts, transmitting live interviews with local people, who condemned the bombing. Gunmen arrived on the scene soon afterwards, seized her and the remaining crew members and shot them. Accounts of the killing said the gunmen were specifically seeking ‘the correspondent’.50 Despite the obvious dangers, female correspondents were often first on the scene during Israel’s attempt to crush Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon in July–August 2006. For Ali Khalil, who wrote about the phenomenon for the news agency AFP, this in itself was newsworthy. He found that the female correspondents dispatched to hotspots by private channels in Lebanon ‘outnumber[ed] their male counterparts’.51 Although it has been suggested that there are Western women reporters who risk their lives in foreign war zones with the aim of advancing their careers,52 the foreign correspondent’s situa-

98

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

tion is inevitably different from that of a journalist whose home and family are in the area under attack. The risks to reporters in Lebanon were made plain when Layal Nagib, a 23-year-old freelance photographer, was killed by an Israeli missile on 23 July. Despite the risks, Katia Nasser, who worked in Al-Jazeera’s Doha newsroom before the bombing started, volunteered on the outbreak of war to go to her native south Lebanon. She admitted afterwards to having to struggle on air to separate between ‘personal feelings and pure reporting’.53 Bushra Abdel-Samad from Al-Jazeera’s Beirut bureau also reported from the south. Rima Maktabi and Najwa Qassim covered the bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs for Al-Arabiya, while Nancy Sabea showed the destruction in these suburbs on New TV. Mona Saliba reported from the border town of Bint Jbeil for LBC. Shirin Abu Aqla and Jivara al-Budairi covered Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israel for AlJazeera, and also followed dangerous developments on the West Bank. Budairi was reporting live in July 2006 during an Israeli assault on the West Bank town of Nablus, when an Israeli military vehicle suddenly sped towards her in what Al-Jazeera interpreted as a deliberate attempt to interrupt the report.54 Wael Tantous, a technician working with Budairi, was shot in the incident and rushed to hospital. Al-Jazeera replayed the image of the vehicle advancing on Budairi several times between programmes. Viewers expressed gratitude and appreciation for the work of women war correspondents in Lebanon, but public preoccupation with the crises they reported on left little space for discussion of gender issues. An indication of how normal it had become by 2006 for women journalists to cover urgent political news on Arab television came soon after the Israel–Hizbollah ceasefire was agreed in August that year. Hizbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, gave his first interview after the ceasefire not to Al-Manar but to Maryam al-Bassam on Lebanon’s New TV. At the same time women journalists were becoming more prominent in reporting business and financial news. Asked to explain the trend, Hatem Ghander, head of economic news at CNBC, and Jamil al-Hajj, head of finance and economy at Al-Arabiya, said they had no particular reason to employ women. Their main priority was simply to find experts who could be relied upon not to make mistakes when covering stock-market trends and other events that could affect viewers’ investments and savings.55 Al-Arabiya, which started as a new venture

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

99

in 2003, hired a large proportion of women editors and producers. Dana Suyyagh said in June 2004, while she was a senior producer with Al-Arabiya, that it was not unusual for women to make up 70 per cent of the editors and producers working on a news bulletin for the channel at any one time.56 According to Suyyagh, women’s presence behind the television screen might result in more stories being handled from a female perspective, but this was not the same as saying it would produce an increase in coverage of so-called women’s issues. On the contrary, Suyyagh said, the female journalists and producers she knew resisted being assigned to such stories for fear of being ‘typecast’.57 Nevertheless there are producers on Al-Arabiya who are keen to increase the proportion of female guests appearing on the channel’s regular programmes. Dima Zalatimo, a Washington-based producer on Hisham Milhem’s weekly programme Abr al-Moheet (Across the Ocean), raised the issue unprompted during an interview in May 2006, while discussing a television appearance by Corine Hegland of the National Journal, who had exposed false evidence behind the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo. Zalatimo volunteered that she made a conscious effort, with Milhem’s support, to invite women guests whenever possible. She put the current ratio of female guests at 20 per cent, which she considered too low.58 Al-Arabiya is part of the Saudi-owned MBC group and linked through the Saudi ruling family to Al-Ekhbariya, the 24-hour news channel launched as part of Saudi state television in January 2004. Like Future and LBC before it, Al-Ekhbariya took an instrumental approach to appointing women. But its declared reasons for doing so were specific to Saudi government efforts to dispel the kingdom’s reputation for intolerance and extremes of gender inequality. Mohammed Barayan, Al-Ekhbariya’s director, announced that the channel’s aim was to ‘tell the world about our country, to give it a new image’ and to correct misconceptions, including those about the role of Saudi women.59 Unlike the all-male newscasts on Saudi Arabia’s Channel One, the new channel made its mark with female newsreaders and a promise to discuss social issues affecting women. The three Saudi women anchors who made history on Al-Ekhbariya were Bouthaina al-Nasr, Reema al-Shamikh and Sawsan Abdel-Qader. But while they were making history on television, other Saudi women were doing

100

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

likewise in other areas of public life, suggesting that the change on television was more than cosmetic. Conservative pressure prevented women from standing for office or voting in the municipal elections held in 2005, but their participation in the 2009 elections was formally agreed. Female membership of the appointed Consultative Council was kept off limits but the number of female advisors to Council members was increased and jobs were opened to women in the foreign ministry. After several sessions of the National Dialogue took place behind closed doors in 2003–04, Al-Ekhbariya screened live coverage of the closing statements of the December 2005 session on ‘We and the Other’, including comments from both male and female participants. Introduced by an anchorwoman, the programme carried comments from more than a dozen women on a range of issues from the teaching of theatre to foreign workers’ rights. Contextualizing Al-Ekhbariya confirms that efforts to create a new image for Saudi Arabia reflected gradual change in some areas combined with a considerable dose of wishful thinking. Upon his accession to the throne in August 2005, King Abdullah met with two groups of women professionals, each numbering about 40 people, to hear their views and urge them not to derail the reform process by rushing it. Parts of a ceremony at which women pledged allegiance to the new king were broadcast on television. But the process of initiating university courses for women in subjects that were previously offlimits, including journalism, was not so smooth. A three-day forum on Media Education and Training in Riyadh in December 2005 failed to address the fact that the only degree course in mass communication open to women anywhere in the country was at King Abdel-Aziz University in Jeddah. This failure was partly because segregation of male and female participants at the event resulted in women being excluded from discussion.60 Modes of dialogue Getting employment access to television is one thing. Using television to promote dialogues that are useful to women is another. There is no consensus in Arab countries as to the best forums for discussing gender inequalities. Inequalities are widely acknowledged, in as much as Arab states that have signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

101

(CEDAW) have come under domestic pressure to lift reservations they have placed on clauses dealing with equality before the law, marriage and family relations and the right to pass nationality to children. The Arab Human Development Report series published since 2002 has also identified ‘deficits’ in women’s empowerment. Yet knowing the facts does little to map out the most effective method of achieving change, and not everyone thinks that high-profile debates on Arab television make the most positive contribution. Some believe that private persuasion through more traditional forms of consultation and consensus can work better than public assertiveness.61 Such an approach dictates that contentious issues are literally and figuratively ‘kept off the front page’, as happened when Al-Watan downplayed the news of two women winning Chamber of Commerce elections in Saudi Arabia in order to lessen the negative attention it might attract.62 Besides, where the media are known to be linked to existing power structures, there is little reason to expect them to promote the redistribution of power. A rare survey of women’s perceptions about ways to improve their status, conducted in Jordan, ranked the media rather low as a potential agent of change.63 Instead, as women’s independent activity increases through charitable work, reading circles or other groups linked to mosques, channels of influence exist that may be hinted at by Amr Khaled’s programmes on the religious channel Iqra but actually extend well beyond the scope of most television coverage.64 Controversy also surrounds the practice on television of earmarking certain talk-show slots as being aimed at women, suggesting that these are an optional extra or a form of ghettoization.65 However, opportunities for dialogue need not be confined to discussion programmes. Television plays a major role in breaking news, and news media also have the potential to influence public debate about matters of critical importance to women’s lives. The problem is that, as five-yearly one-day studies by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) have revealed, women are mostly marginal in the news, whether as the subjects of news stories or people interviewed about the news. In 1995, the GMMP found that women accounted for just 17 per cent of people in the news on the day the survey was carried out. Ten years later the proportion was still only 21 per cent, leading the monitoring groups to question more persistently ‘what is news, what makes the news, and why?’ 66 In line with the findings of the present chapter,

102

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

the 2005 study discovered that there were more women news reporters globally than ten years earlier: the overall proportion for the 70+ countries monitored had risen from 28 per cent in 1995 to 31 per cent in 2000 to 37 per cent in 2005. It also found more women as subjects of news on television than other media (22 per cent), but this was mainly because of an orientation to coverage of stars, celebrities and so-called ordinary people. Egypt was the first Arab country to join the monitoring exercise, taking part for the first time in 2005 through the efforts of the Cairo-based documentary maker, MediaHouse. Not counting reporters and presenters, 40 women appeared in the news in all Egyptian media on the monitoring day, 16 February, compared with 260 men. On television the figures were nine women and 66 men. As one of the Egyptian researchers commented afterwards, ‘It is – to put it mildly – strange that half of the population is almost completely ignored.’ 67 The top story on the day in question was the funeral of Lebanon’s assassinated prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Apart from mention of Hariri’s wife and sister on one channel, the three women to feature in political news were Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, Margaret Scobey, US ambassador in Damascus, and Giuliana Sgrene, an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq.68 Since the results of a monitoring exercise like this are themselves newsworthy, the process of disseminating them can add to the possibilities for dialogue about gender imbalances in news and other media content. Media monitoring by groups in Egypt has demonstrated that sound reasons for monitoring are bound up with obstacles facing anyone who wants to appear on television to talk about it. The New Woman Research Centre (NWRC), founded in 1984 as an early Egyptian non-governmental organization advocating women’s rights, took a lead role in promoting the idea of media-watch projects in the mid-1990s, to counter negative images of women on public opinion.69 Efforts remained relatively piecemeal until the month of Ramadan 2001, when activists were suddenly galvanized by a drama serial, shown on state television under the title Aailet al-Hagg Metwalli (Metwalli’s Family). Portraying a Cairo merchant who gains the love and respect of four wives, despite beating and verbally abusing them,70 the monthlong soap opera caused such outrage that the ending was altered to mollify those who objected to polygamy being shown in such a flattering light.71 Unappeased, local activists marshalled their resources

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

103

to conduct a media watch in Ramadan 2002. MediaHouse linked up with NWRC, Appropriate Communication Techniques (ACT) and others, including professors from the School of Mass Communication at Sixth October University, to quantify the incidence of violence against women screened on Egyptian television in films and drama serials over the course of the month. The NWRC already had experience in gathering data on violence against women, having pushed for such data to be included in the Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey in 1995, which showed that one in three Egyptian women who had ever been married had been beaten at least once.72 The mediawatch exercise, covering 12 serials and six films, found that 67 per cent of characters in them were male, and every film or serial contained acts of physical or psychological violence against women. The total number of such acts was 559, with beating accounting for 42 per cent of all physical violence, killing for 13 per cent and the remainder taking the form of sexual violence. Psychological violence included harsh treatment and threats. The study reported that characters in the films and serials were shown trying to stop the violence in less than 17 per cent of cases. In 65 per cent the reaction of other characters was indifference, while in 15 per cent other characters were accomplices.73 MediaHouse, NWRC and ACT undertook a similar monitoring exercise in Ramadan 2003, this time looking at stereotyping and discrimination in qualitative rather than quantitative terms for five serials. At the same time, the team took steps to publicize their mediawatch findings and MediaHouse made a short documentary about the project, called The Picture, which would be available to be shown on television. In fact the film was shown in whole or in part on two Egyptian channels, Nile TV and Dream, but not to the complete satisfaction of the film-makers. On Nile TV the item was in English for an English-speaking audience, whereas the monitoring team would have preferred to address Arabic speakers. On Dream, excerpts from the film appeared on the programme Hayah (Life), with Nagwa Ibrahim. But Maggie Morgan of MediaHouse said the task of communicating information about the project was impeded by the programme’s adversarial style, which pitted those behind the media watch against people unsympathetic to the project. Project representatives were consequently forced to discuss issues outside the content of the report, such as responding to accusations that feminists are ‘anti-men’.74 The climate

104

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

for such discussions was not helped by changing legislation affecting NGOs, including NWRC, and public antagonism to advocacy NGOs fuelled by Egyptian government propaganda.75 In line with a new NGO law passed in 2002, NWRC applied to register with the ministry of social affairs before the deadline in 2003, only to be informed, with no reason given, that its application had been refused.76 Since the new law forced NGOs to challenge government decisions through the courts, rather than the government having to apply to the courts to sue NGOs as previously, NWRC lodged an appeal. In October 2003 it won the appeal, but NGOs’ freedom to operate remained subject to Egypt’s emergency law,77 which was renewed for two years in 2006. In Ramadan 2003, a few months after MediaHouse, NWRC and ACT released their study of Ramadan serials the previous year and while they were working on the 2003 study, Al-Jazeera’s weekly talk show Lil Nissa Faqat (For Women Only) devoted its episode of 24 November to the subject of Ramadan drama serials. This could have been an ideal forum for debating the media-watch project and discussing whether and how television drama normalizes violence against women. As a show combining all-women panels with questions phoned in live by both male and female viewers, Lil Nissa Faqat had established itself since 2002 as a forum for representing a plurality of women’s views about a range of topics, such as violence against women, women in armed conflict, women in unions, women in prison, women in business and so on. It is therefore ironic, but also perhaps indicative of obstacles to dialogue serving women’s interests on pan-Arab television, that the Ramadan media watch in Egypt was not even mentioned in the relevant episode of Lil Nissa Faqat.78 As to Al-Jazeera’s decision to take Lil Nissa Faqat itself off the air in June 2005, after it had run for only three years, this is open to contradictory interpretations. Wadah Khanfar, the channel’s directorgeneral, said that, far from being detrimental to dialogue, the decision to end the series had been taken in order to integrate the issues it covered into mainstream programming. While Lil Nissa Faqat existed, he said, there was a tendency to push all ‘women and society issues’ into the single weekly format, instead of keeping them in the frame across the whole schedule.79 Khanfar cited Al-Jazeera’s morning programme as a way of ensuring that social issues would have a daily 15-minute slot and would be presented as being of interest to everyone, not only

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

105

women. Speaking in private, however, Al-Jazeera producers critiqued Lil Nissa Faqat on grounds of ratings and visual appeal. One said that the Al-Jazeera audience watching the programme had fallen below 5 per cent and complaints were mounting, including from women viewers, about the absence of ‘nice faces’ on screen. Another suggested that, like formats generally, the formula had just ‘got tired’.80 It is certainly the case that this show did not generally feature the almost gladiatorial combat between speakers that had become characteristic of some other Al-Jazeera debates. At the point in 2005 when Lil Nissa Faqat was being taken off the air the MBC group was investing in local versions of US formats featuring women, with the emphasis on ‘nice faces’. ABC’s The View, which formed the basis for Kalam Nawaim (Sweet Talk), is a ‘chatfest’ among a group of five women of different ages, at least some of whom have already proved their popularity in visual media. MBC appeared to carry that principle over into Kalam Nawaim when it chose Farah Bseiso, a Palestinian actress and, in MBC’s words, a ‘shining Arab star’,81 as one of the four hosts. Another of MBC’s all-women programmes, Min Jadid, based on ABC’s makeover reality show Starting Over, put six women in a flat near Beirut to help them overcome their personal challenges, which, for the purpose of television, included how to dress. Conclusion In some respects this account of women’s increasing visibility on television gives the impression of being what Curran calls an ‘affirmative narrative’.82 The major expansion of television capacity that occurred over the ten years to 2006 brought with it an increase in women’s access to the medium as producers as well as consumers. Access increased in all areas of production and presenting, including war reporting and business news as well as editing, anchoring news bulletins, hosting political talk shows and, in some cases, channel management. Yet the expansion has to be viewed in context. It is beyond the scope of the present study to consider whether changes in television were matched in other media, notably the press. What the study did show is that a sizeable female presence in television is not a reliable indicator of women’s representation in other areas of public life. If, as a producer for Al-Arabiya noted, women overall constitute a small minority of guests on programmes about politics and international

106

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

relations, and if, as Egypt’s survey for the GMMP reported, they are all but invisible as makers of news, the high profile of female presenters and reporters on screen could actually have the effect of masking women’s absence from other positions. The chapter also showed that agendas were at work in the recruitment of women for television jobs. These included deployment of women on screen as a means to compete for the attention of Gulf viewers and thus for the advertising of companies interested in Gulf purchasing power. They also included the deliberate selection of female newsreaders to send a message about the direction of social reform in Saudi Arabia to local conservatives and foreign critics. Working on television as a presenter or reporter carries its own particular risks. A journalist’s face and identity become known to millions of viewers and, in societies where such publicity can be detrimental to family reputations, the perseverance of a small number of women in the profession over several decades represents resistance to what Mutawwaa summed up as ‘social circumstances’.83 But when armed extremists take exception to news coverage, the recognition factor can increase exposure to physical attack, and another form of resistance presents itself. A large number of women mentioned in this chapter not only accepted the risk of reporting on conflicts, but persisted in bearing witness to the truth as they found it, despite the consequences, which in the case of Atwar Bahjat led to her death and in the case of Mai Chidyac her attempted assassination. For others the consequences were death threats, the killing or wounding of colleagues and physical intimidation. Their determination and their testimony have therefore to be seen as a form of resistance on many fronts – incidentally to traditional gender norms but primarily to aggression and occupation and, implicitly at least, to the inertia of local political leaders. It might be expected that the increased recruitment of women to jobs in television would combine with television owners’ interest in appealing to female audiences to boost the use of the medium for discussion of women’s status in society at large. It is true that all-women talk shows became more common from around 2002 as the number of television channels rose. Here, however, the visual imperatives of television were interpreted as privileging certain kinds of show. From the evidence cited, female talking heads were apparently deemed to be

WOM E N I N T H E P U BL IC E Y E

107

interesting on two counts: either they should be pleasing to look at, or they should engage in some dramatic disagreement. Both conditions restricted the possibilities for constructive debate among key players on serious issues. Lil Nissa Faqat did not always follow the adversarial format; its attempt at constructive debate through the selection of women speakers on the basis of their knowledge, position or involvement in the community led to a reported decline in viewers, to the point where the programme was taken off the air. On the other hand, Dream TV’s programme about violence in Ramadan serials showed how the adversarial format works to push essential information beyond the margins of debate. At the same time the construction of talk-show panels with the same screen-tested participants from week to week (as in the case of Kalam Nawaim) inevitably placed a filter on new sources of information. Overall, Al-Jazeera’s reassignment of weekly material from Lil Nissa Faqat to a daily breakfast show and MBC’s use of imported formats to address demand for dialogue among women may perhaps be judged an ‘advance’ in terms of allocations of television time if not in diversity of ideas. But the spread of imported formats raises other questions, which are considered next.

5

Facing up to Reality: Entertainment Programming Rationales Potentially there is unusual scope for profitable production of entertainment programming in a geolinguistic region with the distinctive characteristics of the Arab world. The prevalence of a single language across a total Arab population of some 300 million in 22 countries is a rare phenomenon by comparison with other world regions. Language differences from one country to the next increase the ‘cultural discount’ to which media flows across borders are already subject because of variations in taste and customs. Media flows are thus facilitated where language is shared. The European Union, despite encompassing nearly 500 million people in 27 member states, is divided linguistically, as – to some extent – is Latin America. India, a single highly populous country, forms several markets for media consumption because of the number of different languages in use. The Arab region’s closest parallel in terms of market size for media output is the US. In the US, this attribute has long been a major contributing factor in the economic success of the US television and film industry.1 Helped by US government support for audiovisual exports at crucial points in the twentieth century, such as the 1950s, when European economies lay in ruins after the Second World War, and the 1960s, when former colonies in Africa and Asia emerged as independent purchasers of film and television entertainment, US film studios were able to take advantage of their large and relatively affluent domestic market to produce a sufficient volume of shows to make profits at home and then export them at cut-price rates. Market size is important because cultural production is a risky 109

110

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

business: each new film or programme carries the risk of failure because consumers’ preferences and responses are unpredictable.2 Investors in the music and film industries offset this risk by maximizing the output of new products, to ensure that at least some are hits. Rules of thumb in cultural markets hold that only around two out of every ten films will succeed, and that as little as 20 per cent of cultural output accounts for as much as 80 per cent of financial returns. Expressed in words rather than numbers, this means that ‘a few individual works become extremely popular, often universally known within a culture, while the great majority of works recede into permanent obscurity’.3 Where works succeed in a very large market, as for example in the US, returns on investment are boosted by the sheer volume of sales to the point where profits from hits can cover the losses incurred by lots of expensive flops. If enough new titles are produced, even very few hits in a very large market will generate the income needed to keep making more. In theory, therefore, the size of the Arabic-speaking audience should be an important factor in mitigating the high expense and high risk of producing Arabic-language drama and film. Historically, the Egyptian film and television industries benefited from this wider market. Yet it was only with the rise of satellite television in the 1990s that the full potential profitability of cultural production aimed at the entire region came within investors’ grasp. As Arab television channels proliferated in waves in the 1990s and 2000s, it was to be expected that increasing demand for drama and film would combine with the market’s existing advantages to favour a big rise in output. One reason was the seeming reversal in the buyer’s market situation that had prevailed in the days of terrestrial television monopolies. These monopolies enforced not only political censorship but a form of censorship through finance, in the sense that, when a country had only one broadcasting company, that company could name its price for any programme it chose to buy. As early as 1994, when Arab satellite television was still in its first phase, some filmmakers from the region believed its emergence would open up new outlets for film distribution by breaking state monopolies and creating competition among private and public broadcasters for new content. This, in turn, they thought, would give independent media producers a new lease of life. Omar al-Qattan, of the London-based film company Sindibad, said in 1994 that independent producers of Arabic-language

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

111

films urgently needed new commissions and new channels of distribution in order to survive financially and gain the critical mass needed to counter political censorship. In particular, he believed the possibility of ‘break[ing] into the television market’ offered new hope.4 This chapter assesses how far the rise of competition among television channels in the early 2000s combined with the existing advantage of market size to stimulate local creativity in Arab entertainment programming. In doing so it also explores how Arab television managers responded to the worldwide growth in programme formats, whereby ideas conceived in one place are licensed for local production in another. One of the biggest reasons for adopting formats is the extent to which they reduce the risk inherent in offering programmes to a wayward public whose remote controls enable them to zap through dozens of channels. When a format is bought, it ‘almost invariably’ comes with a proven track record of success in other countries and an expectation that this success will be repeated in new surroundings.5 Joe Khalil, a former director and executive producer with a number of television companies, testifies to Arab television directors’ faith that, ‘if a formula worked in the past it is most likely to work well in the future’.6 Besides reducing risk, formats for programme genres such as game shows and reality TV – or a combination of the two – offer opportunities to cut costs, because there are fewer stars to pay, and revenues can be earned not only from advertising but from audiences’ telephone voting and text-messaging, as well as spin-off merchandizing.7 But there is also a non-mercenary dimension to reality formats that seems to offer opportunities for local creativity. Reality TV in particular has been described as a genre of programming about real people that crosses the divide between ‘information and entertainment, documentary and drama’.8 Substituting ‘real people’ for expensive star actors and celebrities makes financial sense, but it has also been justified socially by those who argue that real people on screen ‘counfound any possible stereotyping’.9 In theory, therefore, local versions of global formats on Arab television screens could be judged to have opened up new avenues of programming. In practice, however, concerns have been expressed both inside and outside the Arab screen industries that the format trade actually provides very limited stimuli for the development of local production capacity. Programming experts in the US see the rise of the reality game-

112

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

show format in the late 1990s as a cyclical phenomenon destined to ‘submerge again’ when the fad wears off, in contrast to comedies and dramas that have had ‘real staying power over the decades’.10 Scholars who have followed the spread of formats in parts of Asia are cautious about endorsing it as a means to promote local creativity. After weighing the evidence in countries from Taiwan and South Korea to China and Japan, Albert Moran and Michael Keane concluded in 2004 that the net import of formats means that there is a constant reduction in R&D capacity so far as idea origination is concerned. Under the impact of format import, whatever local ability and knowledge do exist are likely to lack replenishment. Structural neglect of this capacity over time is likely to lead to its eventual disappearance.11

Subsequent Arab warnings resonate with that conclusion. At the start of 2005, Abed Bibi, a media consultant with 16 years’ experience in Arab television, complained, ‘The new generation is importing content like it’s importing cars. They should train creative people and give the production houses here … more of a chance to come up with formats that really matter to the region.’ 12 At the end of the year, Jihad Fakhreddine of the Pan Arab Research Centre warned a conference in Beirut that the industry was ‘short on programming ideas’, ‘heavy on Western adaptations’ and replete with ‘too many look-alikes’.13 Underlying such concerns is the format trade’s propensity to privilege certain genres, especially variants of the game show. Licences for gameshow formats are particularly big business, as demonstrated by the fact that game shows accounted for 50 per cent of global format airtime in 2004.14 Equally, however, it has to be remembered that investors in Arab television may not see the development of local creativity and production capacity as their primary concern in selecting entertainment programming. The MBC group greatly expanded its take-up of all kinds of US and European television content after 2003, including Hollywood films and ready-made versions of global formats. It did so under a non-Arab network director (Tim Riordan) and a nonArab marketing manager (Andrew Maskall) for reasons that Sheikh Walid al-Ibrahim, owner of MBC, put on record in a press interview in October 2003. He said he wanted his networks to ‘make a difference in the Arab world’, with ‘one major objective’ being to ‘get rid of what I call the Taliban mentality’.15 Thus any exploration of trends in Arab television entertainment needs not only to assess the true size

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

113

and nature of the market for entertainment programmes and the real extent of competition, but also to weigh the impact of actual programming choices against the scope for development created by market size and competition. Game shows, song contests and other formats While owners of Arab television channels sometimes talk publicly about their reasons for broadcasting non-entertainment categories such as religion or news, it has been rarer to hear them justify the proliferation of reality TV shows and music TV channels. Several years after the adoption of Western programme formats became widespread among Arab broadcasters, very little was being said about the financial benefits that were supposed to accrue from taking this route. It seemed unlikely that this silence reflected quiet satisfaction at resounding commercial success. On the contrary, as Jawad Abbassi, founder of the Amman-based consultants Arab Advisors Group, said in 2005, ‘If the numbers were really nice, [channel managers] would be happy to share them because that would draw in more advertisers.’16 Looking first at formats and reality TV, it seems ironic that a type of programming widely deemed to offer multiple commercial advantages and few drawbacks had failed to produce, in Abbassi’s words, ‘nice numbers’. MBC demonstrated its faith in the economics of formats in 1998– 99, when its British managing director at the time, Ian Ritchie, turned to the UK company Action Time to produce Arabic versions of shows like Spellbound, Wipeout and Hilarious Hits in a bid to maximize ratings during Ramadan.17 Its subsequent coup, in securing exclusive Arabic rights to Who Wants to be a Millionaire? from the UK company Celador in 2000, is widely regarded as marking a turning point in the spread of formats across Arab satellite channels.18 This format, ostensibly a game show but one that involves drama and suspense as contestants wait to hear whether a wrong answer has cost them large sums of money, had already proved its worth in reviving the fortunes of ABC in the US. In the summer of 1999 it had pushed ABC well ahead of its competitors in terms of viewer numbers and demographics, reversing a period of poor performance.19 Apparently taking its cue from MBC’s initiative and the growing global success of the format business at that time, Future TV was next to buy a major format when it selected FremantleMedia’s Pop Idol, a talent contest conducted over many

114

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

weeks. FremantleMedia is part of Luxembourg-based RTL, in turn owned by Germany’s Bertelsmann. The protracted Pop Idol contests start with auditions before a panel of judges and lead to weekly competitions in which viewers vote, mostly by telephone, to eliminate singers and eventually pick a winner. Just as Millionaire had served ABC, Pop Idol had given the UK’s ITV a timely boost in 2002, when the final competition attracted an audience of 13 million and a record 9 million votes. It had also worked well in the US, becoming the highest-rated show in Fox TV’s history up to that point.20 Future TV representatives announced the purchase at press events in November and December 2002. Speaking in Cairo, Bassam Halimah predicted that the Arabic version, called Super Star, would be the biggest media production in the Arab world in 2003. ‘A good idea is a good idea,’ he said, ‘regardless of where it comes from.’21 That ‘good idea’ has been described as the ‘first Middle East reality show’.22 As a format, Pop Idol broke new ground by exploiting the financial potential of live drama and suspense to encourage direct viewer participation through telephone voting. It also targeted viewers in the young age ranges that advertisers generally like best. Unlike Man sa yarba al-malyoun, the Arabic version of Millionaire, which started with only limited local input, Super Star was all about Arabic music, sung and judged by Arabs. It was indeed the success that Halimah predicted, attracting 4.8 million votes during the last of its 21 weekly contests in August 2003, around 10 million votes in the equivalent week of 2004 and a reported 15 million votes during the last week of the season in 2005.23 The Amman-based consultancy Arab Advisors Group estimated that votes cast by mobile phone for the 2003 series yielded revenue of $4 million, shared between Future TV, mobile phone operators and intermediaries, such as Global Call, working between the two.24 Not to be outdone, LBC completed a deal with Spanish-owned, Netherlands-based Endemol for its Star Academy format and started casting participants in September 2003.25 As Star Academy went into its second and third seasons the procedures for maximizing revenues from telephone voting and text messaging became increasingly established, with channels again sharing the income with telecoms companies and receiving the equivalent of 10–40 cents per call.26 Take-up of formats continued helter skelter from then on. As with the Celador, FremantleMedia and Endemol deals, the licensing

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

115

companies were generally European – to the immense satisfaction of Europeans who sensed a reversal in what had long been perceived as a one-way media flow from Hollywood studios and other US companies to Europe. This reversal, however, did little to alter the direction of traffic between Western economies and the Arab world. Dubai TV, preparing for a relaunch in June 2004, acquired pan-regional rights to Endemol’s Forgive Me in February that year and added four titles from the Copenhagen-based company MTV Mastiff International in May. MTV Mastiff was at pains to point out that all four were ‘familyfriendly’ and would fit with the region’s ‘rigorous broadcast laws’. Format expert Ed Waller summed them up as follows: Friends Forever is a show in which celebs and their best friends are tested on their actual knowledge of each other; Combo is a music-based gameshow; Wonderworld is a feelgood charity-based reality show, while Supersellers pits two salesmen against each other to make the most profit in 30 hours.27

June 2004 saw reports of LBC signing with Strix Television of Sweden to produce its format The Farm and with Castaway TV of the UK for Survivor. Weeks later it emerged that MBC, having already acquired the Dragons’ Den format from Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI), had gone back to SPTI for three more shows, Human Resources, Russian Roulette and The Newlywed Game. It appeared from this that MBC remained undaunted by the collapse earlier in 2004 of Al-Rais, its local remake of Big Brother, which (as discussed in more detail in Chapter 7) was taken off the air after barely a week in response to protests in Bahrain, where the show was being made, about unmarried males and females sharing a house. Abu Dhabi TV also stayed on the game-show-format bandwagon in 2004. It bought In It To Win It, created by the UK’s 12 Yard Productions, from Australianowned Screentime Partners. Pyramedia, a local production house, was assigned to produce 60 episodes.28 For viewers who know programmes like these only by their Arabic names and see what looks like local content on their screens, the distant origins of so much of their television fare may not affect their enjoyment. Decades of research have established that audiences, given the choice, prefer national programmes or programmes in their own language over imports.29 The point about formats is that they allow quiz-show questions to test local knowledge, and other kinds of game or competition to be sensitive to local culture and humour, all to the

116

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

accompaniment of local music. When The Farm appeared on LBC in July 2005, with 24-hour coverage on the LBC’s Nagham channel, it was called Al-Wadi and showed local celebrity Haifa Wehbe managing other Arab celebrities as farmhands. At the same time, some formats are local creations. ART’s matchmaking show Al Hawa Sawa (Together on Air/in Love), which ended its first season just as the ill-fated Al-Rais was beginning, originated with a Lebanese company, Breeze Production. According to a company spokesperson, the idea was created ‘for the region by the people of the region’, being inspired by the way whole families and neighbourhoods in the Arab world get involved in marriages.30 In line with this tradition, the show consisted of eight young women together in a house, who sought to attract a proposal of marriage from male suitors watching them on video. Ample opportunities were provided for viewer voting and live discussions with potential couples’ families. Another local creation was a MediaGroup format made for Infinity TV, called CEO. Although comparable to the Western model, The Apprentice, in testing the business acumen of an equal number of male and female contestants, CEO highlighted differences in cultural approaches to business in the Arab world. Instead of a single business magnate to judge contestants’ performance, CEO opted for a panel of judges. In contrast to the catchphrase ‘You’re fired!’, for which The Apprentice became famous, CEO opted for the motto ‘We don’t fire you. We motivate you’.31 MBC’s response to both programmes was another entrepreneurial reality show with Arab particularities. In a press release before the first episode of The Investor went on air in January 2006, MBC said it had sought to develop a ‘culturally relevant’ programme. In it, 13 pairs of would-be entrepreneurs would be assigned ‘intriguing’ business tasks. Crucially, however, each set of partners would need to be members of the same family in order to reflect the ‘family aspect of business in the Arab world’. In other respects, differences between The Apprentice and The Investor were more muted. Like The Apprentice and unlike CEO, The Investor was to be led by a single Saudi businessman, Walid Al Juffali. Whether they are sensitive to local culture or not, and whether or not they are locally created, these business-oriented formats remain essentially game shows with rules, contestants and prizes. As Joe Khalil notes, game shows have ‘proven themselves the best adapted

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

117

to crossing cultures’.32 Moran and Keane make a similar point, saying that such shows provide ‘innocuous yet educational content’ and are more suited to Asian contexts than the ‘risqué adventures and egotistical grandstanding’ celebrated in formats where the game element is taken to extremes, like Survivor or Big Brother.33 Even with game shows, however, localization is not always straightforward. Future TV discovered it had made a mistake when it tried, in late 2001, to present an Arabized version of the BBC’s hit quiz show, The Weakest Link, without major adjustments. Rita Khoury, Future’s presenter, adopted the same acerbic persona as the original’s Anne Robinson. But her no-nonsense appearance and ruthless put-downs provoked a negative reaction from male contestants who reportedly feared being humiliated in public.34 There are also different degrees and types of localization. For example, some ideas that seem to have local origins may still involve expatriate input, as happened with Abu Dhabi TV’s Millionaire counterpart, Waznak Dahab.35 Others, like Al Hawa Sawa and CEO, may have the feel of a foreign format that has been adapted to a local setting. At the same time, not all locally made reality TV shows or game shows qualify as tradeable formats. Local producers in occupied Iraq demonstrated flair and invention with reality-style shows responsive to their own viewers’ dire situation. Labour and Materials, on the private Baghdad-based satellite channel Al-Sharqiya, set out to show destroyed houses being rebuilt and furnished with goods donated by viewers and, in the process, to witness the beneficiaries’ reactions.36 Another, called Congratulations, provided couples with the wherewithal for lavish weddings.37 Al-Manar attempted a novel application of the quiz show with its programme The Mission, in which questions were directly related to Hizbollah’s struggle against Israeli occupation of Arab land and contestants had to answer questions correctly so as to reach Jerusalem on a virtual map.38 Thus there is a larger issue that transcends questions about the intrinsic value of specific formats or the precise extent of local input or inspiration in any individual programme. The larger issue is whether the wholesale adoption of formats in Arab television in the mid-2000s took place for essentially business reasons, because they offer cheap and risk-free options for filling ever expanding channel capacity with programmes that have enough local content to please viewers. An alternative explanation could be that political constraints combined with

118

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

the need to fill expanding schedules to push programming in particular directions even at the risk of financial loss. In order to consider whether adoption of formats based on reality TV makes good business sense in the Arab context, issues like labour costs, levels of risk and levels of advertising income need to be addressed. Looking first at the cost of labour, it is often said of reality TV that, because it relies on ‘ordinary’ people,39 it avoids the lavish outlays normally associated with television stars. The whole point of Super Star, as identified by the Jordanian singer Rania Kurdi, who co-hosted its premier season, was to help talented beginners avoid the obstacles that usually block the way to fame.40 In the case of Al Hawa Sawa, participants were not even in need of good voices; they could become instant celebrities without any special talents.41 But in the context of Arab television the assumption about cheap labour merits closer scrutiny. After its bruising experience with Al-Rais, MBC decided to play safe. It did so not by commissioning lots more wholly local content of a kind that would draw in unscripted contributions from non-media people, but by opting for American versions of foreign formats. Its rationale was that Arab viewers could tolerate watching foreign behaviour in a foreign setting but would not accept the same behaviour at home. According to MBC’s Tim Riordan, discussing Fox TV’s Joe Millionaire series in which women compete to woo a millionaire, it was ‘fine’ for MBC to show this in the US version, even though it would not be fine to make a local version. ‘It’s acceptable in the US version because you’re looking at somebody else’s culture,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘You’re not bringing it to your own culture.’42 The same rule applied, Riordan added, in the case of the format Wife Swap, created by RDF Media, an independent company in the UK. In Wife Swap, mothers exchange families for two weeks, in order to measure their own norms for family distribution of household chores and child-rearing responsibilities against other people’s. Deeming Arabization of this show to be ‘virtually inconceivable’, Riordan bought a ready-made version of the series from ABC and renamed it House Swap.43 Even where MBC opted for shows with local participants, it demonstrated that the financial benefits of employing non-celebrities can only go so far. Super Star and Star Academy may have given beginners a chance, but had to employ stars as co-hosts, alongside high-profile judges and credible singing teachers. Quiz-show and

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

119

game-show participants need charismatic presenters and attractive prizes, while competition between stations pushes prize money up. When MBC indicated in 2005 that Man sa yarbah al-malyoun? would be brought back after a two-year rest, Mohammed Missilmani, production manager at Future TV, expressed concern at the level of prize money. Setting aside a potential $1 million in prizes was upsetting the regional balance, he said. It obliged other channels to seek more sponsorship deals because they could not ‘scale down the ladder’.44 Where participants in television programmes are not sufficiently well known for their names and reputations to achieve the necessary publicity, TV networks have to compensate by spending heavily on marketing or doing deals with big names from outside the media sector. Indeed, in The Investor, its own answer to The Apprentice, MBC entered territory that other stations had already shown to be potentially costly and by no means risk-free. LBC believed it had a winner when it announced its purchase of Arabic rights to The Apprentice in 2005. This highprofile format, created by Mark Burnett, a Briton living in the US, and jointly promoted by Mark Burnett Productions and FremantleMedia, follows teams of aspiring entrepreneurs as they face weekly challenges requiring a range of business skills. Just as the BBC had chosen a British entrepreneur, Alan Sugar, to judge the contestants and dismiss them one by one, and NBC had selected US tycoon Donald Trump, LBC signed up Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the Dubai-based property group Emaar. The eventual winner of The Apprentice on LBC was promised a job with an Emaar company at a salary of $300,000 per year. ‘This is my chance to give something back,’ Alabbar said when plans for the series first emerged. ‘I represent the Dubai dream and now I’m going to show young people how to turn their dreams into reality.’45 LBC planned to start filming in April 2005 for screening in October 2005. This was a dream that did not become reality, however. Instead, Alabbar was forced to withdraw for political reasons just weeks before filming was due to get under way. In February 2005 he formed a subsidiary called Emaar Palestine, after meeting senior Israelis to discuss the purchase of houses in Gaza. Amid rumours that he had met Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister, Alabbar faced negative publicity and LBC decided to postpone the project indefinitely, forfeiting the sums it had already invested in it.46 Alabbar’s withdrawal

120

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

had ripple effects. One week later it was revealed that Mishal Kanoo, a business figure central to a rival programme, CEO, was also pulling out of his commitment. It seemed that FremantleMedia had written to Kanoo, claiming infringement of copyright on The Apprentice. Already shaken by rumours that his role in CEO constituted some kind of public confrontation with Alabbar, Kanoo took the opportunity of Alabbar’s departure to follow suit.47 Hiccups like this in the budgeting and production process might have been less daunting had the income produced by popular formats lived up to expectations. High expectations were justified by the fact that successful formats would convince sponsors and advertisers that they should attach their brand to the programme or fill its advertising slots. Added to this were viewer statistics produced by the voting process. Whereas ratings data for Arab television are often unavailable or not credible, voting figures for shows like Super Star and Star Academy offered advertisers tangible proof that the millions of people watching had enough disposable income to own mobile phones and spend money on calls and messages at premium rates. For these reasons, Arab channels were ready to engage in competitive bidding for formats, which had the effect of pushing licence fees up to the point where they ranged from $5,000 up to $70,000 per episode.48 Yet, while the costs of programme acquisition were going up, advertising income started to come down. Instead of rising in response to the pan-Arab spending spree on formats in 2004, research by Arab Advisors Group showed that in 2005 average advertising rates fell. Attributing the fall to intensifying competition for a limited amount of advertising income, the group calculated that the average rate charged by MBC, MBC2, Future, LBC and Al-Jazeera declined by nearly 30 per cent between 2004 and 2005, from $3,103 for a 30-second slot to just $2,180.49 These averages compare with various press reports that premium rates of $10,000–11,000 were being charged for 30-second slots in Super Star and Star Academy, which suggests in turn that formatted shows, besides institutionalizing reliance on imported ideas, also creamed off advertising revenue, leaving less to other programmes. If this were not the case, and formats were helping to bring in new advertisers, the average advertising income for the five stations measured by Arab Advisors would have increased. Finally, it is assumed that reality TV formats involving viewer votes

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

121

offer new revenue streams to television channels insofar as they take a share in income from telephone calls. Here again, the assumption has to be questioned in light of the decision by two telecoms companies in Saudi Arabia not to allow subscribers to vote by text message for Star Academy. Saudi Arabia is potentially a major source of income from telephone voting for reality shows, especially given that a Saudi singer, Hisham Abdel-Rahman, won the second season of Star Academy in April 2005. Saudi Telecom, which is majority state-owned, told its 10 million subscribers in January 2005 that it would block text message votes. After a religious ruling against the programme in May that year, the kingdom’s second mobile phone operator, Mobily, owned by Etisalat of the UAE, said it would emulate Saudi Telecom in blocking text votes in order to protect its brand.50 In other words, the trade in programme formats has affected Arab television schedules and local production capacity not through any intrinsic quality or defect of specific programmes but through the organizational and policy systems that favour certain types of format and reality TV over others. These preferences, often based on factors other than economic advantage, affect the direction in which local production expertise develops. Music TV In light of pitfalls in the commercial exploitation of imported formats, it is easy to see why so many broadcasters turned enthusiastically to music TV, devoting shows and entire channels to popular singers and their music video clips. This programming promised financial benefits comparable to those associated with reality shows, with viewers encouraged to send text messages for display on screen, via their mobile phone operator’s short messaging service (SMS), and television and telecoms companies sharing the revenue raised. In the absence of regulatory constraints on SMS volume or price, companies could offer viewers premium options to get their text message on screen at a time of their choosing, or ahead of the queue. At the same time it entailed virtually none of the costs. Music TV offered permanent advertising for record labels; these in turn would provide free content, thereby minimizing outlays on production and avoiding the copyright scares attendant on the use of formats. Instead, the main cost was in filtering and tabulating incoming messages, a task usually outsourced.51

122

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owner of the Rotana recording label and multiple Rotana music channels, was characteristically forthcoming to interviewers about synergies in television and the music industry. After buying a 25 per cent stake in the Saudi company Rotana in 1995, he became its sole owner in 2003. At the same time he cut his stake in ART to 5 per cent and put the Rotana name on ART’s music channel.52 Two years later he could boast that Rotana ‘controls 80 per cent of all the music in the Arab world – cassettes, cassette production, distribution etc. We play a big role in that.’53 On another occasion he explained, ‘We thought that we would add a TV channel that has control of all those artists and do video clips.’54 Of Rotana Clip, a second channel added three months after the first and a pioneer in the use of SMS, he said, ‘My channel pays for itself with just these messages and advertising.’55 And while video clips and SMS seemed to be a preserve of the young people who are a numerical majority in Arab populations, Alwaleed ensured that the Rotana channels, by including streams of older or more classical Arab music, would even appeal to people beyond retirement age. ‘We are trying to cover all the tastes, whether it’s for fifteen-year-olds or sixty-five-year-olds,’ he said.56 As the number of Arab channels framing their music video content around SMS increased to more than 50 by 2006,57 questions about control over distribution intensified, fueled by cross-ownership interests in recording labels and television outlets. Alwaleed, owner of the Beirut-based Rotana channels as well as 49 per cent of LBCSat, demonstrated how much LBC’s Star Academy mattered for his other businesses when he ignored the opprobrium of Saudi religious scholars and sent a plane to Beirut in April 2005 to pick up Hisham Abdel-Rahman, the Saudi winner of that season’s Star Academy. AbdelRahman was then mobbed by Saudi fans at a Riyadh shopping mall owned by Alwaleed.58 Meanwhile, growth of the two main Cairo-based music stations, Melody and Mazzika, was aided by links not only with the music and video business but also, in Melody’s case, with telecommunications. Melody was started by Gamal Marwan, an entrepreneur with business interests in music events and the Internet. Its majority owner is Naguib Sawiris, head of the region’s largest mobile telephone operator, Orascom Telecom Holdings and owner of a terrestrial television station in Iraq called Nahrain. Melody started with the Melody

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

123

Hits channel playing Western music, later adding Arabic music on Melody Arabia. Just as Alwaleed told his biographer that his involvement in regional business and politics was aimed at countering the dominance of religious conservatives,59 Sawiris spoke in similar terms during the World Economic Forum at the Egyptian resort of Sharm elSheikh in May 2006. Explaining that he wanted to expand into media because existing stations were mostly ‘family-owned, royal-owned or government-owned’ and the region needed a change of outlook and education, Sawiris stressed his belief in the urgency of combating religious fundamentalism and extremism.60 Conveniently, combating extremism by airing music videos and selling ringtones can be lucrative. Nader Elwi, manager of Melody Hits, told a reporter in 2005 that his channel had originally received free copies of videos or promos from production companies. Later, however, when their advertising potential became apparent, Melody started charging £E3,000–5,000 per minute, although this, Elwi said, depended on Melody’s relationship with the producers.61 Many of the latter are linked to Melody’s rival, Mazzika, owned by Mohsen Gabr, president of the union of Egyptian recording companies, who has strong views about copyright. Gabr was quick to criticize the music radio station Nogoum FM when it started up in Egypt in 2003 for allegedly playing music without permission.62 In 2005 he raised a £E10 million case again Melody and Lebanese singer Ragheb Alama, claiming that rights to a video clip of Alama’s Al-Hob al-Kabir, given to Melody by the singer, in fact belonged to Mazzika’s parent company, Alam al-Phan, which had released the album containing the song.63 Through Alam al-Phan, Mazzika and Rotana have a shared interest not only in copyright but also in each other. Alam al-Phan is owned in turn by Fonoun Holding, which was established by the Egyptian financial group EFG-Hermes in 2000 to buy intellectual property rights in music and cinema, including rights to the work of legendary Egyptian singers such as Abdel-Halim Hafez and Farid al-Atrash. At the start of 2000, Citicorp, in which Alwaleed is the biggest shareholder, acquired 20 per cent of EFG-Hermes shares. As Fonoun increased its control over copyright, signing prominent singers for large upfront fees, smaller companies started to worry that independent channels of distribution were being squeezed out of existence. With music television reinforcing the dominant position of the big copyright holders, these worries increased.64

124

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Drama and feature films For many decades the success of Egypt’s film industry and televised dramas across the whole region, evident in the familiarity of Egyptian dialect far beyond the country’s borders, testified to the opportunities offered in this regional context. Buoyed by its position as the Arab world’s largest domestic market, Egypt was producing around 60 films a year at the end of the 1980s. With the rise of satellite television in the early 1990s, independent producers expected demand for film and drama to increase to the point where they would have the upper hand. A decade later, however, it was far from clear that this transformation had been achieved. While a massive increase in television airtime had certainly served to boost demand, the number of production companies had also increased rapidly, in response to trends such as modest economic liberalization in Syria and heavy investment in media infrastructure in Dubai. The continued imbalance between supply and demand explains the lament by Akram Jundi, head of the private Syrian production company Arab Art Production and Distribution, that the market for serialized television drama in 2005 was still ‘a buyer’s market’.65 There were also complaints about some regional centres getting a disproportionate share of production of both drama and film. Jordan’s General Federation for Trade Unions issued a statement in April 2006 protesting at the number of ‘foreign productions’ being broadcast and calling for Jordanian artists to get more visibility on local television screens.66 It has become routine for any analysis of serialized drama on Arab television screens to highlight the importance of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan for this subsector of the regional television production industry. The relationship between television serials and a particular time of year is key to the ongoing development of the musalsal, the form of serialized narrative that is particular to Arab television. Although sometimes referred to as soap operas, dramatic serials on Arab television differ from the genre known by this name in America, Australia and elsewhere, in which characters and storylines run for years. They are closer to the Latin American telenovela, which, despite sharing the same origins in soap company sponsorship that gave rise to the term ‘soap opera’ in the US, differs from the traditional ‘soap’ in having ‘clear-cut stories with definite endings that permit narrative closure’.67 In their Arab incarnation, serialized dramas began with the

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

125

rise of television in the region in the 1960s and consist of up to 30 episodes, this reflecting the number of nights in the lunar month of Ramadan plus the festival that marks its end. As Lila Abu-Lughod has shown through her research on musalsalat, they are the ‘most popular television shows in Egypt and the Arab world’, being rivalled on television only by film and football matches.68 The extent to which the content of these shows is discussed across the rest of the media demonstrates that Ramadan serials in particular have ‘wide and mixed followings’.69 After being shown on one or more channels during Ramadan itself, they are often rebroadcast elsewhere at other times of the year. As the combined airtime of satellite channels increased rapidly during the early 2000s, the economics of musalsal production were affected in various ways. One was the introduction of alternative types of programme for prime-time evening slots, including evenings in Ramadan. MBC made its first move into format adaptation in 1998 with Ramadan audiences in mind, and this initiative was followed by the rise of niche channels focusing on music, film and sport. After studying trends in Syrian production of drama for local and pan-Arab television channels over this period, Christa Salamandra concluded in 2005 that drama could no longer be said to dominate the prime time, ‘in Ramadan or the rest of the broadcast year’. Instead, she wrote, the musalsal was now just part of a ‘media torrent of game shows and reality TV’.70 As such it had become subject to the same pressures of competition for audience appreciation and advertising revenue that had encouraged some television companies to turn to foreign formats in order to benefit from formats’ proven track record of success. Competition pressures generally push up the costs of television content because they incline broadcasters to rely more heavily on well-known actors as a means of enticing viewers. They may also seek to differentiate themselves from competitors by means of more expensive production values. Egypt’s former information minister, Safwat al-Sharif, recognized this in 2002 when he proposed adding a movie star to every Egyptian state-funded Ramadan serial and increasing production budgets by 45 per cent.71 With the number of serials produced specially for Ramadan rising to over 100 in 2005,72 it was evident that a major shift had taken place in the overall volumes of investment required. Whereas previously the majority of serials had come from countries like Egypt and Syria, where levels of invest-

126

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ment reflect comparatively puny state and private budgets, the new era saw an increase in Gulf output that was not subject to the same constraints. In 2002 Syria made 12 Ramadan serials to Egypt’s 17.73 By 2005, Egyptian and Syrian output together amounted, on average, to 50 Ramadan serials a year, while Kuwait alone was making more than a dozen and other productions were emerging from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.74 In this environment, spending of $2 million on a single musalsal was no longer unusual, as producers competed with each other to sign up the most popular actors and provide them with lavish or unusual sets. An Egyptian-made serial, Al-Ameel 1001 (Agent 1001) is one of many that illustrates an interplay of rising costs, intra-regional setbacks and signs of supply outstripping demand. Being a spy thriller, allegedly based on the true story of an Egyptian general, the serial marked a fresh return to a genre that had fallen out of fashion for a few years. After multiple casting changes brought about by leading actors objecting to playing the part of traitors, the show was to be filmed in no fewer than four locations outside Egypt – Morocco, Turkey, Cyprus and Greece – and sold to six Arab satellite channels for Ramadan 2005. Despite these efforts Egyptian state TV did not include the series in its Ramadan line-up.75 Its decision prompted suspicion that the series might have been sidelined because its screenwriter, Nabil Farouq, was not a member of the Egyptian Writers’ Union, and one of its leading roles was played by a former Lebanese television announcer, Razan Moughrabi. Department heads at Egypt’s Media Production City were subsequently rumoured to have ordered that musalsalat shot with Egyptian state funding should no longer hire Lebanese or Syrian actresses. Reports of casting changes thought to be linked to this instruction indicated that Nicole Saba, originally cast for a serial called Ashbah el-Medina, had a contract worth £E1.2 million, equivalent to more than $208,000.76 As far as anyone could tell, this was a relatively standard rate for 2006. Leila Elwi’s fee per series at that time was said to range between ‘one to two million Egyptian pounds’.77 With Dubai TV and other Gulf stations signing exclusive contracts with some leading actors,78 the potential was increased for other stars to demand high rates. All of which would be of less concern if adequate returns on investment were guaranteed. In Egypt’s case the economics of musalsal

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

127

production remained hampered in 2006 by policies unchanged since the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) was formed as a self-contained entity in 1971 and a finance department was added to handle sales of its output in 1973. According to Hussein Jawhari of the ERTU, rules dating from 1973 were still limiting the selling price of ERTU television serials in 2006, imposing an upper limit of $2,000 per one-hour episode.79 Artificially low prices like this could only accentuate the effects of competition among sellers. Since the average costs of producing a one-hour episode in 2005 were already estimated at $3,000 to $10,000, depending on actors, costumes and sets, the prospects for profits from musalsalat were not what the frenetic level of activity in the sector seemed to suggest. As to whether producers could guarantee high returns from output pitched at the lower end of this scale, the evidence suggested otherwise, because of a shift in themes brought about by the shift from a national to a regional market. For example, Syrian producers at the start of the 1990s were targeting domestic audiences with what Salamandra calls a ‘singular television event’.80 So singular was it that Syrians could collectively use each night’s one episode as a marker to set their appointments by, arranging them either ‘before the serial’ or after it.81 For their own national audience, producers were drawn to deal with themes of national history and contemporary national life. As the market became regionalized, however, their focus and the focus of producers in other countries moved to subjects deemed to be of interest to a pan-Arab audience and especially audiences in the Gulf.82 This gave rise to big-budget epics set in bygone days of Islamic empire. In 2001, to quote Marlin Dick, ‘not one but two series’ were made about Salaheddin al-Ayyubi, revered for confronting the Crusaders.83 These were followed by multiple series set in the Omayyed and Abbassid eras. In 2005 alone, two shows were produced on Andalucia under Muslim rule (one Jordanian and the other Syrian), along with two historical epics (one Egyptian and one Syrian) on the Mameluke Sultan Baibars.84 The lower-budget alternative to these epics was to play safe with subjects involving family and personal relationships.85 Yet in the unstable regional market of 22 Arab countries, the lowest common denominator is what proves acceptable not only to the most powerful interest groups actually in those countries but also what is acceptable to their friends and allies. Here, despite changes in the scale of

128

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

serial production between 1996 and 2006, the risk of government censorship remained unchanged. In 1996 a Syrian-made serial called Ukhwat al-Turab (Brothers of the Earth) was suddenly pulled from the schedules in Kuwait. It was produced by a private Syrian company, AlSham al-Dawliyya, owned by the younger son of Syria’s vice-president at that time, Abdel-Halim Khaddam. MBC and Dubai TV bought the programme, as did state-owned Kuwait TV, which reportedly paid $300,000 to acquire it. After 13 of the 24 episodes had been shown, the Kuwaiti information minister responded to Turkish government objections to the content and stopped the series. Kuwaiti sensibilities were also said to have been affected because torture scenes in the series reminded them of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.86 A decade later, musalsalat were still liable to sudden stoppage. One of the most publicized examples was that of Tariq ila Kabul (Road to Kabul) in 2004, written by Jamal Abu Hamdan and commissioned by Qatar Television from Arab Telemedia Services (ATS), based in Amman. The serial, set in Afghanistan during the Soviet era, followed the story of an Afghan girl and Palestinian fighter against a backdrop of Islamist–US cooperation against communist rule. Screening was in full swing on nine different television channels, with eight out of a total 30 episodes already shown, when Qatar TV abruptly ordered ATS to cease distribution of the remaining episodes. Stations affected included MBC, Orbit and Jordan TV. Initially, Qatar TV appeared to have been shaken by a threat posted on a website, in which a group calling itself the Mujahidin Brigades of Iraq and Syria warned of attacks against any channel insulting the Taliban.87 However, later reports told a different story, blaming the cancellation on US pressure on the Qatari government. According to Charles Levinson’s sources, the US ‘feared that scenes of CIA agents selling heroin to fund the mujahideen would fire anti-American sentiment in the region’.88 Abu Hamdan, the scriptwriter, had a similar explanation, pointing out that Ramadan 2004 was just before a presidential election in the US.89 Whoever caused it, the stoppage proved very expensive for several television networks and highlighted the political risks attending drama production. The series itself had cost some $2.5 million to make, while its withdrawal jeopardized advertising revenue linked to its popularity. MBC sued ATS for compensation of $20 million.90 Meanwhile censorship of Egyptian serials continued as a matter

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

129

of course. Bint min Shubra (A Girl from Shubra), about a relationship between a Christian woman and Muslim man during Egypt’s struggle for independence in the 1940s, was axed in 2005 during Mamdouh Beltagi’s brief tenure as information minister. Beltagi insisted that future serials would be shown to clerics of Al-Azhar and the Coptic church before being screened.91 The special committee Beltagi created to vet dramas planned for Ramadan was retained by Anas al-Fiqqi when he took over as information minister.92 Elsewhere, religious and other interest groups seemed always at the ready to make their objections to the message of serials very plain. Al-Hoor al-Ein (The Pure Ones of Paradise), a Syrian drama based on bombings that shook Saudi Arabia in 2003, attracted criticism from Islamists. Aired by MBC and other channels during Ramadan 2005, this serial’s 30 episodes explored the effect on five families – Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Moroccan and Jordanian – of a suicide bombing at their housing compound in Saudi Arabia. It survived the criticism because it was made with the Saudi government’s blessing.93 The importance of such backing is implicit in the statement of a Syrian producer who told Salamandra that ‘with satellite television’, he now had ‘22 censors’.94 And yet, despite the raised stakes of production for unpredictable regional markets, viewers still had occasional opportunities to show how much they preferred the relevance and immediacy of productions made about national issues for national audiences. Starting in Ramadan 1993 and continuing through Ramadans in subsequent years, the Saudi series Tash ma tash (roughly translatable as ‘No Big Deal’95) demonstrated that viewers would readily delay viewing big-budget epics on satellite channels in order to tune in to material that resonated with the particularities of their national environment. Although credible viewing statistics for the series are not quoted, the intensity of local comment triggered by the show each year is taken as evidence of its following, if not its popularity. Producers at Al-Sharqiya, the Iraqi channel, said they sensed similar preferences in Iraq. Talking about shows like Al-Sharqiya’s serialized drama Departure, screened in 2005, the channel’s director Alaa Dahan said, ‘At first people were so eager to see the outside world. A year later they were filled up and now they want to see something local.’96 Questions about audience preferences between the local, regional and global also apply to feature films, which have become an increas-

130

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ingly important staple of Arab satellite television since all-movie channels were introduced on the pay-TV networks ART, Orbit and Showtime in the mid-1990s, and became available free-to-air ten years later. Demand for film on television was boosted by a total absence of movie theatres in Saudi Arabia until 2005 and years of neglect affecting the physical condition of movie theatres in Egypt until the late 1990s. ART’s original Arabic film channel was financially viable because its owner, Saleh Kamel, had bought the rights to a large library of Egyptian films. The deal was said to have involved 1,000 old films, bought for the equivalent of $1,200 each.97 When ART reorganized its platform in 2001 it added non-Arab movie channels, including Turner Classic Movies, The Film Channel and the Hindi channel B4U. Since these were part of the Al-Awael bouquet aimed at Arab viewers, subtitling into Arabic was required.98 Initially, therefore, Arabic-speaking viewers who needed foreign films to be subtitled, whether on ART, Orbit or Showtime, had to pay. It was only in 2003, with the first steps in MBC’s transformation into a multichannel network, that a free-to-air film channel showing movies with Arabic subtitles was introduced. MBC2 started as a conduit for programming of interest to Arab viewers in the age range 18–35. But it was soon split in two, with MBC2 specializing in Hollywood films and MBC4 carrying American sitcoms like Friends and Frasier, talk shows like Oprah and other English-language series. This expansion into Western programming had important spin-offs for advertising and sponsorship. Tim Riordan, director of MBC channels, revealed at the end of 2005 that MBC2 now had exclusive longterm deals with Paramount, Fox and other studios.99 Weeks later the company announced that it had signed up Nescafé, Ford, Bounty and others as sponsors for every prime-time movie slot on MBC2.100 MBC boasted that, with MBC2, it had launched the world’s first free 24-hour movie channel.101 But the channel did not remain unusual for long. In December 2004, Dubai’s Channel 33 was shut down and replaced by One TV, aimed at ‘modern Arabs who enjoy western-style programming, as well as English-speaking expatriates’.102 Free-to-air in both digital and analogue on Nilesat and Arabsat, One TV, part of Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI), promised a blockbuster line-up of 27 movies a week, including titles such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and The X-Men. Reality shows aired on One

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

131

TV included Faking It, Extreme Makeover and others, alongside sitcoms such as Scrubs, Friends, Frasier and What I Like About You. This direction in programming was made possible by a deal signed between Dubai TV and Warner Bros International Television Distribution six months earlier. Described as the US firm’s largest distribution deal with a freeto-air Middle-East-based broadcaster up to that point, it covered 90 of Warner Bros latest movies, plus feature films from the Warner Bros film library and television series such as The Sopranos and The West Wing.103 While MBC2 and One TV were expanding in this westwardly direction, Rotana, the Beirut-based network owned by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, was adding capacity aimed at offering greater access to Egyptian film. Rotana Cinema, launched at the start of 2005, distinguished itself not only by being free-to-air but by showing recent movies. Older ones were concentrated in another channel, Rotana Zaman. The start of 2006 saw Egypt’s Melody Entertainment, a competitor to Rotana in the music television business, expanding its network to include Melody Film in a move that prompted the music video channel Mazzika to suggest it might follow suit.104 In normal circumstances, television rights to recent movie titles do not come cheap. Publicly owned broadcasters with many other demands on their budgets have to ration the number of top-rated films they show and might be expected to balance the showing of Hollywood blockbusters with locally made films that deal with local or national issues. Thus the advent and spread of free film on Arab television in the first half of the 2000s raised questions about the balance between old films and new ones, about control over distribution and about sources of investment in new films. Lebanon, for example, despite its active satellite television sector, produced only 12 films in the 15 years between the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990 and 2005.105 In 2006, Morocco’s annual output of films was said to be around five or six. In the case of MBC and DMI, reliance on a combination of longterm deals with Hollywood studios and sponsorship from global brands appears to have created a self-sustaining formula devoid of any mechanism for generating investment in local production of feature films. Rotana, meanwhile, embarked on the business of showing films on television after acquiring the rights to an extensive library of Egyptian film. The acquisition process may have started in earnest

132

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

when Citicorp, in which Alwaleed is the biggest shareholder, acquired 20 per cent of the shares of the Egyptian financial group EFG-Hermes at the start of 2000. EFG-Hermes had by then shown its faith in the potential profitability of the hitherto ailing Egyptian movie industry by taking over the Renaissance Cinema Company, set up by Egypt’s Sawiris family in 1998.106 In August 2000, EFG-Hermes announced that, over the summer, it had acquired the negatives of one-quarter of the 3,200 Egyptian movies made since 1935, along with exclusive rights to screen them. Press reports at the time did not reveal the price paid. One mentioned only that Egypt’s state-owned broadcaster had done little to boost film production, since it had been buying five-year or ten-year rights to films for a mere £E10,000 apiece.107 EFG-Hermes apparently carried on buying rights to more films and, in 2004, sold them on through its subsidiary Fonoun. The buyer this time was none other than Rotana. Taken together with Saleh Kamel’s purchases for ART in the 1990s, the 2004 sale was said to mean that two-thirds of the country’s cinematic heritage was now under Saudi ownership.108 Rotana’s spokesperson, Mohammed Karam, was unrepentant when discussing the measures taken to build up a library of 2,000 movies for the company’s film channels. He denied any intention of monopolizing the rights to Egyptian films, suggesting instead that a private owner would do markedly better than Egypt’s ministry of culture in paying attention to the restoration and preservation of films.109 Alwaleed himself seemed less perturbed about allegations of monopoly. In a press interview at the end of December 2005, after buying Fonoun earlier in the year, he estimated that Rotana had control over 60 per cent of ‘all movies being shown in the Arab world’.110 That level of control may have encouraged Rotana’s own entry into movie-making in 2006, but it did not augur well for diversity of investment in film production. Meanwhile, obstacles to local exhibition, even of films that had won awards at local festivals, undermined the effect of the very limited state subsidies available. Investment in new films by independent producers remained limited even after the major expansion in television airtime devoted to film that has been described here. Just before its Al-Jazeera Television Production Festival in Doha in April 2006, Al-Jazeera said it would set aside QR5 million ($1.4 million) for an Al-Jazeera sponsorship Fund for Independent Television Productions, to support independent work by talented young produc-

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

133

ers. Wadah Khanfar, director-general of the Al-Jazeera Network, made it plain that the fund was a ‘first step in fostering the development of arts and culture’.111 The pay-TV network Showtime Arabia, owned by KIPCO of Kuwait with a licence from Viacom of the US to use the Showtime name, followed this in May 2006 by revealing a plan to create high-quality content in Arabic similar in terms of production values to the innovative series for which the US subscription channel HBO had become known.112 Peter Einstein, then head of Showtime Arabia, said his company was talking to Hollywood studios and was ready to consider new programming in any genre, with production likely to benefit from facilities under construction at Dubai Studio City.113 Despite these good intentions, however, and despite the grand promises implicit in glittering events like the December 2005 Dubai International Film Festival and mega-projects like Dubai Studio City, people on the production rather than the commissioning end of filmmaking continued to complain that, if they wanted financial backing that actually materialized, Europe was their best bet. This was a cause for complaint because relying on European investment meant they had to accept rewrites suited to European tastes and prejudices, which limited distribution possibilities in Arab countries and failed to channel any profits back into further Arab production.114 For example, Paradise Now, a Palestinian-directed film nominated for the Oscars in 2006, was a joint Palestinian, Israeli, French, German and Dutch production. While the occasional co-produced film gained publicity on the international circuit, one commentator was moved to declare, ‘The Arab voice for itself is vanishing in the globalized film industry.’115 Films big enough to counter this assertion remained few in number in 2006, the year that Egypt’s GN4ME released the $3 million Imaret Yacoubian (The Yacoubian Building), based on a best-selling novel of 2002, and followed it up with Halim, a biopic of Egypt’s legendary singer, Abdel-Halim Hafez. Egypt’s film output, instead of rising in response to the initial arrival of satellite television, had slumped to fewer than 25 a year in the mid-1990s.116 The singularity of Imaret Yacoubian can be judged from the fact that, when it played at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006, it was the first Egyptian film to be shown there since Youssef Chahine’s Eskandriyya Leih? (Alexandria Why?) in 1978.117 Its unusually powerful backing came from GN4ME,

134

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

the company that made it, which is part of the Good News Group, founded and headed by Egyptian media magnate, Emadeddin Adeeb. Adeeb described cinema as an ‘ideal vehicle to stimulate discussion about taboo subjects’.118 Yet differences in emphasis between the novel of Imaret Yacoubian and the film suggested that the Good News Group had adapted the text to avoid challenging taboos. Adeeb had obvious reasons to balance between the job of ‘stimulat[ing] discussion’ and protecting his business interests: his companies stood poised for expansion in 2006, in line with the promised liberalization of Egypt’s terrestrial television sector.119 Conclusion The Arab market for television entertainment is large enough, statistically, to support an entertainment production industry that could afford to take risks. Taking risks includes creating innovative and challenging content with the potential to attract large audiences and thereby, through advertising revenue, make enough profit to compensate for flops. This chapter has shown, however, that Arab television companies, rather than taking risks in entertainment in the interests of profitability, have learned from experience to be averse to risk. During the period under review they relied increasingly heavily on imported formats as a shortcut to success based on experimentation undertaken by non-Arab companies outside the Arab world. Within the format industry, they also learned to rely on relatively safe formats within the game-show genre. Heavy reliance on formats on some channels, and large-scale imports on channels such as MBC2, MBC4 and One TV, could be said to have undermined incentives for investment in high-risk local production of drama and film, despite expert warnings that demand for formats is cyclical whereas drama remains a staple of television programming.120 Meanwhile, far from creating the right climate for risk-taking, the regionalization of Arab television seems simply to have multiplied the number of official and unofficial censors, exposing productions to the interventions of 22 governments and any number of militant groups. Instead of making local entertainment more relevant and insightful, concern for access to a regionwide market seems to have pushed most drama towards being less exceptional and more bland. Worse still, a regionwide market was not matched by true regionalization of production, in the sense of

FAC I N G U P T O R E A L I T Y

135

producers gaining access to the best input at the lowest costs, because of restrictions imposed at national level. In the music industry, regionalization enabled major players, notably Rotana, to control contracts and distribution. With Arabic-speaking audiences outstripping the size of the US domestic market, and advertising theoretically capable of expanding to match, the Arab entertainment industry has the potential to be highly profitable. But the evidence presented here shows that profits are heavily undercut not only by the costs of licences for formats and the cost of importing other shows but also by fear of litigation over the screening of certain programmes, and loss of earnings for shows that are cancelled at short notice. In the case of some drama serials mentioned in this chapter, cancellation took place after the initial investment had been spent but only a few episodes had been shown. Such incidents are a severe deterrent to all but the richest, whose agenda was shown here to be more political than commercial. Whereas demand for content on proliferating channels should benefit local content producers, this was undermined by the ability of some, including state-funded Egyptian output, to undercut others on prices and offer drama serials for sale at less than cost. With advertising rates under pressure, television companies have a big incentive to curb costs. Yet here again, regionalization creates a market in which rich countries compete for entertainment talent with poor ones, pushing contracts for actors, singers and directors up to the level of the highest bidder, regardless of whether or not the highest bidder is also the most open to imaginative content and innovation. Fakhreddine and others were quoted in the introduction to this chapter as warning that local production capacity and creativity had yet to benefit from the satellite-induced regionalization of entertainment programming. Their warnings are borne out by close analysis of television executives’ approaches to entertainment programming. Where local companies have come up with their own format ideas, most have been in the match-making, makeover and business challenge categories, offering culturally relevant variations on established themes. Where formats have been imported they have offered some opportunities for local production, but MBC’s practice of importing and subtitling formats ready-made in their American versions shows that those opportunities have actually been quite limited. In

136

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

music production, big players such as Prince Alwaleed and Naguib Sawiris have gone on record as saying that they wish to counter religious conservatives and combat extremism as well as pursuing their business interests. But their cultural and business objectives have not served the interests of independent local musicians and distribution outlets. As for film and drama, new production initiatives of the kind announced by Al-Jazeera and Showtime in 2006 remained the exception. Film-makers continued to worry that European co-productions would dilute the Arab film industry beyond recognition, while drama production, thanks to regionalization, was increasingly dominated by companies in a minority of Arab states. Here, as in other areas of entertainment, television companies appeared to be preoccupied with the immediate and short term, giving very little thought to sustainable programming strategies that would foster production capacity at the national level and nurture the local creativity which local audiences have shown they appreciate.

6

Calculations Behind News, Sport and Talk TV Sustainability is a basic issue for all media firms, Arab television companies included. The previous chapter considered whether entertainment programming strategies were putting in place enduring forms of content and production capacity that would underpin audience-friendly television schedules and thereby ensure viability for firms in the long run. It highlighted concerns arising from high volumes of imports. But the same question about sustainability also needs to be asked in relation to those programme genres, notably news and current affairs, sport, religion, education, and talk shows, in which the import option is not available to the same extent. Thus the next task in trying to build a picture of how Arab television companies are shaping up for the future is to examine their approach to content in these categories. As Robert Picard points out in relation to media management generally, there is a constant battle for managerial attention and resources between the need for short-term financial performance, which may be achieved at the expense of content quality, and the need for long-term effectiveness and competitiveness of the firm.1 He notes that the concept of competitiveness runs much deeper than simply competing against other companies. It indicates not only the degree to which a firm or industry can ‘survive, sustain itself, and remain a viable economic contributor’ but also the degree to which a firm or industry can ‘respond to market opportunities or threats’.2 To achieve competitiveness and sustainability, managers need to grapple with a range of forces. Picard’s list includes production forces, such as the costs of capital and labour, and technological forces, which involve not only the availability of technology but also its adoption by users. Market forces include consumer demand, the availability of advertising 137

138

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

and other revenue, as well as the intensity of competition. Social forces encompass political, legal and cultural demands. Within management itself, there are forces working for and against organizational effectiveness, financial control, innovation and responsiveness to change.3 Tracking the interplay of these forces is particularly challenging in those areas of Arab television activity, notably news and talk shows, where the majority of input originates within the region. The challenge comes from the blurring of boundaries between the local, national and transnational in relation to content production, the size of the market and the nature of political and legal demands. Chapter 5 argued that the transnational pan-Arab market should be profitable for media by virtue of its size, but instead operates as a collection of disparate and sometimes obstructive national markets, several of whose governments are powerful enough to make their own unwritten political and legal demands on content that is intended to cross borders. It is consequently unclear whether to approach analysis of the industry through the optic of the nation state or from a transnational perspective. James Curran argues that the diverse political systems, power structures, economies and international links of different nation states mean that the nation is ‘still the starting point for making sense of the politics of the media’,4 especially since ‘the globalization of communications is transforming media fiction and music rather than news and current affairs’.5 Jean Chalaby, in contrast, believes that the study of transnational broadcasting should take place ‘outside the prison-house of the nation-state perspective’. He recommends treating transnational media as a ‘normal phenomenon’ that can be explored ‘for itself and not solely in relationship with the national media’.6 In other words, even though the national perspective ‘remains relevant because many national broadcasters are involved with transnational television’, Chalaby finds that different cross-border channels display different ‘types of transnationality’. They bring different answers to the complex issue of broadcasting across frontiers and therefore need to be understood not within a single ‘transnational’ category but in terms of their varying responses to the polarities of the local and the global.7 Since the present chapter aims to explore some of the forces affecting Arab media firms’ sustainability in areas of content creation and distribution other than fiction and music, Chalaby’s approach to

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

139

understanding ‘types of transnationality’ may lend itself more readily to the purpose than one that treats the so-called pan-Arab market as a collection of separate national units. There is, for example, much to be learned about where Arab companies stand vis-à-vis what Picard terms social forces: namely, political, legal, cultural and social demands, which may be national or transnational. Regulation that requires certain amounts of airtime to be devoted to specific categories of content such as news, current affairs, religion or children’s programmes is conspicuous by its absence in relation to Arab channels. Even Lebanon’s mid-1990s legislation – unusual in that it regulated local private broadcasters, which did not then exist in most other Arab states – imposed scheduling stipulations that were vague and undemanding.8 Elsewhere, just as government-run terrestrial television monopolies effectively decided for themselves the amounts of airtime to be allocated for programme categories, new stations operating outside those monopolies did the same. Yet the fact that demands regarding quantity and quality of content are not always explicit does not mean they do not exist. Lack of transparency in national policies or market parameters simply means that demands may only become apparent when firms confront them in their day-to-day business dealings. Hence the rationale for concentrating not on nation states but on firms. A focus on managerial approaches to transnationality may also offer a window onto business rationales that incorporate non-financial objectives. Media owners everywhere have an interest in being not only responsive to change but also in trying to influence its direction. Expansion of news and current affairs programming has long been one of the most remarked-upon features of the growth of Arab satellite television, not least because the costs and risks of newsgathering are so high. Even though the technical expense of newsgathering for television may have fallen as mobile phone images and Internet transmission have replaced the huge expense of satellite feeds, the Middle East’s multiple violent conflicts have cost so many reporters’ lives and made reporting so difficult that one might have expected to see the number of news channels decline. Instead, with the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, they increased, apparently for non-financial reasons. Non-financial objectives are not unusual in the world of television news. Greg Dyke, a former BBC director-general, told an audience in

140

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Abu Dhabi in 2006 that the BBC had launched its international 24hours news channel, BBC World, with the two broad aims of having influence and making money. It had discovered that the ‘latter aim was very difficult to achieve’.9 Based on this discovery, Dyke conjectured that the ‘single most important factor’ behind international all-news channels is a ‘desire by governments and corporations to have worldwide influence for their brands, and, arguably their views’.10 His point is corroborated by Dawn Airey, who, as managing director of channels and services at Sky, majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch, noted in 2005 that Sky News was being run at a ‘large loss’.11 It underwent a multi-million pound relaunch that year which failed to achieve a big increase in viewers.12 But the owners of Sky News apparently regarded viewers as only part of an equation, in which the prestige of reporting and maintaining links with government ministers and officials carried more weight, enough at least to justify preserving a loss-making operation. However, just as there are non-financial reasons for entering a market, there may also be non-financial barriers to market entry. In principle, with the costs of television transmission having been reduced by a big increase in satellite capacity, financial barriers to entry have come down. Production costs are also minimized when content is dominated by local studio debates. A comparison of costs in British television, published in 2000, put the average hourly cost of drama at £398,000 and other entertainment at £236,000, whereas the cost of studio-based discussion shows averaged only £18,000 per hour.13 Not surprisingly, the talk-show genre was readily taken up in Western environments because the multi-channel marketplace of the digital era, by intensifying competition for audiences, placed ‘a premium on cheap programming with proven popular appeal’.14 A similar rationale exists in the context of Arab television but has to be set against considerations that run wider and deeper than mere changes in technology and their impact on production and distribution costs. Abdel-Rahman alRashed alluded to unseen barriers after taking over as manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel. ‘This is a big region,’ he said, ‘and I will not be upset if I see more TV stations launched. I think the market can take more. A lot of them will just hire a room in [Dubai] Media City with three cameras and have their TV station.’ This is ‘fine’, he added, ‘but it will not change the market. The big boys will remain few.’15 The

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

141

television market in 2006 certainly had no financial attractions for Prince Faisal bin Salman, chief executive of the Saudi Research and Marketing publishing empire. He described the television sector as ‘dangerous commercially’, in contrast to the profitable print media.16 Peter Einstein, as head of Showtime Arabia, implied that barriers to market entry existed behind the scenes when he told an interviewer, ‘let us not forget that we are in an area where people would launch a satellite channel just because they want to or can’.17 Comparing types of transnationality among Arab TV companies may be a way of discovering whether they all have to deal with the same social and market forces and whether they deal with such forces in the same way. News and sport Arab-owned news channels increased rapidly in number during 2003– 04, numbering nearly a dozen by the end of the latter year.18 Very few of these demonstrated any inclination to boost internal funding from profits as an alternative to dependence on funding supplied from outside the firm. Some, like Al-Jazeera, ANN, Al-Mustaqilla and Nile News, had been around since the 1990s.19 ANN was started by an estranged branch of Syria’s ruling Assad family in 1997, the year after Al-Jazeera’s launch. It made no attempt to sell advertising airtime in its initial phase or to disguise its raison d’être as a publicity vehicle for Rifaat al-Assad, a former Syrian vice-president and opponent of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Nile News was part of the bouquet of thematic channels created within Egypt’s state-owned ERTU in 1998 to fill space on the first satellite of Egypt’s Nilesat fleet, which went into orbit that year. As such, attracting advertising was not its primary rationale. Al-Mustakilla, run by a London-based Tunisian newspaper owner, began with very modest funds and technical capabilities in February 1999 and survived more as a socio-political talk-show channel than a news service. Al-Manar, a generalist channel with its own news operation, began transmitting by satellite in 2000 and dramatically increased its transmission time after the second Palestinian uprising erupted in September that year. Created as part of Hizbollah’s effort to resist Israeli occupation of Arab land, Al-Manar was regarded as a platform for news and commentary rather than a source of profit. The tally of news channels in 2004 included a wave of start-ups that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq. Al-Arabiya, an offshoot of

142

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

the Saudi media group behind MBC, began broadcasting 24-hour news from Dubai in March 2003, just in time to report on the invasion. CNBC Arabiya, a Dubai-based affiliate of the US business news channel CNBC, went on air from Dubai in July 2003. January 2004 saw Saudi Arabia’s state-owned broadcaster spawn the 24-hour news channel Al-Ekhbariya. In Iraq, the changed political situation triggered a spate of media initiatives both inside and outside the country. Iraq’s first private satellite channel to offer news coverage was AlSharqiya, owned by newspaper publisher Saad al-Bazzazz. Arabic News Broadcasting (ANB), based in the UK and intended to ‘conquer’ the Iraqi market,20 started in mid-2004, to coincide with the US-led occupiers’ handover of authority to the Interim Government of Iraq. The brainchild of a group of businessmen from Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Tunisia, ANB was designed to mix news with general interest programming, with around 80 per cent of its schedule going out live.21 Ramadan in 2004 saw further arrivals. Al-Sumariya, chaired by JeanClaude Boulos, a former head of the Lebanese state channel TéléLiban, and broadcast from Beirut, said it intended to ‘show the world the true face of Iraq and not only images of violence’.22 Numerous as they were, the Arab television stations targeting Iraq were not alone in the field. They were accompanied by the Iranian news channel AlAlam and the US Arabic-language channel Al-Hurra, financed from within the US State Department and launched in February 2004. AlIraqiya was the renamed television arm of the Iraq Media Network, set up by the Coalition Provisional Authority and run under contract by two US defence contractors, first Science Applications International Corporation and then Harris Corporation. Harris subcontracted programming and training to LBC. Among the Arab-owned stations operating in Iraq in the early months after the invasion, both terrestrially and by satellite, some claimed to be motivated solely by commercial objectives and expected to survive on advertising revenue. Advertisers usually prefer to associate their products with media output that offers enjoyment and there seemed to be a general assumption at this time that viewers in Iraq, overwhelmed by bad news on their doorsteps day after day, would be seeking light relief in the form of entertainment and comedy programmes. Nahrain, a channel founded with investment of $25 million from Naguib Sawaris of Egypt’s Orascom group and headed

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

143

by Video Cairo Sat’s founder, Mohammed Gohar, calculated that it might attract 80 minutes of advertising per day. Orascom’s subsidiary Iraqna led the way by booking some slots.23 Although a general station carrying variety, drama and children’s programmes, Nahrain planned its schedules around several hours of news and current affairs. Similarly, ANB declared itself to be hopeful of commercial success, saying it would ‘depend exclusively on advertisements for revenue’.24 Al-Sharqiya’s funding was meanwhile linked to its owner’s existing media operations; documents lodged as part of a court case in London in 2005 suggested in turn that these might have received financial backing from the Saudi government.25 Mounting carnage in Iraq proved hopes of economic recovery and a booming advertising market to have been false. But the prospects of making money through news broadcasting were fairly dismal throughout the region. Abu Dhabi TV, which switched to 24-hour news during the invasion of Iraq, reverted to general programming afterwards. Its managers cited a concern to restrain costs, but others attributed the decision to pressure from powerful interest groups in the US, who wanted Gulf governments to reduce television news coverage of violence in Iraq. This kind of pressure was already depriving Al-Jazeera, the region’s most-watched news channel, of advertising revenue commensurate with its audience; some giant US companies had stopped advertising on Al-Jazeera in protest at its reporting of US bombing raids on Afghanistan in 2001. Qatar’s partners in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) followed suit in 2002. In October that year GCC information ministers, meeting in Muscat, formalized a boycott of the Qatari satellite channel that had already been imposed by the Saudi authorities and Saudi distributors of major brands. Ibrahim Helal, then Al-Jazeera’s editor-in-chief, told reporters that the boycott would make little difference since it had already been in effect for a ‘long time’.26 From then on, Qatari–Saudi relations deteriorated further, with Saudi Arabia recalling its ambassador in Doha and subjecting Al-Jazeera crews to an indefinite bar on entry to the kingdom.27 The boycott continued into 2006. In January that year Ahmad al-Sheikh, the editor-in-chief of Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language news channel, said it had even been strengthened. He alleged Saudi government pressure on the Japanese company Toyota to withdraw its advertising.28

144

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Sanctions affecting Al-Jazeera’s newsgathering capabilities took their toll, denying reporters access to events in one of the region’s biggest and most newsworthy countries. This disadvantage vis-à-vis other channels, which were soon to include the Saudi-owned AlArabiya and Al-Ekhbariya, was reinforced with effect from August 2004, when Al-Jazeera was also banned from operating inside Iraq. Al-Arabiya, although banned from Iraq for a period, was later allowed to return. As for the artificial curb on advertising income, this left the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, to cover a large part of Al-Jazeera’s annual budget, even though the channel had initially been set up with a five-year loan and instructed to become self-sufficient. According to Ahmad al-Sheikh in early 2006, the news channel at that stage was receiving around $20 million a year in revenue from all sources other than the emir.29 By continuing to fund the channel beyond the five years initially agreed, Sheikh Hamad proved that there were political reasons for Al-Jazeera’s existence. He and his cousin, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, Al-Jazeera’s chairman, expressed these reasons in terms of providing a public service, likening the public funding of Al-Jazeera to that of the BBC. They pointed out that Qatar was moving towards parliamentary elections, which called for media to enjoy freedom and credibility.30 Others attributed the funding to self-interest on the part of a Qatari government seeking to maintain a precarious balancing act in its relations with conflicting interest groups in the region, notably bigger neighbours in the Gulf, its close and powerful ally the US, and various strands of Islamist and Arab nationalist sentiment in the wider Arab world. Al-Jazeera seemed to serve the Qatari leadership by providing a forum in which Arab resentment against US foreign policy could be freely expressed, thereby portraying Qatar as a defender of Arab nationalist interests and pacifying qualms about the ruling Al Thani clan’s alliance with the US.31 This role was given another dimension in spring 2005, with the creation of Al-Jazeera Mubasher (Al-Jazeera Direct), comparable to CSpan in the US, to carry political gatherings, press conferences and cultural events live and uncut across the region.32 By bringing live events such as parliamentary debates from Palestine or Kuwait into Arab homes, the channel seemed implicitly intended to widen political participation. Live coverage of developments in the Sudan crisis on

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

145

Al-Jazeera Mubasher had generated enough feedback to indicate that certain types of content on the channel would be closely watched.33 It was also launched at a time when imminent Lebanese, Egyptian and Palestinian elections promised a succession of political events that could be broadcast live and would in turn generate word-of-mouth recommendations among viewers. Al-Jazeera Mubasher was presented not as a means of boosting advertising revenue but as a ‘public service’. However, financial considerations were not set aside altogether. In July 2004, after a period of particularly intense US pressure on Qatar to curb Al-Jazeera’s coverage of conflict in Iraq, it emerged that the consultancy firm Ernst and Young had been retained to advise on selling the Al-Jazeera group to private buyers, possibly through a flotation on the Qatari stock exchange. Privatization did not proceed, suggesting that Sheikh Hamad may have used the prospect of such a move to distance himself from the channel in US eyes and so deflect further US pressure from himself and his ministers. But talks did take place within Al-Jazeera on business models that could bring in private enterprise without adversely affecting the channel’s editorial approach. These talks acknowledged that the news channel itself was unlikely to make money, but speculated that other specialist channels could if they carried the Al-Jazeera brand. Wadah Khanfar, later appointed head of the whole Al-Jazeera Network, said of the news channel: ‘Having a market-driven approach has never been a worry for us. Because of the boycott, we don’t feel that advertising is a target. The target for us is professionalism. With [editorial] balance we gain a far larger audience.’34 According to Khanfar, the challenge was to convert the publicity gained through that large audience and brand recognition into ‘fiscal benefits’.35 Thus even before the privatization study was announced, Al-Jazeera had already taken steps to benefit financially from its high profile by expanding into sports broadcasting in November 2003. This project, timed to build up a presence ahead of Qatar’s hosting of the Asian Games in December 2006, involved three separate channels, only one of which was made free-to-air. The other two, operating on a subscription model, gave subscribers access to the main European football leagues. One of these, Al-Jazeera Sports Plus, was later to introduce a basketball game show with big prizes, called Lifetime Shots, described by its spokesperson, Hedi Smirani, as

146

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

a tradeable format equivalent to Star Academy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire? 36 Registered under the Al-Jazeera brand, this format was offered for sale to other channels. By entering the field of sports broadcasting in late 2003, Al-Jazeera put itself in competition with the existing pay-TV providers of sport, notably Orbit, which had just launched an Arabic sports channel called Al-Riyadhia, and ART. The importance it attached to financial spin-offs from a move into pay-per-view sport was highlighted by its simultaneous expansion into pay-per-SMS news services. In November 2003 it launched Al-Jazeera Mobile, to provide breaking news of all kinds, including sports as well as politics and economics, to mobile phones. Hamad al-Nuaimi, promoting Al-Jazeera Mobile, chose to highlight the advantage of access to ‘the latest football and motorracing updates’ when his channel teamed up with telecoms companies in Jordan.37 Competition among Arab broadcasters to win television rights to sporting events became tougher from then on, given that Kuwait, Dubai and Bahrain already had sports channels of their own. Saudi Arabia, not content with creating Al-Ekhbariya, its 24-hour news channel in January 2004, added Saudi Sports to its bouquet of state TV satellite channels at the same time. Dubai by this stage was already developing links to international football, rugby union and other sports through sponsorship deals signed by Emirates, the Dubaibased airline, and through plans for Dubai Sports City, due to open as a venue for international sports events in 2007. In late 2005, Dubai Sports Channel announced a relaunch as part of the Dubai government’s programme to ‘provide a balanced coverage of the sports events in each Arab country’ and to build bridges ‘between the UAE and the Arab world’.38 As Al-Jazeera faced increasing competition in news and sports programming from 2003, its market position rested on its proclaimed remit to follow international norms of newsworthiness so as to cover events and issues of relevance to a large numbers of viewers. Editorial staff explained repeatedly to anyone who would listen that they were constantly striving to achieve balanced news coverage, with comments and perspectives from all sides.39 From the outset, the Qatari government attributed Al-Jazeera’s limited coverage of news about Qatar to the country’s tiny population and the fact that domestic Qatari politics are consequently a very low priority for international news chan-

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

147

nels. Even so, the Qatari government’s close relations with the US, including its decision to host a big US airbase, came under attack in Al-Jazeera talk shows,40 while shortcomings of the Qatari justice system were attacked on air during the trial of conspirators charged with trying to overthrow the government in 1996.41 British and American journalists joining Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel in 2005 took the view that financial backing from Qatar’s ruler did not come with editorial strings attached. Even so, questions about Al-Jazeera’s coverage of uncomfortable news about Qatar became more obvious with the arrival of Al-Arabiya, which made sure to report incidents such as the treatment of more than 5,000 members of the Al Murra tribe who had their Qatari nationality taken away and then restored. Despite AlArabiya’s existence, statistics pointed to Al-Jazeera attracting the biggest audiences of any news channel in two major markets, namely Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Between November 2004 and January 2005, the Amman-based consultancy Arab Advisors Group conducted research into households in Greater Cairo, which showed that, of the 46 per cent of households with satellite dishes, more than two-thirds (68.3 per cent) used them to watch satellite news channels. In this category, Al-Jazeera was watched by 88.4 per cent of households, compared with 35.1 per cent for Al-Arabiya. Egypt’s own Nile News was watched by only 8.9 per cent.42 A similar survey of Arab households in Saudi Arabia, conducted a few months earlier, had shown that 90 per cent preferred to watch satellite programming in Arabic. Of these 82 per cent watched Al-Jazeera, 75 per cent watched Al-Arabiya while only 33 per cent watched the Saudi state-owned all-news channel Al-Ekhbariya (then still in its first year).43 The figures for Saudi Arabia are significant since the country’s relatively large and affluent population makes it a key target for advertisers, which means that news channels able to operate inside the kingdom enjoy a major business advantage. When Al-Arabiya started up, its management indicated that they intended not only to cover the news differently from Al-Jazeera but also to make money. With better access than Al-Jazeera to Saudi news sources and Saudi advertising, officials at the parent company, MBC, predicted that the new channel would sustain itself through advertising after one year. Advertising executives around the region agreed that MBC’s advertising sales team and reputation as a credible newscaster would work to Al-Arabiya’s advantage.44

148

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

But Al-Arabiya also made a deliberate pitch for advertising by paying greater attention than Al-Jazeera to non-political news. In July 2005, three years after start-up, it took this a step further by introducing a new morning show called Sabah al-Arabiya. Modeled on magazine-style morning shows popular in the US and elsewhere, this programme increased opportunities for covering fashion, lifestyle, entertainment and sport. By featuring local business trends, it also responded to small investors’ mounting interest in stock markets around the region. These markets boomed in 2002–05, fueled by the impact of rising oil revenues and low interest rates on local business confidence, reinforced by the repatriation of Gulf capital triggered by declining returns on equities in Europe and the US. The Saudi stock-market index rose by 70 per cent in 2003, 87 per cent in 2004 and a further 28 per cent in the first quarter of 2005 alone. So many people were scrambling to buy shares that each new public offering on the stock exchange was greatly oversubscribed. Families even bought shares in the name of their newborn babies to get round limits on individual purchases. Sabah al-Arabiya responded to this phenomenon and, later, to the panic caused by tumbling share prices in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Coverage of this kind did not bring instant profitability. AlArabiya managers took pains to report positive trends in audience figures. Yet Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed, who moved from editing the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat to managing Al-Arabiya in 2004, allowed observers to draw a connection between coverage and viewership by admitting that the channel came under an ‘annoying degree’ of pressure from Saudi officials to cover some stories and not others.45 In one case the channel stopped covering news of Syria’s political opposition because of warnings from the Syrian government and orders from senior Saudi figures. As mentioned in Chapter 3, it covered the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd non-stop for three days. The negative impact of such restrictions was implicit in the channel’s failure to break even after three years. Asked about profits in mid2006, Rashed said, ‘We are very optimistic to make profits soon due to the huge day-time audience watching the stock market coverage.’46 Profitability also remained a future goal for CNBC Arabiya, despite its having been given an advantage over many other non-Saudi news organizations, in being licensed to open an office in Saudi Arabia. CNBC Arabiya’s chief executive, Zafar Siddiqi, said in 2006 that his

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

149

target date for break-even was still two years away, being set for the first quarter of 2008.47 For Nile News it was not so much a question of heading for profit as trying not to deepen the deficit. In spite of privileges guaranteed by its position within the ERTU structure, such as preferential deals on advertising and access to official sources, Nile News was not able to compete with other channels in terms of production quality or coverage. It was late in carrying news of the Taba bombings in Egypt in 2004 and its reporting on the sinking of an Egyptian-owned ferry in the Red Sea, on 3 February 2006, was less than that of non-Egyptian channels, even though the disaster cost more than 1,000 Egyptian lives. Unlike Nile News, Al-Jazeera and the BBC had correspondents in the port of Safaga to talk to bereaved relatives and officials. On 5 February, while Mohammed Krichen of Al-Jazeera was devoting that day’s edition of Ma Wara’ al-Khabar (What’s Behind the News) to questions about the ferry’s seaworthiness, Nile News was leading its news bulletins with coverage of an attack on the Danish embassy in Beirut and showing a discussion programme on the victory of Hamas in Palestinian legislative elections. Bereaved relatives were seen but not heard on Nile News’s short report on the Salam Boccaccio ferry disaster. While plans for upgrading or part-privatizing other parts of the ERTU were discussed in early 2006, including a possible sale of Nile Sports, the information minister, Anas al-Fiqi, said the government would keep control of Nile News.48 Instead of facing a shake-up that would redress the imbalance in coverage of Egyptian affairs on Egyptian television, the authorities in Cairo resorted instead to obstructing Al-Jazeera. In May 2005, Egyptian police detained a crew working for Al-Jazeera Mubasher, as they prepared a live telecast of a Cairo Judges’ Club meeting called to discuss judicial oversight of Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential election. Stating that Al-Jazeera needed a permit to cover the event, police held the crew until the meeting was over, whereupon some judges took it upon themselves to go to Al-Jazeera’s Cairo office to be interviewed.49 Other harassment of Al-Jazeera crews in Egypt was noted in Chapter 2. Documentaries Where content problems arise for television newscasts, the same applies to television documentaries. Plans for an Al-Jazeera fund

150

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

for independent television production, coupled with its Television Production Festival, announced in 2006, may have been aimed in part at encouraging documentary making. Yet they followed four years in which plans to launch a documentary channel as part of the Al-Jazeera Network had failed to materialize. Plans for the channel were drafted in 2002, based on experiments with documentary-style programmes in the station’s existing schedules and tested at film festivals sponsored by Al-Jazeera in London and Doha in 1999 and 2000. Envisaged as an Arab equivalent to the National Geographic and Discovery channels, the documentary channel was given the green light by a feasibility study since it was not expected to involve a large increase in editorial staff or overheads.50 However, ambitions for in-house production were trimmed over time. In 2002 there was talk of 40 per cent of output being produced in house.51 In early 2006, it was suggested that no more than two hours per day would be commissioned by Al-Jazeera itself.52 The extensive use of voice-over in documentary films renders the genre suitable for dubbing and thus for export; where the original uses subtitles for statements in foreign languages, the imported version can do the same. Yet certain versions of the genre also typically meet resistance from commercial channels who worry that advertisers will shun spots next to grim accounts of hardship or injustice. As the gestation period for the Al-Jazeera documentary channel became ever more protracted, its proposed purpose appeared to become more limited. Instead of leading on current affairs, which date quickly and would blur the distinction with Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language news channel, the documentary channel looked more to films on nature, culture and science.53 Its start-up date was meanwhile made contingent on the satisfactory launch of Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel.54 The delay seemed to reflect doubts about the benefits of having a separate documentary channel at all, except to air repeats of material already shown on Al-Jazeera. Reflecting similar doubts, the MBC group took a different tack, using its documentary-making subsidiary, O3 Productions, to supply Al-Arabiya and MBC. While O3, in its publicity material, made much of the ‘strong content’ in its films, this was geared in part to overseas commissions steered by European, US and Japanese outlets. In showing documentaries, Al Arabiya did not have carte blanche. A $50,000 documentary it filmed about Darfur was not

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

151

shown as planned in February 2005, reportedly because of objections from the Sudanese government.55 Likewise, documentary film-makers working for O3 and other companies continued to face constraints on their activities in many Arab countries, especially Egypt and Syria, and some reported being forced to make changes to scripts.56 Diana Moukalled, maker of the series Bi’l-Ain al-Mujarrada (With the Naked Eye) on Future TV, told an interviewer that her visa applications to other Arab countries had been turned down on many occasions and that she was often forced to work accompanied by an official guide or minder. ‘From the time one applies for a visa, one is being investigated,’ she said.57 While managers on some channels saw hard-hitting, digitally filmed documentaries as a means to build ratings while also reducing production costs, channels across the sector reacted differently to the variable permutations of social and market forces facing them in the field of documentaries, as in news. Religious and children’s programming The financial viability of religious programming and programmes for children on Arab television has to be judged in light of the region’s particular characteristics and not on the basis of precedents set elsewhere. Thus, as evidence below will demonstrate, it cannot be assumed in this context that a religious network necessarily carries a ‘relatively narrow type of content’ or appeals to an audience that, demographically speaking, is ‘relatively narrow’.58 The preservation and promotion of what some media owners like to call ‘Arab-Islamic culture’ is a major preoccupation for many of the region’s producers and consumers alike. The extent of their concern is reflected in what Muhammad Ayish has summarized as two opposing interpretations of the impact of Arab satellite television. Ayish terms these ‘integrationist’ and ‘fragmentationist’. He writes, ‘While integrationists see television as a source of cultural convergence’ in ‘fostering Arab-Islamic culture’ and ‘safeguarding indigenous Arab-Islamic cultural values and form’, ‘fragmentationists view it as a tool of cultural subversion that undermines Arab-Islamic cultural principles’.59 Ayish points out that neither view draws on empirical findings regarding the realities of broadcasters’ place in local culture and value systems. Scholarly and popular accounts of Arab television have paid much attention to initiatives said to be aimed at promoting knowledge of

152

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Islam, such as Al-Jazeera’s groundbreaking and much copied live phone-in series, Al-Sharia wa’l-Hayat (Islamic Law and Life), and the Iqra channel created in 1998 by ART. Emphasis on initiatives of this nature seems justified by the number of self-proclaimed Islamic channels that followed. In 2001 the Tiba channel, supported by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed, then crown prince of Dubai, was presented as a means of achieving an ‘Islamic globalization’ that would offer an intellectual and practical alternative to the globalization of Western corporate power.60 A notable arrival in Ramadan 2002 was the AlMajd network, named after the hotel and airport services group owned by Shaikh Fahd al-Shanimeri of Saudi Arabia. Al-Majd, designed to turn a profit eventually through advertising and subscription revenues, positioned itself in what its own representative described as the ‘market for Islamic programming’.61 It offered five television channels, including one specifically for children and another called Al-Quran al-Karim, alongside a children’s radio station broadcast by satellite. Al-Fajr, another Saudi-funded religious and educational channel with the stated goal of spreading the message of the Holy Quran,62 followed in 2004. The Saudi daily Al-Watan covered the inauguration of an ‘Islamic’ satellite channel called Al-Huda in Riyadh in October 2005. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal then launched his Al-Resalah (The Message) channel in 2006, just as Al-Hiwar (The Dialogue) channel was gearing up to begin broadcasts with promotional clips promising coverage of interest to Arabic-speaking Muslim families inside and outside the Arab world. For every channel devoted to Islam, it is possible to name another targeted at the region’s many Arabic-speaking Christians. This list, including Lebanon’s Télé-Lumière, Cyprus-based Sat-7 and Al-Hayat for Egypt’s Copts, Ashtar and Ashur for Iraqi Christians, grew longer in 2005 with the addition of Aghapy TV. Funded by donations, including many from North America, Aghapy TV was created after a serious bout of intercommunal violence erupted in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in October 2005. The violence was triggered by protests against the contents of a Coptic-produced amateur DVD. Given the prior existence of other Coptic channels, some in Egypt’s Christian community saw the Aghapy initiative as a controversial reassertion of separate identity. But a priest involved in the venture blamed it on longstanding government repression of the Coptic community’s desire to

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

153

communicate over the airwaves, via ‘home delivery’ of a ‘church on air’.63 Ehab Galal, a specialist in religious media, has written that the relatively high number of Christian satellite channels across the region must be explained by the ‘Christians’ position as a minority in the Arab world and therefore not much present in the national media’, except in Lebanon.64 Examples like these show that some groups characterize religious programming as promoting certain moral and cultural values, whereas others consider it divisive. Attitudes to programming for children and young people have tended to split along similar lines. On one side religious broadcasters make special efforts to reach this age group. On the other have been large volumes of secular programming, much of it imported or based on foreign formats. Those in control of both types of content say they are affirming local culture and values, but not everyone agrees. At opposite ends of the spectrum are two Saudiowned projects, Al-Majd and MBC3. Al-Majd says the programmes on its children’s channel are selected for their educational value. They include a large percentage of cartoons aimed to promote an Arab and Islamic message, coupled with religious songs, stories from the Quran, quizzes and some items produced or hosted by children trained by AlMajd. MBC3, the MBC children’s channel started in December 2004, presented itself, in the words of its manager, Amanda Hartford, as a ‘modern, fun channel that respects and reflects its constantly evolving young audience’.65 After a year of showing titles like Atomic Betty, Code Lyodo and Naturally Sadie, mixed with a charity fund-raiser in Ramadan and events in local malls, the channel celebrated its first anniversary by announcing plans for the region’s first reality TV show for children.66 The show, Eish Safari, was introduced in April 2006. It followed 14 boys and girls from various Arab countries living away from family, friends and home comforts on a game reserve in South Africa. All aged between ten and 12 years, the participants competed in weekly team challenges to test their ingenuity, cooperation, discipline and hard work.67 In these respects, the content was reminiscent of early European versions of Big Brother. For the neglected youth audience, interests extending beyond music video channels may explain the large youth following enjoyed by Amr Khaled, a young Egyptian preacher, on Iqra. In contrast to the didactic approach adopted by Al-Majd and Qaradawi on Al-Jazeera,

154

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Khaled’s appeal was seen as having more in common with the feelgood blend of ‘self-help, management-training jargon and religion’ developed by evangelical preachers in the US.68 Khaled gravitated towards television in 1999 with a friend, Ahmad Abu Haiba, whose work as a news producer had started him thinking about ‘Islamic entertainment’, whereby religion would infuse all shows instead of being reserved for self-contained televised sermons, Quranic recitation and religious rulings from on high. Khaled and Abu Haiba recorded a show called Words from the Heart, which helped to attract the attention of a new general manager at Iqra who was seeking to make the channel more attractive to a younger audience. The gamble paid off when, for a time, Khaled’s shows accounted for as much as 80 per cent of Iqra’s advertising revenue.69 At the same time Iqra served Khaled as a vehicle for his initiatives outside television. One of these, Right Start Foundation International based in the UK, urged ethnic-minority youth communities to take a proactive role in what Khaled calls ‘a positive integration process’, which includes staying away from drugs. Another, Lifemakers, was represented on television via an entrepreneurial reality show. Episodes broadcast from Makkah during the annual pilgrimage in 2005 showed young people pitching initiatives such as literacy classes and ‘human development’ training sessions to potential backers. Khaled’s message decries inertia. During the crisis that followed Danish publication of cariacatures of the Prophet Mohammed in 2006, he advised young Muslims to send polite emails explaining their objections to young Danes. This was a different approach from Qaradawi and other Islamists, who advised that dialogue should be conditional upon Denmark apologizing first. All of which suggested that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal might have found a viable business formula in his own venture into religious television, Al-Resalah. Having dramatically reduced his stake in ART, Iqra’s parent company, in 2003, Alwaleed launched Al-Resala as a competitor channel in March 2006. Viewers immediately recognized it as a cross between Iqra and Alwaleed’s bouquet of Rotana music and film channels, prompting one to sum it up as ‘Iqra TV with a Rotana flavour’.70 This assessment was no throwaway line. The man appointed to head Al-Resalah’s Cairo bureau was none other than Ahmad Abu Haiba, the producer who helped Amr Khaled to fame. While Alwaleed talked at the press launch about a channel that would project ‘our Arab herit-

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

155

age through a modern medium’ and project Islam as a religion of moderation’,71 Abu Haiba said he would regard the project as successful only if it could promote ideas without losing money. With talk shows, game shows and reality TV, Al-Resalah was aimed at what Abu Haiba called putting values in an ‘attractive shape’.72 Alwaleed told the channel’s general manager, Tareq Al-Suwaidan, that its aim should be to ‘serve Islam and … change the ideas of the youth about terrorism’.73 But its combination of general knowledge quizzes, conservative music videos and a programme aimed to inspire young entrepreneurs also made the channel a deliberate remix of education and entertainment formats already familiar from other sources. Al-Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC), which started in September 2005, likewise sought to mix educational aspects of the trademark Al-Jazeera talk-show formulae with ‘fun’. Its promotional literature said it aimed at promoting ‘positive values, broadness of mind and respect’.74 Some of its programmes featured Qatari and other schoolchildren brought into the studio as participants and, in July 2006, as Israeli attacks pounded Palestinian and Lebanese areas, a special talk show gave Palestinian and Lebanese children a chance to speak about their feelings and experience. But JCC’s approach was not to recreate the original Al-Jazeera for young people. Not only its content but its business and financing arrangements were also different. The channel was created as a private shareholding company between the Al-Jazeera Network and the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a brainchild of Shaikha Moza bint Nasser al-Missned, wife of the Qatari ruler and a UNESCO special envoy for education. These two institutions took stakes of 10 per cent and 90 per cent respectively. Although both are funded by the Qatar government, making JCC effectively publicly funded, JCC was described at its launch as a ‘private company’ with a ‘public service mission’.75 Publicity material for JCC said it would have an annual budget equivalent to $50 million and five bureaux outside Qatar, in Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Rabat and Paris. In Qatar, the JCC base was sited not in Al-Jazeera’s office but in Education City, a Qatar Foundation project intended to attract foreign educational expertise to Qatar and the Gulf. Lagardère International Images, the French company that did the feasibility study for JCC and organized its launch, was hired to work with the channel on buying programmes, supervising external productions, designing

156

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

graphics and producing reports on Europe for JCC news magazines. Through this link, the Al-Jazeera Network allied itself with Lagardère, a defence contractor that is also owner of Hachette Filipacchi Medias, a leading international magazine publisher with titles, such as Elle Girl, addressed to members of the same age group as JCC. JCC said it intended to produce 40 per cent of all its shows, including discussions and magazine programmes on sports, science, health, society and general news. As for the remaining 60 per cent of programmes acquired from ‘all over the world’, Lagardère said these would range from animation and music to documentaries, comedy, drama and live shows.76 Together, local and foreign material would amount to 18 hours of programming daily and 19.5 hours at weekends, of which up to 12 or 13.5 hours could consist of repeats. Among its early programme choices were a BBC animation, Fireman Sam, and two series, Sali Mali and The Baaas, from the Welsh channel SC4. The Baaas, about an extended family of mixed-race opera-singing sheep, was chosen for its focus on ‘family, citizenship and harmonious relations’.77 According to Sheikha Moza, the channel was inspired by comments she had heard children make in 2002. She said they wanted a television channel that talked with them not at them.78 Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, board chairman of the Al-Jazeera group, said the channel would be a ‘bright and dynamic alternative’ to the ‘violent and inappropriate material’ that children are exposed to every day.79 Mahmoud Bouneb, a veteran Tunisian broadcaster with years of professional experience in Europe and North America, confirmed the public-service approach. He explained the channel’s remit as being to ‘give children background … on problems that concern them as children. Issues of daily life, like mobile phones, electronic games, TV addiction, fast food addiction, the obesity epidemic, the anorexic syndrome, drugs, drinking, verbal violence, racism’ in a way that would be ‘realistic’ ‘positive’ and ‘daring’.80 He added, ‘We will not have any taboos but we will try to respect traditional values while dealing with all the problems Arab children everywhere face at home, in school, in the streets, and watching TV.’81 Talk TV Cheap as they may be to produce, studio-based discussion programmes were financially attractive to Arab stations in the early days of Arab

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

157

satellite broadcasting for other reasons besides low production costs. The most obvious one was to attract viewers with the promise of live debates that would break long-entrenched taboos. In the mid-1990s Arab talk-show formats were freely adapted from successful Western models such as Larry King Live, Crossfire and Hard Talk. A few years later the range of models had widened to encompass social as well as political formats, like The View, Oprah and others. In other words, one additional advantage of the talk show for channels still trying to establish themselves in the Arab landscape was the opportunity to provide something that would be novel to the region but based on experiments that had worked elsewhere. Orbit, launched as a relatively expensive pay-TV platform in 1994, had to work hard to build up a subscriber base. It introduced Aala al-Hawa (On the Air), a version of the live callin talk show, in January 1996, in a calculated effort to woo subscribers. Alexander Zilo, Orbit’s chief executive at the time, highlighted the fact that a live programme could not easily be censored without loss of credibility and suggested that the resulting sense of immediacy would win viewers. Zilo cited an interview with the Israeli prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, on Aala al-Hawa as a ‘typical example’ of absence of censorship. He continued, ‘We also deal with sexuality, and issues such as why married men have affairs. These subjects have not been addressed before in the region.’82 Alongside novelty, therefore, controversy was seen as a route to profitability. Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, director-general of Al-Jazeera during the period when the channel hoped to achieve financial selfsufficiency, said, ‘Debate on our channel is always controversial; that is what makes for interesting television.’83 It was an approach enthusiastically endorsed by Al-Jazeera presenters, most notably Faisal Al Kasim in Al-Ittijah al-Muaakis (The Opposite Direction), whose show was conceived as an opportunity to put two people with diametrically opposite political standpoints head to head. The often stormy result, still a fixture in Al-Jazeera schedules ten years after its first appearance, was partly responsible for analogies like ‘boxing ring’ or ‘gladiatorial contest’ being applied to Al-Jazeera debates. Kasim said his intention was not to divide the Arab world through the rifts laid bare on his programme but to achieve the reverse, since only when opinions are allowed to clash in public can societies eventually start to hammer out a consensus.84 Kasim also acknowledged, however, that televised

158

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

clashes involve showmanship on his part. ‘I like defrocking political and religious figures,’ he told a writer. ‘I like de-iconizing icons.’85 His admission gives credence to studies suggesting that, in creating situations designed to push participants to extremes of hostile behaviour, Al-Ittijah al-Muaakis adopted techniques deployed in tabloid-style talk shows on American and, increasingly, European television.86 With controversy established as a prerequisite for attracting viewers, even broadcasters with a remit to protect governments and avoid sensationalism started to advertise their talk shows as being controversial. Egyptian state television introduced new programmes with adventurous-sounding titles like Breakthrough, In-Depth or Without Censorship, but testimony from presenters, as well as some clumsy cutting, revealed that these shows remained subject to censorship behind the scenes.87 While Hamdy Qandil, the veteran presenter of Rais al-Tahrir (Editorin-Chief), used his show to lambast US foreign policy, critics suggested that this apparently controversial display served the Egyptian government by demonstrating to Washington the constraints on its relations with the Bush White House. When Al-Arabiya came on the scene in 2003, those behind it promised a ‘wise and balanced alternative to Al-Jazeera’ that would avoid what they called ‘deliberate provocation’ on Al-Jazeera’s part.88 Nevertheless, Al-Arabiya’s descriptions of its own talk shows were peppered with references to controversy. The word appeared as a selling point for Tahet al-Doua’ (Under the Light) and Noqta Nizam (Point of Order), while Bil-Arabi offered ‘frank and open’ discussion with high-profile guests and Bil-Mirsad was designed to draw attention to ‘hidden agendas’. While talk shows were conceived as complementing news coverage on all-news channels such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, elsewhere they served as an alternative to it. For channels with too little money to run a robust newsgathering operation, debates on hot topics offered a supplementary means to build ratings. Thus Al-Mustaqilla talk shows returned repeatedly to the Sunni–Shia division in Islam. In cases where independent newsgathering was simply not allowed, talk shows presented themselves as a substitute for news. Dream TV, for example, chose high-profile presenters whose handling of challenging content would attract the attention of other media. This was an effective marketing tool, since the practice of building programme repeats into the schedules of satellite channels serving different time zones

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

159

means that publicity created by the first airing of a show can alert audiences to subsequent showings. Hala Sirhan, a leading talk-show host at Dream TV during its early years, told an interviewer that the company wanted to be credible but also entertaining.89 Describing programmes analysing news events as one means to establish credibility, Sirhan said that Dream planned to devote four hours a day of prime viewing time to analysis of politics, economics and sport.90 It is one thing to schedule talk shows in prime time and another to identify the social and political issues to be talked about or the format for discussion. One notable feature of the live talk show is that channels based in one country can, in theory at least, use this type of programming to probe political developments in other countries. Thus, for example, municipal elections in Saudi Arabia were debated by Saudi guests and Saudi callers on Shada Omar’s weekly show, Al-Hadath (The Event), on LBC-Sat on 24 April 2005, giving vent to views on secularism and conservatism in Saudi society, enfranchisement of women and much else. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s satellite news channel, Al-Ekhbariya, devoted an episode of its Hiwar abr alAqmar (Dialogue over Satellites), on 6 September 2005, to the multicandidate presidential election in Egypt in September 2005. Hosted by Mohammed Hamdan, the programme aired disagreement between two Egyptian guests regarding the election’s significance. Daoud alShirian, presenter of Al-Maqal on Dubai TV, decided in December 2005 to travel to Damascus to interview Hussam Taher Hussam, a witness named in the Mehlis Report into alleged Syrian government involvement in the assassination of Lebanon’s primer minister, Rafiq Hariri. Examples like these balance the view that Arab satellite channels stick to a narrow repertoire of talk-show topics that address assumed pan-Arab concerns. After analysing 976 talk shows on Al-Jazeera in the period 1999–2003, Marc Lynch reported statistical prominence for so-called pan-Arab topics such as Palestinian problems, the invasion of Iraq and pressure for democratization and accountability. In 2001 and 2002, Lynch counted 56 and 66 shows on Palestinian issues respectively, representing close to 35 per cent of the Al-Jazeera total in each year. Iraq, which accounted for under 10 per cent of talk shows on Al-Jazeera in 1999–2001, shot to 44 per cent in 2003.91 For Lynch, Al-Jazeera ‘remained the cutting edge of reform talk’, putting ‘almost

160

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

every issue – social, economic, cultural, political – and every regime under fierce public scrutiny’.92 Nevertheless, in 2002–06, a great deal of talk on current affairs in specific countries took place outside AlJazeera. In Egypt, for example, Dream 2’s Al-Haqiqa (The Truth) and Al-Aasher Masa’an (10pm) faced up to Egyptian events. In 2005 Mona el-Shazli used her weekday two-hour 10pm slot to interview ministers, editors-in-chief, controversial social figures and candidates for the presidential election, and was nominated female presenter of the year.93 All the while, censorship continued. When a discussion on Dream addressed the situation of Tamer Hosni and another singer convicted of faking certificates to avoid conscription, a caller to the programme started asking questions about army morale. Dream was ordered to stop the programme and not re-show it.94 Lebanese talk shows meanwhile had no shortage of Lebanese news to discuss. Kalam al-Nas, an LBC show hosted by Marcel Ghanem, attracted the attention of Lebanon’s National Audiovisual Council (NAC) in May 2005 when its guests, two economists and two journalists, attacked state corruption in the telecoms and electricity sectors and the Casino du Liban.95 In the aftermath of Lebanon’s political turmoil in 2005, Zaven Kouyoumdjian (widely known simply as Zaven) used his position as presenter of Sireh w’infatahit on Future TV to air an episode on 19 December 2005, in which he offered to bring representatives of groups for and against Syria’s role in Lebanon to the studio to air their views and reach a common ground.96 The show was part of a ‘Power of Life’ campaign that Zaven started in 2005 to help Lebanese society ‘regain its faith’97 after the Hariri assassination. But it was also noteworthy since Zaven had attracted attention far beyond Lebanon for taking his inspiration from the American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and using his slot to uncover personal human interest stories. Zahret al-Khalij, a UAE-based women’s magazine, rated Zaven best talk-show host in the region in 2004 and 2005, reflecting approval for his approach and subject matter. In 2004 his show had broken new ground in Arab television when four people who had tested positive for HIV talked on camera about their lives. From extra-marital affairs on Orbit in 1994 to HIV/AIDS on Future TV in 2004, the talk show underwent major evolution on Arab television over this period, with an ever larger pool of hosts competing with each other by means of an ever wider range of topics tackled

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

161

in ways that were new to the region, although not new to television screens in some other parts of the world. Dubai TV confirmed that novelty and controversy were still the keys to competition in this field when it announced the launch of Maa Nashwa (With Nashwa) in early 2006. Maa Nashwa would accord with ‘viewers’ preferences by providing what’s new and modern, applying the latest international technology but preserving the Arab culture’, its press release said. Topics covered would include ‘the most controversial issues of the Arab region’ handled in a way that would ‘set high standards for freedom of expression, opening doors to discussing sensitive social and cultural issues, while observing media ethics’.98 By also assuring it of a ‘huge budget’, Dubai TV hinted that production costs were not always the prime consideration in planning talk shows on Arab television. Conclusion More than a decade after dedicated news channels entered the Arab television landscape and a big increase took place in airtime devoted to talk about political, social and religious issues of direct interest to Arab viewers, there was little sign of Arab broadcasters making much in the way of financial profit from these categories of content. Despite its big audiences, Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language news channel continued to rely on government subsidies, while its main competitor, AlArabiya, aspired to reaching profitability at an unspecified future date. Nevertheless, owners and managers of channels specializing in news, current affairs and religion demonstrated an awareness of the need for sustainability by devising business models aimed at long-term survival. For example, Al-Jazeera, conceding that the news channel itself was unlikely to make money, looked instead at ways to create more lucrative spin-offs in the form of subscription-based services, which would benefit from the channel’s well-known brand. Whereas Greg Dyke suggested that governments and corporations were mostly in the business of all-news television to gain worldwide influence for their existing brands and views,99 Al-Jazeera put this model of brand extension into reverse by seeking to profit from the brand it had already established as a 24-hour news provider. Al-Arabiya, meanwhile, took pains to publicize its ratings successes after adjusting its content and schedules in a deliberate effort to boost viewership. Operations like Iqra, the Al-Majd network and Al-Resalah channel, aimed at a perceived

162

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

market for ‘Islamic media’, were also presented as having a business as well as a religious rationale. Iqra took on Amr Khaled in a bid to win over a younger audience and reportedly reaped the benefits in terms of advertising revenue. Al-Majd, formed with the backing of an existing enterprise, aimed to achieve profitability through a combination of subscriptions and advertising. In the case of Al-Resalah, part of the media empire of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, its Cairo bureau chief suggested that breaking even would be his measure of success. In articulating these intentions, managers only rarely alluded to factors harming competition or undermining their business plans. Yet this chapter uncovered ample evidence of hindrances and interventions undermining competition. The feasibility study for Al-Jazeera’s proposed documentary channel was conducted before the Al-Jazeera news channel was subjected to the full force of a Saudi-led advertising boycott and before the Qatari government initiative to create an Al-Jazeera channel in English. Both developments clearly altered the feasibility of creating a documentary channel. Bans on Al-Jazeera reporters in several Arab countries, not least Saudi Arabia and Iraq, reinforced the negative impact of the advertising boycott. Abu Dhabi TV made a name for itself as a news provider during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 but lowered its profile afterwards for reasons that seemed to reflect the Bush administration’s strong disapproval of antiUS sentiments among Arab populations being conveyed on Arab news channels. The licences granted to Egypt’s private channels, Dream and Al-Mehwar, restricted their ability to offer independent news. A senior representative of Al-Arabiya admitted to ‘annoying’ pressures being put on editors to pay undue attention to some newsworthy events and overlook others. The Saudi forces exerting such pressure were the same forces obstructing Al-Arabiya’s competitor, Al-Jazeera, by denying visas to news crews and seeking to divert advertising spending away from Al-Jazeera and towards Al-Arabiya. Differential treatment for broadcasters within a single national market (such as Saudi Arabia or Iraq) highlights the question, noted in the introduction to this chapter, of whether to try to make sense of the political economy of Arab television news through the prism of national policies or through types of transnationality. Where the pan-Arab market is concerned, it appears that national policies are key but are also, individually, inconsistent towards non-national players.

C A L C U L AT IO N S BE H I N D N E W S , S P ORT A N D TA L K T V

163

Chalaby’s notion of ‘types of transnationality’100 can help to untangle the multiplicity of relationships that exist between transnational broadcasters and Arab governments, based on what is permitted to some media outlets and denied to others. Thus some channels, like Dream in Egypt or Future TV in Lebanon, may have pursued a national orientation in their most popular talk shows over a given period, whereas channels with Saudi or Emirati ownership were less likely to engage in probing discussion of national politics in Saudi Arabia or the UAE. But the picture is more complicated than that, since examples were cited of non-Egyptian channels reporting Egyptian news from inside Egypt more effectively than Egyptian national channels, and non-Saudi channels discussing Saudi topics that would be less likely to receive an airing on Saudi-owned stations, regardless of whether these were based inside the kingdom or not. In other words, transnationality is the sine qua non of contemporary Arab television news and current affairs, because LBC’s ability and incentive to discuss Saudi municipal elections, or Al-Jazeera’s to report on a Red Sea ferry disaster, presupposes that Saudi viewers watch LBC and Egyptian viewers watch Al-Jazeera. At the same time, transnationality divides into types according to the political and/or religious purposes of media owners and the extent to which those purposes evoke obstruction or assistance from the governments of individual states. It is often stated that lack of profitability in Arab satellite channels is attributable to problems in the area of advertising budgets. This will be explored further in Chapter 7. But it emerges from this chapter that politically motivated distortions in the distribution of advertising expenditure constitute just one strand in a complex mix of market and social forces affecting media sustainability in the region. These forces include multiple invisible barriers to market entry, since obstacles placed in the way of some broadcasters and assistance in kind provided to others are not always transparent. Denial of visas to news crews or detention of correspondents may be ad hoc and unpredictable. By the same token, if Dubai TV’s sports coverage is helped by Emirates sponsorship of foreign sports clubs, or Al-Arabiya benefits from content produced through commissions placed with O3, these are advantages behind the scenes that raise the barriers facing new market entrants. Such barriers may be subject to change over time, however. The next chapter looks more broadly at the staying power of

164

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

some of the major television companies, in terms of their decisions about how to expand, how to diversify revenues and where to locate.

7

Business Strategies of Leading TV Firms ‘Media systems’, according to Nicholas Garnham, are ‘at their core, just like supermarkets’. It is supermarkets’ buying-power, distribution logistics, location policies, stock control and marketing which determine the pattern of what is made available, the ways in which shifting consumer tastes are channelled, broad patterns of consumption, and above all where in the chain the major profits are taken.1

These same elements, Garnham writes, also apply to media systems, in which symbolic goods, in the form of flows of meaning, are the products being packaged and distributed. Within such systems the purpose of the firm, according to conventional business economics, is primarily to shield itself from the costs and uncertainties of the market. Ronald Coase’s 1937 contention that firms emerge as an alternative method of resource allocation to the price mechanism of the market remains widely accepted. After interviewing company owners, Coase argued that entrepreneurs create firms in order to give themselves the power to decide about resources and thereby avoid the transaction costs incurred through recourse to the market. Such costs may arise from obtaining information about prices, negotiating and terminating contracts, or calculating long-term requirements for certain goods or services.2 As Oliver Williamson added later, the size of transaction costs that firms seek to avoid depends on the way people behave in different market environments. A market with many competitors will soon expose opportunistic traders, putting downward pressure on the costs of gathering information or negotiating contracts. Conversely, opportunists have more scope in monopolistic situations.3 In other words, a firm’s decision to internalize some activities and leave others 165

166

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

outside its boundary will depend first upon the costs of ‘information search relative to the cost of non-market co-ordination’ and secondly upon the costs of ‘ensuring compliance with contractual agreements’.4 In areas of a business where reliable information is hard to come by, or contracts are hard to enforce, one would expect to see firms incorporating more transactions in house. At first glance Arab television appears to have many competitors. A Booz Allen Hamilton study released in December 2005 put the number of free-to-air stations at more than 150.5 Previous chapters have highlighted the proliferation of both channels and production companies, encapsulated in the remark by Al-Arabiya’s Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed that a new channel nowadays needs no more than a room and three cameras in Dubai Media City. But those chapters also began to explain, by reference to lack of sustainability in certain areas of production and anti-competitive behaviour in some market segments, why Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed immediately qualified this statement by confidently affirming that the ‘big boys will remain few’.6 Indeed, it might seem odd to try to discuss the relative efficiency of resource allocation, or try to plot boundaries between the internal decision-making of firms and external transactions of the market, in the case of leading Arab television companies, which are mostly either closely allied with governments that regulate markets, or are actually governmentowned. As has been pointed out elsewhere in relation to economic liberalization measures in Arab countries, any ‘distinction between the political and the economic, between the private and the public, is empirically very hard to maintain’ because economic liberalization has been a ‘highly centralized and top-down process’ aimed primarily at ‘cementing the regime’s control over its population’.7 In Arab television, a coincidence of interests between regimes and dependent entrepreneurs who benefit from the ‘restricted nature of liberalization’8 translates into what one reporter, referring to advertising in particular, described as ‘private arrangements between agencies and media owners that clients are unaware of’.9 The presence of private arrangements in advertising implies that equally private arrangements may also affect other aspects of the business, apparently blurring any boundary between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ in relation to leading television firms’ access to market information or the ease with which they can negotiate contracts and secure supplies.

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

167

Nevertheless, to refrain from subjecting Arab television companies to analysis of their strategies for resource allocation would run the risk of neglecting forces and influences that may be working towards a more competitive market or the demarcation of clearer boundaries between firms and other groups. For example, as this chapter will recount, advertisers and certain advertising agencies displayed mounting dissatisfaction with suspected ‘private arrangements’ in 2004–06 and stepped up efforts to expose at least some aspects of advertising expenditure to market disciplines. Talk of the public being offered shares in some television companies through the stock market brought with it a prospect of greater transparency being introduced to meet shareholders’ needs. As single channels transformed themselves into multi-channel operations in 2003–05, their managements evinced a greater concern with branding and brand identity that also seemed to imply a greater sense of corporate autonomy for some. Branding as a means of differentiating products and building customer loyalty is a standard response to increased competition. It is a prerequisite for any attempt to sub-brand particular programming line-ups, as it is for brand extension, whereby new products are launched under an existing brand.10 There is a difference, however, between branding as a tactical, ‘quick fix’ form of promotion and a longer-term strategic commitment to a brand as part of a firm’s asset management process.11 Since building audiences’ trust is a basic element in building a brand, strategic efforts to develop brands in Arab television might be expected to bring with them a push for relevance and credibility.12 This chapter aims to chart the relationship between such market pressures and firms’ business strategies, bearing in mind that evidence in other geographic contexts is often inconclusive as to how far market forces have been allowed to contribute to the emergence of more independent and critical media systems, precisely because owners of private media in many countries are part of the system of power.13 Furthermore, any attempt to track shifting boundaries between individual media firms and the rest of the media market must take account of special tendencies towards ownership concentration, oligopoly, and behind-the-scenes collusion among firms that are typical of media markets everywhere.14 As noted in Chapter 1, cost structures in media production and distribution put media companies under extra pressure to exploit economies of scale and scope. They do this

168

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

by pooling audiences through mergers or alliances and by maximizing the number of outlets through which content can be channelled. The six top communication companies that form a global media oligopoly adopt these strategies. They are all heavily engaged in creating and developing media content, which they re-use across different media markets. They diversify to draw revenues from multiple businesses and forge partnerships to share the risks of innovation.15 Where a market structure is characterized by oligopoly, firms recognize their interdependence and ‘often collude overtly or tacitly’ with a view to reducing competition.16 Any examination of the Arab television business should thus be alert to collusion among firms for reasons related not only to the regional media market but media markets in general. The objective then is to examine leading Arab television companies’ business strategies in terms of whether resource allocation is increasingly being influenced by changing conditions in a more competitive market or by decisions taken internally, within and among firms and as part of government–corporate alliances. The Booz Allen Hamilton report mentioned earlier spoke of unsustainable and ‘sometimes irrational commercial practices’ in the sector,17 suggesting that efficient allocation of resources was some way off, however it was to be achieved. Indeed, industry analysts have often drawn attention to what Jihad Fakhreddine calls the ‘relaxed attitude’ of big-market players regarding the low volume of advertising and negative trends in the average value of advertising slots.18 Since the number of slots is affected by growth in the number of channels, the strategies considered here are those that deal with expansion as well as branding and diversification, advertising sales, access to finance and choice of location. Expansion and branding Previous chapters explored some of the rationales for Arab television programming without considering whether or how broadcasters would go about disseminating that content to as wide an audience as possible. Creating additional channels has become a standard method for American broadcast networks to re-broadcast programmes, thereby maximizing audiences so as to meet the rising cost of making or buying content.19 It remains to be seen whether a similar logic accounts for the marked expansion of leading Arab broadcasters in the period 2003–04, during which time MBC, Dubai TV, Al-Jazeera and others

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

169

expanded their operations from a single channel to several. MBC, part of Arab Group International (AGI) Holding Company, went on the air in 1991 as a London-based channel broadcasting a range of content. After seven years of presenting itself as a news-led operation, the company began a reorientation in the late 1990s when its owner, Walid al-Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, tasked a new manager with boosting income and cutting costs. This was a period of sharp decline in Saudi income from oil, and thus in the funds available for ruling family patronage of unprofitable private-sector projects.20 Ian Ritchie, chief executive of MBC from 1998 to 2000, put greater emphasis on entertainment and put British colleagues in top posts.21 As part of a programme of costcutting and getting closer to the audience, MBC moved out of London in 2001 to a new headquarters in Dubai Media City, becoming one of the city’s first prominent residents. Once resettled, and buoyed by an upturn in financial flows to the region as oil prices soared in the early 2000s, the company proceeded to transform itself into a multi-channel network. The base for this expansion already existed, since AGI had other media subsidiaries and exclusive licences to operate in Saudi Arabia. By 2001 these subsidiaries no longer included the US-based wire service, United Press International (UPI), which the group had acquired in 1992 but sold in mid-2000 to the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times. They did, however, include the MBC-FM radio station, launched in 1994 via satellite across the region and terrestrially in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring states, thanks to its privileged position as the only commercial FM radio station allowed in the kingdom. Through a company called SARAvision, registered in Riyadh in 1995, Walid al-Ibrahim had also obtained an exclusive licence to deliver a number of thematic channels to a cable network serving Saudi cities. The plan for specialized channels, including an MBC news channel, was dropped in 1998 but revived as part of the MBC satellite platform, starting in 2003. The first of the new channels, later called MBC2, was initially referred to simply as Channel 2. Launched in January 2003, it was made available by satellite and terrestrially in Bahrain, where satellite content has to be fed through a cable network. Al-Ibrahim told the Washington Times later that year, ‘I want my networks to make a difference in the Arab world.’ Acknowledging that the Saudi government had

170

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

only recently realized the extent of extremism inside Saudi Arabia, he indicated that music and entertainment on MBC radio and television stations were part of a project to counteract Taliban-style extremism and fanaticism.22 Under Tim Riordan, later head of the MBC group of channels, and Andrew Maskall, marketing manager, Channel 2 was designed to meet what Maskall said was ‘high viewership for Englishlanguage movies in the Gulf region, particularly Saudi Arabia’.23 It offered free-to-air blockbuster movies with Arabic subtitles, alongside daily news bulletins in English. Whereas the original MBC channel presented itself as family viewing, Channel 2 was aimed primarily at a young audience. In September 2003 it announced that it had acquired the world’s 25th licence for the Big Brother format from the format owner, Endemol, and would be bringing together male and female nationals of 12 Arab countries to take part in the show, renamed AlRais (The Boss), in a house in Bahrain. MBC, already by then a regular buyer of formats such as the BBC’s Top Gear and Top of the Pops, was establishing Channel 2 as a place for American and British entertainment, scheduling US sitcoms Seinfeld, Frasier, Malcolm in the Middle and Friends in regular late-afternoon slots. Having seen the success of Super Star’s 2003 season on Future TV, and having had its own hit with Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, MBC decided to experiment with something more daring. Anuska Ban, Endemol’s executive director in charge of production support for Big Brother, told an American reporter that both Walid al-Ibrahim and the Bahraini minister of information were ‘big fans’ of existing versions of the show.24 On another occasion she said Channel 2 should take full credit for having the ‘courage and vision’ to take up a ‘totally new idea’ for the Middle East, which would ‘surely leave a long-lasting cultural effect’.25 It was a costly experiment for MBC and one that may have had different lasting effects from those envisaged. Whereas ‘love interest’ between Big Brother participants was a big factor in sustaining audiences for the show in other countries, in the Middle East this was bound to cause controversy, given taboos on public displays of intimacy between couples. Barely a week after broadcasting started in February 2004, MBC responded to Bahraini public protests, including a challenge to the Bahraini information minister, by suspending the show. The company said it wanted to demonstrate its commitment to what it called the ‘virtues and traditions’ of the Arab world. Who ultimately

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

171

paid for this decision remains unclear. Cutting Al-Rais meant sacrificing revenue from voting and advertising, on top of some $6 million invested in recruiting housemates and setting up the house.26 No executive in MBC was dismissed for embarking on such an expensive adventure. Unconfirmed reports from inside the MBC group suggest that the king of Bahrain, who had thought Al-Rais would attract good publicity and investment to his country, absorbed costs related to local Bahraini infrastructure and labour. As discussed in previous chapters, MBC continued to buy in foreign formats despite the collapse of AlRais. The only difference was that it bought ready-made American versions from Fox TV and ABC. Expansion of the MBC network also continued unabated, with the addition of MBC3 as a children’s channel in December 2004, followed by MBC4. When MBC2 became an all-movie channel, sourced through deals with Hollywood studios, the sitcoms and formats it carried were transferred to MBC4. Al-Arabiya, the 24-hour news channel launched in 2003 as a joint venture between MBC and Lebanese and Kuwaiti investors, was also brought fully into the MBC fold in 2006 as an intrinsic part of the group. (The Kuwaiti involvement had ended within a few weeks of Al-Arabiya going on air, because of editorial differences over the channel’s coverage of the US-led invasion of Iraq.) When the MBC group launched its 2006 grid at the end of 2005, it included new radio output in its plans. In addition to the longstanding MBC-FM, and a second FM radio station called Panorama, it was said that MBC-FM would begin broadcasting specialized regional programming to east, west and central Saudi Arabia, and Panorama FM would branch into programmes targeted at the capital cities of Jordan and Iraq. By expanding in this way, MBC amply demonstrated how its privileged position in Saudi Arabia and investment capabilities could enable it to spread the cost of importing so much foreign programming by spreading it across channels, while also attracting advertisers, based on the expectation that these programming choices would be popular with audiences. By introducing new channels, MBC gained the option of piloting new programmes on one channel and repeating them elsewhere. It could launch new series on two channels simultaneously to encourage regular viewers of one channel to follow later episodes of the series on a channel they had not watched before. It could, as happened when MBC discovered how many young

172

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Saudi women were watching the Oprah Winfrey Show on MBC4, build an entire schedule around it, buying in programmes such as Starting Over and Supernanny, to appeal to a specific audience. As explained by Mohammed al-Mulhem, MBC’s director of public relations, the material on MBC4 would be unashamedly Western, thereby ‘expos[ing] the modern Arab woman to the best of what the West has to offer’.27 The new slogan of MBC4, devised by the Jeddah office of 3 Points Advertising, reflected the sense of specificity through images of Saudi women and the words ‘It’s for you’. Just as it could spread the costs of content across multiple channels, MBC’s close relations with state broadcasters in the Gulf region enabled it to spread the costs of its equipment and services to other users outside MBC. MBC operates Middle East News (MEN) as a television news agency similar to APTN and Reuters TV. Sharing bureau facilities with Al-Arabiya, MEN was created to provide facilities, logistical support, camera crews and even reporting for clients such as Bahrain TV, Oman TV and the Saudi state-owned satellite news channel, Al-Ekhbariya.28 ATV, the first private company to win a terrestrial television licence in Jordan, opted to put its own correspondents in Jordanian, Palestinian and Iraqi bureaux while relying on MEN for input and uplinks elsewhere.29 Following two years of intensive expansion, the MBC Group claimed in press releases that it was the ‘unrivalled and undisputed broadcast network leader in the Middle East’. In April 2006 it finally announced a new consolidated corporate identity to bring the five free-to-air television channels and two radio stations together under a single brand with the tagline ‘We see hope’. Sharif Badreddine, director of corporate marketing, said the group was ‘more than’ a ‘collection of channels’; its promotional campaign would indicate that MBC offered hope as a ‘glimpse of light’ without which ‘life would be very dark and cold’.30 Being based on hope, the new message about the MBC brand was reminiscent of the slogan ‘Change is Coming’, which Lebanon’s LBCI had adopted in 2001. As the consolidation was taking place, MBC executives toyed with the idea of launching an English-language channel. Al-Rashed suggested such a project would have no commercial value and would simply drive the company into ‘an expensive game’ or an ‘unhappy situation’.31 Nevertheless, his board remained open to adding another channel should an opportunity arise. Meanwhile aspects of MBC’s

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

173

expansion led to the ending of some contracts. After working with MBC4 for several months, 3 Points Advertising withdrew, for reasons that were said to include cultural concerns about episodes of Oprah and Race to the Altar, a US reality show.32 Consolidation was also the aim for Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) after a period of restructuring in 2003–05. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who became Dubai’s ruler in 2006, issued the decree that created DMI in July 2003, while he was still crown prince. In some respects, DMI appeared to follow a model already established by Emirates Media Incorporated, the Abu Dhabi conglomerate that was formed to encompass state-owned Abu Dhabi TV, radio and newspapers in the late 1990s. At the time of its restructuring, DMI was the umbrella organization for Dubai radio stations and newspapers, notably the daily Al-Bayan and weekly Al-Usra al-Asriya (The Modern Family), along with Dubai TV and its subsidiary stations, Channel 33, Dubai Business Channel and Dubai Sports Channel. These were revamped and, in some cases, renamed. The first and most publicized change was seen in Dubai TV itself, which launched an entirely new programme grid in June 2004, described by Hussein Ali Lootah, DMI’s chief executive, as an ‘innovative’ line-up that would reflect the UAE’s ‘cosmopolitan and vibrant nature’.33 More than 20 regular programmes would be produced locally, he said, with a full range of talk shows and game shows, hosted by Arab television personalities already able to command a loyal following among viewers. Six months later, Channel 33 was closed and replaced with One TV, offering a mixture of Hollywood movies, sitcoms and American versions of reality TV shows with Arabic subtitles – the kind of content MBC decided to divide between MBC2 and MBC4. In contrast, Sama Dubai, which replaced the business channel in 2005, was conceived as an outlet for locally made programmes about cultural and family events in Dubai. DMI’s next move was to relaunch the sports channel, with effect from January 2006. Adopting the Dubai ‘brand’ in television was consistent with asset-creation policies across the emirate, whether in Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City, Dubai Studio City or other ventures that capitalized on the reputed ‘size and momentum’ and sense of ‘critical mass’ implicit in the ‘name of Dubai’.34 Whereas MBC was set up as a private company, but one accorded exclusive privileges by the state, DMI made no pretence of being private,

174

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

except to follow the pro-business attitude said to be fundamental to the Dubai ruler’s vision for ‘his’ emirate. Sheikh Mohammed’s motto has been, ‘The business of government is manufacturing opportunities’ and the Dubai government is said to have been ‘especially successful in running state-owned enterprises with a private-enterprise mentality’.35 Mentality is one thing, however, and the actual constraints of having to compete as a truly private business are another. The questions of whether DMI was really obliged to compete for advertising income or facilities in Dubai Media City will be explored later. Here it is relevant simply to note that a charter issued by DMI in December 2005, described as a ‘Media Ethics Charter’, contained a set of mission statements for the conglomerate that encompassed both private business objectives and a commitment to serve the UAE government. The charter announced that DMI’s ‘strategic direction’ would put the customer at the centre of its activities, to increase the customer base through ‘quality programming’. It would also focus on ‘financial sustainability’ to increase and diversify revenue sources and ‘improve utilization of assets’. Presenting the charter, Lootah said DMI recognized its obligations and he listed them in a certain order. At the top of the list was ‘the UAE government’ followed by the community, viewers, suppliers, competitors and employees.36 By the time of its corporate rebranding in April 2006 MBC had five television channels and was ready to add more. DMI at this time had four television channels. Rotana’s owner, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, had meanwhile set himself a target of six channels under the Rotana brand,37 in addition to his holdings in LBC-Sat and ART and his new ‘Islamic’ channel Al-Resalah. The 49-year-old prince, ranked by Forbes magazine as the world’s eighth richest person in 2006 with a fortune worth $20 billion, also had stakes in two Lebanese newspapers, AlNahar and Al-Diyar, as part of a portfolio of media holdings that range from the international, including shares in News Corporation, Time Warner and Disney, to ventures based in Saudi Arabia.38 Rotana comes under the latter category, having started life as a recording label in the kingdom in 1987, and having been acquired by Alwaleed in stages, starting with 25 per cent in 1995, 48 per cent in 2002 and 100 per cent in 2003. As the outright owner of Rotana Audiovisual Company, which had contracts with the ‘top 100 Arab artists’,39 Alwaleed reduced his 30 per cent stake in ART, the pay-TV company formed by another

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

175

Saudi investor, Saleh Kamel, in 1993. ART owned 49 per cent of LBCSat. In late 2003 Alwaleed paid $98 million to take over this share in LBC-Sat, just ahead of LBC’s launch of the musical reality TV show Star Academy, a project with potential business spin-offs for the owner of Rotana. Keeping his holding in ART at just 5 per cent, Alwaleed took ART’s music channel and placed it under the Rotana brand, as the first Rotana Music Channel, transmitting music television freeto-air, 24 hours a day. Rotana’s television business was established in Beirut, under the supervision of Michel Murr, member of the prominent family behind Lebanon’s Murr TV, in which Alwaleed holds a 10 per cent stake.40 A second music channel, Rotana Clip, was added within three months of the first and expansion over the next two years produced four more channels, including one devoted to movies in Arabic. Ostensibly a private firm, Rotana’s ownership gave it top-level access to centres of political power in both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The prince’s decision to buy into LBC-Sat prompted speculation that, given his dual Saudi and Lebanese citizenship, he was angling for political office in Lebanon. Alwaleed, a member of the Saudi ruling family, is linked, through his mother, to Lebanon’s political class and wields influence in both countries, not least because of the investment and philanthropic capabilities that are commensurate with his wealth. Alwaleed’s growing interest in Rotana and LBC-Sat in 2002–03 coincided with a period when his personal involvement in Lebanese politics was becoming more partisan. In March 2002, in recognition of the prince’s humanitarian contributions to Lebanon, the president, Emile Lahoud, awarded him the country’s highest honour, the Order of the Cedars. At around this time, coinciding with an Arab League summit meeting in Beirut, Alwaleed began to be increasingly critical of Lebanon’s then prime minister, the late Rafiq Hariri, himself the holder of Saudi as well as Lebanese nationality.41 In July 2003 the prince announced at a press conference that, in Lebanon’s ‘unstable’ political situation, with strains between the president and prime minister, he supported Lahoud, and urged politicians to do the same to tackle the country’s mounting public debt. Referring indirectly to Hariri’s heavy investment in the Lebanese capital, Alwaleed said, ‘Lebanon is not only Solidère and Western Beirut.’42 As Rotana expanded after 2003, its business dealings stretched

176

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

beyond both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, to Dubai, Egypt and Kuwait. By the time it opened an office in Dubai Media City in August 2005, the company could describe itself as the owner of the largest libraries of Arabic music and movies in the world. In April 2005 Rotana teamed up with the Kuwaiti company Wataniya Telecom to offer ringtones and video clips to the mobile phones of Wataniya customers in Algeria, Tunisia, Kuwait and Iraq. Being part of the KIPCO portfolio, Wataniya belongs to the same conglomerate as Showtime Arabia. Alwaleed was adamant that his coverage of the market for music and film gave him a ‘majority’ not a ‘monopoly’. He told his biographer: ‘Definitely, I like it to be number one, but I don’t mind competition at all. Clearly, the fact that I have a very strong foothold in music may be a big barrier to others to enter (the market), because I will defend what is mine very, very aggressively.’ 43 The prince did not specify whether he was motivated more by political or financial reasons to defend his media interests. But according to Tariq al-Suwaidan, general manager of Al-Resalah channel, the prince has a mission to ‘serve Islam and to change the ideas of the youth about terrorism’. The idea that Alwaleed has a wider mission in all his business dealings is corroborated by the comments of one of the prince’s Lebanese cousins, who implied that Alwaleed’s media business was part of a ‘new vision’ that encompassed more than merely achieving market dominance for certain brands. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that the vision he [Alwaleed] is aiming at is not a vision that can be limited with a boundary. The agenda has to be a bit more multidimensional.’44 Alwaleed’s 2003 buy-out of ART’s share in LBC-Sat took place soon after the LBC group had established a joint newsgathering and advertising sales venture with another Saudi partner, the pan-Arab daily, AlHayat. The group, which already owned the terrestrial Lebanese channel LBCI, LBC-Sat and encrypted channels serving Europe, Australia and the US, was looking at that stage to branch out still further. Al-Hayat, owned by Prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdel-Aziz, deputy defence minister of Saudi Arabia and son of Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, had relocated its headquarters from London to the Lebanese capital in 2001. The Al-Hayat-LBC partnership was agreed during 2002 and announced in December that year, in a step that press reports suggested could lead to the creation of a new 24-hour news channel. According to Jihad Khazen, a former editor-in-chief of Al-Hayat who

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

177

was asked to head the joint venture, part of the initiative behind it came from LBC’s chairman, Pierre Daher, at a time when LBC was seeking to boost its reputation as a source of news as well as entertainment. The other people involved were Prince Khaled, who apparently persuaded Khazen to come out of semi-retirement, and Antoine Choueiri, whom Khazen described as ‘the leading figure in advertising in the Arab world’.45 Choueiri was already a linchpin for both sides. His business had the LBC advertising account, while he also served as a director of Tihama, Al-Hayat’s advertising agency, owned by Prince Khaled. Al-Hayat-LBC’s place at the heart of Saudi-owned media was made clear in late 2003, when Prince Khaled’s uncle, Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, governor of Riyadh, sponsored a reception in Riyadh to celebrate the partnership. Addressing a gathering that also included Prince Alwaleed, Prince Salman reminisced about his friendship with Al-Hayat’s former Lebanese owner, Kamel Mroue, in the 1960s. The partnership did not quickly produce a joint 24-hour news channel, however. It ran into difficulties as the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq aggravated editorial policy differences between the two sides, given Saudi Arabia’s security pact with the US on the one hand and, on the other, US demonization of Syria, which retained control over many aspects of Lebanese life, including LBC reporting, until 2005. LBC opened a new outlet, Al-Nagham channel, in 2003, for 24hour coverage of its reality TV shows. But circumstances in Lebanon after 2005 were not conducive to expansion, as polarization hardened between the country’s political and confessional groups. Israel’s heavy bombing of Lebanese infrastructure in July–August 2006 destroyed LBC’s transmission facility at Fatqa and killed an LBC technician.46 In June 2006, amid what appeared to be a power struggle between LBC shareholders, Daher stressed his determination to prevent the station returning to its sectarian roots.47 Cross-ownership of television stations, radio stations and the press is a significant feature of Lebanese media, not only in the sense of one group owning outlets across all sectors but also in the sense of the same interest groups having stakes in media companies that are assumed to be in competition with each other. Thus, for example, when Lebanon’s terrestrial broadcasters submitted details of their ownership under the 1994 Audiovisual Media Act, these details showed that Issam Fares, a Christian businessman with close ties to both Syria and the Saudi

178

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ruling family, had shares in LBCI, while Fares’s three sons were among the shareholders in Future TV.48 Future TV’s main shareholders were relatives and associates of the country’s prime minister at the time, Rafiq Hariri. Hariri’s assassination was thus devastating to the company, which underwent a prolonged period of mourning but then hit back with organizational and programming changes that seemed briefly to threaten a less than accommodating approach to other players, not only in television but in advertising and audience research. Nadim Munla moved from the position of general manager to that of economic advisor to Saad Hariri, Rafiq’s son. In August 2005 Munla’s place was taken by Tariq Ayntrazi, until then the chief executive officer of media analysts Starcom Mediavest. Ayntrazi was given the brief of planning a growth strategy that would place Future TV as a ‘pan-Arab TV station broadcasting out of Lebanon rather than a Lebanese TV with satellite transmission’.49 With 70–80 per cent of Future’s overall advertising generated by its satellite channel, there was a clear business logic to this approach. Ayntrazi went on record after his appointment with some bitter criticism of Antoine Choueiri’s extensive presence in the advertising market, describing it as unacceptable and blaming it for holding back growth. Describing the situation as one of ‘total control by one person over the market’, he said advertisers would opt for outlets other than television until the matter was resolved.50 In an interview with Executive Magazine, Ayntrazi described the ‘lack of transparent and reliable research data’ as shameful and said a court case had been raised against the people who had been providing the data for the past seven or eight years.51 As for his own growth strategy for Future TV, Ayntrazi told Executive Magazine that he intended to ‘reach out to the Arab youth’, since ‘60 per cent of the Arab world is under 30’. In late 2006, however, just a year after being appointed, incompatibilities with his new employer led Ayntrazi to resign. For a long time the most talked-about aspect of Al-Jazeera’s expansion from one channel to several was the planned addition of Al-Jazeera International, later renamed Al-Jazeera English (AJE). The project was first mentioned by Al-Jazeera’s chairman, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, a cousin of Qatar’s ruling emir, in 2002, after the Arabic channel’s website, launched in 2001, attracted a large number of visitors.52 After the 9/11 attacks in the US killed nearly 3,000 people

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

179

and the US government responded by bombing Afghanistan, world politics polarized in ways that prompted much talk among Arab media owners of trying to improve communication with the West. Nigel Parsons, appointed to oversee the launch of AJE as its managing director, articulated this rationale when he described AJE as the first channel based in the Middle East to ‘bring news back to the West’.53 AJE formally announced its impending launch in October 2004, at an international television convention in Hong Kong. At that point the planned launch date was said to be end-2005. Revised dates of March, June and September 2006 came and went with no launch taking place, but with prominent media personalities being recruited all the while to join AJE from other channels. With a proposed staff of 250 reporters and producers operating out of regional offices in Washington, London, Kuala Lumpur and Doha and dozens of bureaux around the world, including five in Africa, investment in human resources for the new channel soared over a period of nearly three years before it finally started broadcasting in November 2006. Jihad Ballout, having moved from Al-Jazeera to Al-Arabiya in 2005, hinted at a figure of $300 million for preparations in 2004–05 alone.54 Lindsay Oliver, AJE’s commercial director, would concede only that ‘a lot of money’ was involved.55 Intriguingly, economies potentially achievable through Al-Jazeera’s expansion from one to two channels were not realized at this stage. Instead the two operations maintained separate managements and separate public relations teams. Not only were different people leading the two channels, but senior representatives of AJE seemed to be at pains to emphasize how separate they were from the Arabic channel. Rather than appearing to treat the Al-Jazeera brand as an asset, Parsons said AJE would ‘stand alone’ from the Arabic channel because of its different editorial team and different news agenda.56 During a November 2005 visit to Israel by AJE’s head of news, Steve Clark, who was there to recruit staff, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv quoted a ‘senior news network official’ as saying: ‘Although we are called Al-Jazeera and our centre is in Doha, Qatar, we are a completely separate station from Al-Jazeera and not a copy of it. Therefore our agenda is also different.’57 This approach surprised many, not least because an international poll of nearly 2,000 advertising executives in 75 countries in January 2005 revealed Al-Jazeera to be the world’s fifth most influential brand. For

180

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

many Arab journalists, especially those who had stood up to Arab and US attempts to silence Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel, the reaction to any implied downgrading of these achievements was not so much surprise as fury. The rift, exacerbated by a noticeable early absence of Arab journalists from senior AJE positions, was palpable after Parsons gave a press conference at Al-Jazeera’s second international forum in Doha in early 2006. Corridor talk at this event interpreted Parsons’ answers to questions about attacks and threats suffered by journalists on Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel as indicating that he was determined to dissociate AJE from its Arabic counterpart. Riz Khan, who also spoke at the press conference, appeared more sensitive to Arab journalists’ concerns when he insisted that AJE’s values, which included ‘spreading a more democratic view of journalism’, would be the same as those of the Arabic channel.58 Weeks later the two channels’ separate existence was brought to an end, when Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer promoted Wadah Khanfar, managing director of the Arabic channel, to head the whole Al-Jazeera Network as well. From 24 March 2006 it was understood that AJE’s top personnel would report to Khanfar. An official announcement of the decision gave a business management rationale, saying that the move was intended to ‘promote the institutional structure of the network and improve integration’.59 But one of the first signs of editorial change came in the departure from AJE of a former BBC editor, Paul Gibbs, and the recruitment of high-profile Arab journalists to key positions. These included Ibrahim Helal, who had left the editor’s chair at Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel to join the BBC World Service Trust early in 2004, and Ghida Fakhry, formerly New York bureau chief for Al-Jazeera, London-based news anchor for LBC and – most recently – New York bureau chief for the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Parsons’ reported comment that Helal’s appointment ‘solidifies us as a family built around the core spirit of Al Jazeera’60 appeared to reflect Khanfar’s conviction, discussed in Chapter 6, that the brand established through the pioneering journalism of Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel was a key asset for any business launched under the network’s umbrella.61 The same theme had been taken up previously at the launch of the Al-Jazeera Children’s Channel in 2005. Mahmoud Bouneb, that channel’s director, had said at the time, ‘Al-Jazeera is no longer just a news channel. [It] is now a brand name and it is a brand

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

181

name which is diversifying its activities.’62 Journalists and producers at the Arabic channel gained the impression in mid-2006 that Khanfar faced a considerable task of reining back expenditure within AJE, where some Western staff had allegedly brought with them an expense account culture reminiscent of bygone days in Fleet Street. Investment in expanding other parts of the network varied according to the project, as did the expectation of financial returns. Al-Jazeera Mubasher was started for reasons of expediency, to use available transmission capacity for live programming that would not be interrupted by news bulletins and other scheduled slots. It did not require additional news crews; on the contrary it created unedited content that could potentially be sold to other outlets. Al-Jazeera Children’s Channel, while demanding a big commitment in terms of facilities and staff, was officially only 10 per cent owned by Al-Jazeera Network, with the remainder held by the Qatar Foundation and responsibilities for programme acquisition and other duties outsourced to the French conglomerate Lagardère. In early 2006 Al-Jazeera Network launched an Urdu service targeted at 110 million Urdu speakers worldwide, saying that similar services in French, Spanish and Turkish would be added at a later stage. With these operations, involving simultaneous dubbed translation of the Arabic-language channel, the aim was to charge subscriptions. But, again, Al-Jazeera teamed up for the purpose with other firms, thereby spreading the risk and returns. Geo TV, a Pakistan-based firm that lost Al-Jazeera’s Urdu contract to Dubai-based ARY Digital Network, noted that ARY was not subject to Pakistani media regulation.63 Advertising and sponsorship As leading players in Arab television added new channels in 2003– 06, their expansion in a field beset by a lack of ratings transparency prompted outsiders as well as insiders to describe the situation as unsustainable and irrational. In its report for Showtime, Booz Allen Hamilton warned in late 2005: ‘Oversupply and sometimes irrational commercial practices, most notably in advertising sales and programming costs, are negatively affecting the economies of the Middle East TV broadcasting industry.’ But it went on to forecast that a greater emphasis on financial profitability in future would ‘reduce the level of irrational competition amongst broadcasters’.64

182

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

One of the most glaring anomalies in Arab television advertising is the low level of spending in a region where oil revenues boomed before and after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and where economic and regulatory changes might be expected to boost the number of companies eager to advertise. Saudi Arabia, a potential powerhouse of media advertising because of the size and affluence of its population, underwent a major transformation between 2000, when it embarked on serious push to join the World Trade Organization, and 2005, when it eventually joined. This process, similar to economic adjustments undertaken in other Gulf states, entailed increases in private provision of many kinds of services, from telecoms and insurance to health and education, along with rising investment directly into local businesses and real estate and indirectly in stocks and shares. Despite the obvious potential for growth in advertising, and despite actual doubledigit percentage increases in overall advertising, spending on satellite channels failed to keep up with the trend. In 2004 the overall value of all forms of advertising rose by 37 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 38 per cent in the Gulf, marking the biggest increase in the region for ten years.65 The trend continued into 2005, with the UAE alone seeing an increase of 43 per cent.66 In the first quarter of 2005, however, growth in advertising on pan-Arab television slowed to 1 per cent 67 and, as discussed below, the situation in pan-Arab television advertising that year could best be described as an impasse. Such a situation, already anomalous given the spending boom in Arab oil-exporting countries, was even more anomalous when compared to average spending on advertising in other parts of the world. According to one estimate, advertising spending per inhabitant stood at around $70 in Arab Gulf countries in 2006, compared with an equivalent of $375 in Europe and $425 in the US.68 In other Arab regions, where poorer populations hold less attraction for advertisers, the average was smaller still. In order to assess whether decisions made in the sector are rational or not it would normally be necessary to go beyond these basic comparisons to compare countries, types of media, individual media outlets and, ideally, specific programmes. But the first problem here, and the first indication as to why advertisers hold back from television, is the dearth of reliable data. An uneasy consensus exists on the overall volume of spending and the fact that, despite its acknowledged prominence as a source of information, television takes less than half.

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

183

One leading newspaper publisher said in April 2006 that he believed spending on all forms of advertising across the Arab world totalled $5.8 billion in 2005, with just over one-third of this going to the three rich Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.69 The Dubaibased Pan-Arab Research Centre (PARC), linked to the international firm Gallup, reported around the same time that total spending on all advertising in the UAE had reached $904 million in 2005, putting it ahead of Saudi Arabia, which had a total of $890 million.70 As for the size of the Arab market for television advertising, Antoine Choueiri told the Gulf Marketing Forum in Dubai in 2005 that it was ‘approximately $2 billion’.71 A few months later Joseph Ghossoub, chair of the International Advertising Association, concurred.72 When it comes to discovering exactly how the $2 billion is apportioned among channels and how much of it actually reaches television producers, then the consensus breaks down. One reason for disagreement is the difference between the official charge for advertising slots – the amount displayed on the ‘rate card’ – and the final amount paid after discounts and commissions have been taken out. According to PARC’s media research director, Jihad Fakhreddine, ‘industry insiders are comfortable limiting the real values to one-third [of rate-card values] at best’.73 Those insiders also distinguish between channels beamed by satellite to a pan-Arab audience and local terrestrial channels. Fakhreddine puts the combined rate-card value of advertising revenues for both local and pan-Arab television at $2.17 billion in 2004, of which $1.6 billion, or three-quarters, went to pan-Arab channels.74 His calculations about discounts help to explain how, in its report for Showtime, Booz Allen Hamilton could come up with a figure of just $410 million for actual net revenues in the free-to-air satellite sector in 2004. Importantly, Booz Allen Hamilton concluded that as much as $330 million of this total went to just eight leading free-to-air channels.75 Since there were nearly 150 other channels in operation at this time, this statistic implied that the vast majority of channels were together surviving on $80 million, or an average of just over $0.5 million each. By increasing the amount of available advertising space so dramatically, rapid growth in the number of satellite channels helps to explain the heavy discounting that could reduce a nominal $1.6 billion to $410 million. Indeed, by 2005, experts were talking of official advertis-

184

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ing rates being ‘slashed by 85 per cent on average’, leaving only 15 per cent for television companies instead of the 30 per cent or so they were assumed to receive in 2004.76 Worse still, a 15 per cent average masks huge fluctuations in revenues received throughout the year, with most spending concentrated during the fasting month of Ramadan, when viewers watch more television after their evening meal and when household spending goes up, not only for perishables but for large items of furniture and appliances that are purchased when Ramadan ends. Reflecting the premium rates charged for advertising slots in Ramadan, Mindshare, a global media company that does business in the Middle East, calculates that 23 per cent, or nearly one-quarter, of total television advertising budgets are spent during that month alone.77 Another source of uncertainty is the wide disparity in advertising rates charged for different shows, with rising prices for some slots disguising a downward trend overall. While discounts on rate-card values were said to be increasing, rate-card values themselves were on the decline. According to one industry estimate, the latter fell on average by 10 per cent between 2003 and 2004.78 According to another, the average rate-card value per spot on five leading stations fell by a further 30 per cent between 2004 and 2005.79 Whereas LBC and Future TV were charging upwards of $10,000 for 30-second slots in their most high-profile entertainment programmes in 2005, Arab Advisors Group reported that LBC’s regular charge for a slot that length was just $1,633, while Future’s was $1,825 and Dubai TV’s was midway between the two at $1,675.80 In 2004, Arab Advisors said, the average rate charged by MBC, MBC2, Future, LBC and Al-Jazeera stood at $3,103. In 2005 it was down by 30 per cent to $2,180, with regular rates of $2,350 on MBC and $3,100 on Al-Jazeera pulling the average above the lower levels set by LBC, Future and Dubai.81 Declining rates in 2004–05 reflected a transition – from a market in which dominant single general channels could command mass audiences to a market in which fragmented audiences were watching multiple thematic digital channels created by the horizontal expansion of a few big players. Broadcasters such as MBC, Rotana and Dubai TV made a conscious decision to expand their provision in 2003–04, without appearing to worry that by doing so they would overstretch already scarce resources in the form of advertising revenues. The reasons for

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

185

what Fakhreddine calls the ‘relaxed approach’ of the ‘big market players’82 are not immediately clear. Were they unconcerned about covering their costs? Did they have new sources of advertising revenue not previously tapped? Were they supremely confident of having access to existing advertisers irrespective of audience size? For at least some of the biggest players, the answer may have involved a combination of all three. MBC, for example, signed a series of sponsorship deals with giants like Nescafé, Ford and Bounty for all its prime-time movies on MBC2 and with firms like Philadelphia and Safi Danone for primetime shows on MBC 4.83 But, as noted earlier, industry onlookers also spoke of other deals behind the scenes, described by one as ‘private arrangements between agencies and media owners that clients [advertisers] are unware of’.84 Any exploration of these arrangements has to start by asking why several leading – and supposedly competing – channels would all opt to use the same advertising sales house. As major groups like MBC and DMI rebranded in 2004–06, a significant bloc of leading names either stayed with, or turned to, the Choueiri Group’s Middle East Media Services to manage their advertising sales. DMI, explaining its decision in 2004, said Antoine Choueiri, the group’s chairman, had ‘35 years in the business’ and his group’s ‘experience and credentials’ were ‘second to none’.85 Choueiri’s credentials at that point included responsibility for selling advertising airtime for a cross-section of leading satellite channels, including LBC-Sat, MBC, MBC2, Al-Arabiya, Egypt Space Channel and Spacetoon.86 He was also reported to have picked up the accounts of two Egyptian-owned music channels, Mazzika and Melody, in 2005, taking them over from Mediapolis and Adline respectively.87 Al-Jazeera was dropped by Middle East Media Services at around this time, having obviously experienced a reduced flow of advertising since before the Saudi-led boycott against it was formalized in 2002. Asked about his split with Al-Jazeera at the Gulf Marketing Forum in 2005, Choueiri refused to explain. He told Tim Sebastian, of BBC Hard Talk and Doha Debates fame, that he had decided not to renew the contract for ‘political reasons’. Asked by Sebastian to elaborate, Choueiri’s reply, repeated twice over, was, ‘I don’t want to answer.’ 88 Although the Choueiri Group is Lebanese, its Saudi connections are extensive. In 2004 the group entered into a collaboration with ARA Group International (AGI), the media sales house owned by the MBC

186

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

group, that took effect in 2005 and deepened concerns about concentration, even in a region unaccustomed to controls on mergers and monopolies. It is a moot point how much of the market was controlled by Choueiri and his associates after the agreement with AGI. The monthly ArabAd reported that AGI and the Choueiri Group together represented 60 per cent of the ‘total monitored TV adspend’ in 2004, and 43 per cent of the total Arab adult TV audience in Saudi Arabia on an average day.89 The magazine noted that, with ‘powerful owners, several stations involved in the deal have the weight to push it through’. Based on the logic of a seller’s market, the greater the dominance of these stations’ advertising sales houses, the more advertising revenue they should receive, since one or two dominant houses should be able to control the rates payable by advertisers seeking to reach the biggest and richest audiences. Yet, in this case, despite increased concentration at the level of agencies, rates for television advertising appeared not to increase because advertisers themselves rebelled. Richard Evans, a PepsiCo executive, complained to a business audience in 2005, ‘If you try to buy media in the region, you have to go through one guy.’90 Representatives of several leading advertisers insisted they were not tied to one medium. If television rates were undesirable they would shift money away from television altogether or look for other channels. But more than 30 advertisers, including Unilever, Proctor & Gamble and McDonald’s, also decided on the proactive step of forming the GCC Advertisers’ Association. Their charter, aimed at improving practice in the industry, was driven by mounting dissatisfaction at a persistent lack of transparency about viewing figures. Dissatisfaction with lack of credible viewing figures, collected by unreliable and antiquated methods, built up for a long time before the GCCAA was formed, creating a source of bitter disagreement not only with advertisers but between big channels and agencies on one side and smaller players on the other. In a particularly intense dispute over the reliability of data, Future TV took Ipsos-Stat to court after it reported higher audiences for LBC’s Star Academy than Future TV’s Super Star.91 One expert in the field, speaking privately at the end of 2004, used the expression ‘gut feelings’ to convey the unscientific basis on which decisions about programming and advertising were being made in the absence of adequate audience research. He said broadcast-

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

187

ers were in denial about audience fragmentation in the multi-channel environment and were refusing to pay for any study that produced unfavourable findings, leaving advertising agencies themselves to initiate research. While agencies struggled to invest in the new technology needed to conduct computer-assisted telephone interviews with the required frequency, or install people meters on a big enough scale, broadcasters preferred simply to ridicule unfavourable research findings by accusing the research companies of bias. In 2003 Elie Khouri of Optimum Media Direction (OMD) had gone on record complaining that ‘some media groups have given up using research’. He said media owners were resisting the introduction of television meters and telephone interviewing precisely because of the degree of transparency they would bring.92 As with the business of selling airtime to advertisers, concerns about the business of tracking viewing figures were fuelled by concentration of the business in very few hands. As Campaign Middle East put it in mid-2005, ‘Ipsos-Stat and the Pan Arab Research Center (PARC), the primary sources of [audience] data in the region, both claim the service they provide is the most accurate.’ 93 It was left to the GCCAA, working with OMD and other agencies such as Starcom and Mindshare, to take the initiative of providing start-up funds for the introduction of people meters into Saudi Arabia for a target date of end-2006, with Kuwait and the UAE to follow later.94 In the meantime lacunae remained in the auditing of data. Asked about auditing, Elie Aoun of Ipsos-Stat vouched for the data produced by computeraided telephone interviews in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, saying that any doubts about their validity were caused only by ‘politics’ because ‘everyone wants to be number one’.95 Whether achieved through increased competition in the supply of statistics, or through technology, promised improvements in the reliability of audience data did not bring with them any expectation that ‘politics’ would be eliminated from the audience–advertising equation. Prince Faisal bin Salman, head of the Saudi Research and Marketing publishing group, summed up the link to politics by describing ‘ad men’ as the ‘new censors’. Highlighting the importance to advertisers of countries with relatively large and affluent populations like Saudi Arabia and populous countries like Egypt, he told an audience of academics that sensitivities to government preferences were affecting

188

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

advertising choices. Advertisers’ thinking was ‘if we want to sustain sales’ to a given country, ‘why confront the government?’. ‘So the drive is to minimise provocation.’ TV was dangerous commercially, the prince said, because ‘the numbers are not credible’; ‘you can zap 85 channels in one minute’ – ‘the problem is the remote control’.96 Alternative sources of finance Rational resource allocation for advertisers is not necessarily rational for broadcasters, if the latter believe they benefit from a non-transparent system whereby the correlation of advertising income to ratings is obscured. But advertising is not the only source of income for television firms. Where companies offer viewers the option of pay-TV, this changes the nature of the relationship with advertisers, potentially demoting them from the position of principal revenue source and putting paying customers in a more commanding role. Although ART representatives say their company relies heavily on income from advertisers, Peter Einstein, as head of Showtime Arabia, said in 2005 that advertising sales accounted for ‘less than 10 per cent’ of his company’s revenue.97 However, this small percentage was not his only reason for declining to buy audience figures from suppliers such as Ipsos-Stat and PARC; according to Einstein, available audience research was ‘not accurate enough’ to give him the information he wanted to have.98 In a situation of murky advertising arrangements based on factors other than audience ratings, the pay-TV model would appear to offer a select group of subscribers greater leverage over the range of content on offer. They have no reason to pay to watch the same programmes that are available free. It would also seem to offer advertisers better guarantees of reaching particular socio-economic groups. By considering how pay-TV operators handle their business, it should be possible to judge whether the market is becoming more open to competition in the sense of information circulating more freely and explicit contracts offering a better alternative to private arrangements that are made in house. One aspect of the Arab pay-TV sector that quickly emerges is a continuing lack of data that are both credible and accessible. Together, the three Arab pay-TV networks provide around 100 channels, comprising 30 from Showtime, 40 from ART and 31 from Orbit.99 When it comes to counting subscribers, however, these companies avoid publi-

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

189

cizing precise data. Booz Allen Hamilton reported a combined total of around 1 million subscribers in 2005, representing 5 per cent of the market overall. But it also found big variations in the four core markets it studied, with market share ranging from just 3 per cent in Egypt to 29 per cent in the UAE.100 In March 2006 Jawad Abbassi, head of the Arab Advisors Group, told the Cabsat conference in Dubai that only 4 per cent of the region’s households had pay-TV. This conflicted with the estimate of an ART affiliate in 2002. Alaa el-Kahky, general manager of Arab Reach Media Services, which sells airtime for ART channels in Egypt, conceded that ART reached ‘less than 5 per cent of the population, at least in Egypt’. But he also claimed that ART alone had around 1 million subscribers worldwide.101 Showtime’s Einstein typically took the stance that the existence of different types of subscription, ranging from single homes to hotels and residential compounds, makes it difficult to recall exact numbers for each type. Subscribers can also be subdivided according to whether they are expatriates or Arab nationals. Interviewed in June 2006, Einstein’s reason for not quoting figures was that ‘we are currently running financial operations and cannot publish any figures during this period’. Then he added, ‘All figures will be revealed in the end.’102 In the absence of clarity about viewer numbers, pay-TV companies are assumed to be able to woo advertisers on the strength of their viewers’ purchasing power, as vouched for by their subscriptions. Inevitably there is a tradeoff between smaller audiences on the one hand and more targeted audiences on the other. Yet the net effect of the trade-off is to produce rates for advertising rates on pay-TV channels that are around onethird of the level on leading free-to-air channels. When Arab Advisors Group calculated trends in rates across the satellite television sector in 2005, it reported a maximum of $720 for 30 seconds on ART, Orbit and Showtime.103 Growth prospects for pay-TV providers are constrained by several factors. One is growth in incomes, which varies widely among and within populations. Another is the free-to-air broadcasters’ increasing expansion into areas, such as 24-hour film channels or music television, which were traditionally offered only on subscription. When channels like MBC2, MBC4 and Dubai’s One TV boosted free access to imported American films and television shows, while Rotana, Melody and Mazzika increased the range of free non-stop music, the

190

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

implication was that pay-TV companies would have to experiment with new types of content, causing subscribers to benefit from intensified competition. In some respects this promised to be the case. Showtime, for example, sought to differentiate its schedules by consistently offering newer programming than that available on the free channels and replicating the cinema experience by minimizing advertising breaks. But the company also insisted that Showtime content was different in not being censored. Citing feedback from viewers who said there was no point paying for movies in the same censored versions available on free-to-air channels, Einstein told a reporter that Showtime was showing films uncut. In particular he mentioned Sabaa Waraqat Kutshina (Seven Playing Cards), an Egyptian film that censors had cut by 30 minutes before it was shown in Egyptian cinemas. ‘We showed the entire production exclusively to our subscribers,’ he said.104 From the outset, ART and Orbit also competed with free-to-air channels by commissioning premium content in Arabic. Showtime revealed in 2006 that it was planning to add a new kind of ‘more liberal’ content in Arabic. Einstein cited the Arabic version of Big Brother as something that was ‘completely unacceptable for free channels’ but ‘suitable for subscription channels’.105 Despite this, not all outcomes of competition between pay-TV and free-to-air channels had the effect of extending choice for viewers. The story of television rights to broadcast 2006 World Cup football matches to Arab countries is a case in point. Acquiring television rights to sports events grew more expensive as competition among Arab satellite channels increased. During his time as chairman and general manager of Future TV, Nadim Munla frequently stressed the negative aspects of this competition. He told a conference in Beirut in early 2004 that rights to the World Cup for the Arab region used to cost $3–4 million, but this had soared to $75 million for the 2002 series.106 Saleh Kamel, head of ART, said he paid $86 million for rights to the 2002 series but his deal also gave ART an option on the 2006 event.107 Claiming that it gained over 100,000 new subscribers during the 2002 World Cup, ART decided to go for exclusive rights to the 2006 series, paying a sum reported by one source at $187 million. It also arranged to retain a monopoly on the next two tournaments, in 2010 and 2014. Egyptian journalists were alert to the move because it meant that, for the first time since Egyptian TV came on air in 1960,

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

191

ordinary viewers dependent on free-to-air channels would be deprived of access to four-yearly games that would be watched by others all around the world. An ART subscription, costing some £E1,450 per year, was way out of reach for the vast majority of Egyptians, for whom such a sum would be several months’ salary. The options for watching the World Cup without payment were rather limited. They included recourse to pirated access through illicit cabling or paying the price of enough cups of tea to watch individual matches in a café.108 ART managers were initially confident that their decision to secure exclusivity would help their company compete with free-to-air operators and promote a long-term expansion in their subscriber base. Karim Younes, general manager of ART’s International Sports Event Company division, explained it in terms of branding and privilege. ‘The World Cup is all about passion,’ he said. ‘The World Cup is a mega brand, it is not a normal brand. It is the difference between a small car and a Porsche. … It has a price, it has an image. We need to communicate that and we need to respect the World Cup.’109 Showtime, a long-time collaborator with ART in establishing a common set-top box and smart card, had no objection to this approach. On the contrary, Einstein said he was happy that Saleh Kamel had reserved World Cup matches for subscription television, ‘reinforcing the idea that some things you get free and other things you have to pay for. This is a good thing and it helps us all.’ 110 In the event, ART may have helped its competitors by failing to use the 2006 World Cup rights to its own best advantage. Complaints piled up about its handling of many aspects of the event, amounting to what some in the business regarded as a public-relations disaster.111 ART responded to criticism by providing open access to the semi-finals and final as a goodwill gesture, only to be lambasted even more for omitting to ensure that the gesture was widely publicized. As for whether its actions convinced viewers that access to special events comes at a price, evidence from several Arab countries did not support this conclusion. The Palestinian Broadcasting Company (PBC) intercepted Turkish World Cup programming and rebroadcast it, while the local Palestinian television station in Nablus paid for a single ART subscription and rebroadcast it free to Nablus residents; both judged that ART would suffer even more loss of face across the Arab world if it sued Palestinian channels for piracy.112 In Lebanon, illegal cable operators agreed with ART to pay a collective sum of $0.5 million to

192

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

show the World Cup matches, but that left representatives of hotels and restaurants trying to reach a settlement they could afford.113 Football was not the only weapon in the pay-TV providers’ arsenal. They had other opportunities for exclusivity in offering high-definition television (HDTV) programming or digital video recorders (DVRs). ART saw its World Cup coup as a stimulus to broadcast in high definition, even though Charles Balchin, head of ART Sport, had fairly modest expectations for early take-up of this facility. In early 2006 he forecast regional penetration of HDTV sets at 15 per cent by 2010, rising to 50 per cent by 2014.114 As with many communication technologies, including the Internet, there is a chicken-and-egg issue with HD: consumers are prompted to acquire it if there is enough of the right kind of content to warrant acquisition, while producers may be deterred from producing the content if the means of delivery are restricted. Al-Jazeera English decided from the outset to produce and transmit in HD, but this decision was aimed at English-speaking viewers beyond the Middle East. Among most other free-to-air Arab-owned stations, managers preferred to wait for MPEG4 technology to reduce the bandwidth needed for HD transmission. In this context, ART’s decision to transmit in HD for the one month of the 2006 World Cup appeared not to make much impact. Nevertheless, pay-TV providers had an advantage in knowing that their customers, being among the most likely early adopters of expensive new technology, would also be the first to subscribe to new services with more value added. By introducing the ‘Showbox’ DVR, Showtime prepared the way for the spread of video-on-demand. Al-Jazeera’s encrypted sports channels did likewise with the sale of conditional access modules designed to allow subscribers to switch between a variety of different pay-per-view options and a messaging system without the need for a customized smart card. When agreement was reached in August 2006 to include Al-Jazeera’s two pay-TV sports channels in Showtime’s sports portfolio, Showtime used the the two additions as an incentive to subscribers to upgrade to more expensive packages. Orbit meanwhile admitted to agonizing over how best to meet predicted changes in television viewing habits, including a possible increase in demand for content over mobile phones. According to Robert Khalil, managing director of Media Gates, an Orbit subsidiary created to handle multimedia production and acquisition, ‘people handling the visual content are

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

193

in a trauma over what to produce and how to deliver’.115 In light of these challenges, it is instructive to see which of these companies were prepared to subject themselves to the scrutiny and possible shareholder intervention that comes with flotation on the stock exchange. Arab owners were traditionally loath to offer shares to the public for fear it would dilute their control. Such reluctance is not uncommon outside the region. Bertelsmann, privately owned by the Mohn family, showed in 2006 that it would rather raise finance by selling its 50 per cent stake in Sony BMG, the world’s second largest music group, than go to the stock market with an initial public offering (IPO).116 Nevertheless, 2005–06 saw changing attitudes to IPOs in Arab media circles, led by Gulf companies. As part-privatization of Al-Jazeera did not materialize, the first Arab media company to sell off shares was the Saudi-owned newspaper and magazine publisher Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG), which sold 30 per cent of its shares on the Saudi stock exchange in April 2006, after reporting its best ever profit of SR181.4 million ($48.4 million) in 2005. The offer was four times oversubscribed and, on the first day of trading after the IPO, SRMG shares, which had been bought for SR46 ($12) each, closed at SR95 ($25). Announcing plans for a further IPO, this time for Al-Madina Printing and Publishing Company, SRMG’s chairman, Prince Faisal bin Salman, told Al-Arabiya that his firm was working on measures to prevent any shareholder from trying to influence editorial content. ‘If a person has any problem he has to refer to the Saudi legal and judicial channels,’ he said.117 Television companies claiming to have contemplated an IPO around this time include Showtime Arabia, Rotana and even MBC. Jihad Ballout, press spokesperson for Al-Arabiya, told a reporter in early 2006 that an IPO could help MBC to ‘attract money’. But he declined to be more specific, on the grounds that there was no reason to reveal MBC’s plans to its competitors when such revelations were ‘not yet reciprocated’.118 In March 2005, talk of an IPO for Showtime Arabia was cut short pending arrangements for the share offer reaching a more advanced stage. Being owned by KIPCO, Kuwait’s largest private company, Showtime Arabia has links to the Kuwaiti government through KIPCO’s chairman, Sheikh Hamad al-Sabah, a son of Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah.119 KIPCO’s other communication interests include Wataniya Telecom, which entered

194

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

a deal with Rotana in 2006, and Global Direct, a digital television distribution and installation company active throughout the Gulf. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were appointed in 2005 to advise on an IPO for Showtime Arabia that was expected to be listed on the markets in both London and Dubai. KIPCO personnel said at the time that an eventual flotation could value the company at around $1 billion, based in part on an estimated monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) of over $50.120 In April 2006 KIPCO’s chief executive, Faisal al-Ayyar, said the IPO had been held up by a delay in information being processed by banks, accountants and legal advisors. He said it could still take place in 2006 but that KIPCO was barred by the laws of the London stock exchange from disclosing details.121 As for Rotana, Prince Alwaleed revealed plans in July 2005 to sell shares in two of his companies, Kingdom Hotels Investment Group and Rotana Audiovisual, saying the Rotana IPO was likely to happen in 2006 with listings in both London and Dubai. Alwaleed told The Times of London that he thought Rotana would be valued at more than $1 billion.122 Plans for the IPO surfaced again in early 2006 but with no date given, amid hints that Rotana wanted to undertake further expansion first. Location If, by virtue of satellite and other transnational communication technologies, television companies are technically able to locate in one place and transmit to any number of others, interesting questions are raised about factors influencing their choice of location. Long before the days of transnational television, pan-Arab newspapers and radio stations showed how cross-border media based in one country could target readers and listeners in other countries, by virtue of a shared language and different national media policies and laws. As a result, the phenomenon of a regional centre for mass media has a long history in the Arab world. In the 1870s Egypt’s Khedive Ismail found it expedient to offer a certain measure of free speech to writers escaping more despotic conditions in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In the 1950s, revolution in Egypt combined with political and economic changes in Lebanon to push media-related ventures from Cairo to Beirut. From there, the 1970s and 1980s saw an exodus to Dubai, as Lebanon succumbed to civil war and petrodollars fuelled

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

195

the rise of publishing and advertising agencies in the Gulf. In 2006 Dubai’s Media City was home to more than 50 regional and international broadcasters, including MBC, LBC, Showtime, Rotana and Dubai TV. But, as a centre of pan-Arab television, it was not alone. So-called ‘media free zones’ established in Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain were subsequently joined by others in Syria and Kuwait as well as in emirates like Fujairah and Ras al-Khaimah which, like Dubai, are part of the UAE. In terms of sheer numbers, such zones give the appearance of competing for business. Any real competition among them might be expected to promote a decentralization of decision-making, with companies choosing between locations based on factors such as bureaucracy, property prices, labour costs and availability of skills. In practice, however, media free zones in Arab countries are implicated in existing ownership and regulatory structures in ways that limit choice. In Egypt, for example, locally based satellite broadcasters are obliged by law to operate from their country’s media free zone. Early information about Syria’s planned Free Media City suggested that occupancy would be reserved for Syrians, who would be required to hand up to 22 per cent of their advertising revenue over to the staterun Arab Advertising Organization.123 Media free zones in Dubai and Egypt were meanwhile under the same management as those countries’ government-controlled broadcasters. Dubai Media City (DMC) was inaugurated in January 2001 by the Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone Authority, which had been signed into existence in January 2000 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed alMaktoum. The head of the free-zone authority sits on the nine-member board of the Dubai Media Foundation, created and headed by Sheikh Mohammed. This was the same board that initiated the relaunch of state-owned television channels under the umbrella of Dubai Media Incorporated in 2003. In fact, Sheikh Mohammed ultimately sponsors all such projects in Dubai, allocating land and resources and meeting the Dubai government’s investment ‘partners’ as if the emirate itself were a private firm.124 Egypt’s Media Production City (EMPC) existed as a studio complex and uplinking facility before its free zone was added in 2000. The zone was created by prime ministerial decree (No. 411 of 2000), based on Law No. 8 of 1997, which deals with investment incentives and guarantees and places free-zone activities under the supervision of the

196

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Public Authority for Investment and Free Zones. Creation of the zone allowed companies to circumvent the state-owned ERTU’s monopoly on television transmission from inside Egypt, provided they broadcast by satellite and abided by certain rules on editorial content. But the ERTU’s continued dominance was underpinned by its 50 per cent stake in the overall EMPC project, with the Egyptian state owning many of the remaining shares via the holdings of state-owned banks and investment companies. Unlike the DMC and EMPC, the Jordan Media City was set up by the Saudi-owned private broadcaster, ART. This is ironic, since the media free zone concept was first dreamed up as a Jordanian national venture in 1999.125 While internal consultations about a media free zone law dragged on in Jordan, executive action in Dubai and Egypt enabled these countries to implement their own versions of the same idea without delay. Eventually, in 2001, ART’s owner, Saleh Kamel, created the JMC as a private free zone, owned by his Dallah Media Production Company and run by the Jordanian Media City Company on a site that had originally been equipped for joint public–private media production in the late 1970s. The JMC operation was made possible by Jordan’s existing free-zone laws, with uplinking made subject to a separate agreement between ART and the Jordanian government.126 King Abdullah of Jordan inaugurated the JMC in March 2002 and over the next two years ART moved a large part of its operations from its centre at Avezzano in Italy to the JMC. A JMC spokesman said in 2004 that ART expected to reduce its operating costs by 60 per cent, thanks to the move.127 Orbit, unhappy with tax arrangements in Rome, also sought to move to a base in the Arab world. By July 2005, 13 Orbit channels were being transmitted from the Orbit Network Centre Bahrain, sited in the grounds of Bahrain’s ministry of information. As MBC and other broadcasters who had set up in London faced mounting costs for office space, salaries and taxes, they too looked for alternatives. Despite having invested in a $12 million headquarters in Battersea in the 1990s, MBC became one of DMC’s first high-profile residents when it moved into purposebuilt premises there in 2001–02. Steve Clark, MBC news director at the time, declared that it would ‘obviously’ be ‘more economic’ to run operations from DMC than from London.128 For each of these Saudi-owned companies, however, the choice of location appeared to depend on considerations other than a simple comparison of taxa-

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

197

tion regimes, investment incentives and the availability of skilled labour and high-tech infrastructure. ART had already moved some operations from Cairo to Amman before acquiring the JMC for an undisclosed sum. Dubai appears to have considered MBC as pivotal to the future success of DMC, in that its presence would signal the city’s importance and encourage other companies to relocate there too. Regarded as an ‘anchor store’, on the principle adopted by empty shopping malls seeking to attract tenants, MBC is believed to have benefited from additional incentives, possibly in kind.129 Orbit’s interest in Bahrain dated from before DMC opened for business; its first agreement about moving some operations to Manama was signed with the Bahraini ministry of information in January 2000. According to some interpretations, the relationship between the Arab world’s various media cities and media free zones is anyway not governed by outright competition but by a form of complementarity or division of labour.130 Instead of choosing between locations, the Saudi-owned network Al-Majd responded to the different circumstances prevailing in different places by siting parts of its business in EMPC, DMC and JMC all at the same time. Thus the zones are seen to form a hierarchy, being connected in some way, whether through cross-ownership of resident companies, ties of marriage between ruling families, or links created through technical support. DMC is acknowledged to be at the top of the hierarchy, being closest to achieving the ambition set out by its first chief executive officer, Saeed al-Muntafiq, of moving beyond the status of regional base to becoming one of ‘four or five global bases for broadcasting as we move forward over the next few years’.131 Mekki Abdullah, spokesman for the Creative City planned to open in Fujairah in 2007, contrasted DMC’s global aspirations with Fujairah’s more modest approach. ‘We don’t see ourselves as competing with the Dubai Media City,’ he said, explaining that Fujairah’s primary aim was to attract small local businesses.132 Demand for outlying media cities in Fujairah and Ras al-Khaimah increased as business costs in Dubai escalated. Even so, arrangements among the emirates allowed enterprises seeking cheaper alternatives to have a registered address in Dubai. Any strong sense of competition among centres is undermined by their common approach to restrictions on the content that broadcasters are permitted to transmit. Although the licensing process for

198

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

media free zone tenants carries with it the possibility of a licence being withdrawn, the transgressions that can put a licence at risk are only vaguely defined. Egypt’s free-zone authority warned Dream TV in 2002 that it risked losing its licence after a week in which its programmes had been both sexually explicit and critical of local politics. Although sexual references in a discussion programme were cited as the reason, many suspected that the political comment was the real cause.133 JMC banned a channel called Mamnou (Forbidden) from transmitting in late 2005. JMC’s chief executive, Radi Alkhas, said the banning took place because Mamnou had breached the terms of its contract by airing films for which it had not obtained transmission rights. Representatives of Mamnou, however, attributed the action to international pressure on Jordan to prevent dissemination of the anti-semitic television drama serial Al-Shatat.134 Alkhas had previously stressed that, as a ‘reputable company’, ART had proved it could be relied on by Jordan’s government. Explaining in 2001 that ART’s JMC project had the Jordanian king’s full support, he said, ‘The parliament may have been afraid that under a media free zone law anyone, not just well-known and respected broadcasters, could come and set up in Jordan. How sure can they be that they know the companies, they know the owners? This works because it’s an agreement between the government and a well-known and reputable company.’135 DMC’s rules on television content were initially said to be very simple, being summarized under four headings: no pornography; no broadcasting by institutions owned by political parties; no preaching of any religion other than Islam; and no defamatory content.136 Given the correspondence between these prohibitions and those in force across the Arab world, DMC has been described as ‘no more than an elaborate real estate project that has secured no further rights for journalists’.137 With the completion of Dubai Studio City offering DMC tenants dedicated filming facilities under the same terms and conditions as those prevailing in DMC, questions about film content started to emerge more explicitly in 2006. Companies operating in Dubai Studio City were offered 100 per cent tax exemption for 50 years and allowed 100 per cent foreign ownership. But they were not allowed to operate uncensored. This fact surfaced when the distributor of Syriana, a Hollywood film shot in Dubai, revealed that the authorities had ordered the film’s script to be checked before filming

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

199

started. After checking, all references to Gulf leaders and countries were removed.138 Concluding overview Most strands of analysis in this book were prompted by quantitative change in Arab television in the decade of expansion that began after Al-Jazeera, LBC and Future TV entered the satellite scene in late 1996. Successive chapters looked at why and how additional channels had been licensed, whether the increase in jobs for journalists and presenters (both male and female) had affected attitudes to journalism or women’s visibility in public life, whether growth in opportunities for content production had encouraged indigenous innovation, and whether the apparent benefits of a transnational market in terms of competition were being realized in the sense of different corporate players being exposed to the same sets of market pressures. This last chapter explored the expansion projects of major firms to see whether these were pushing them to adopt new ways to measure audiences or new ways to raise money to invest. It also asked whether media centres around the region were competing with each other or not. In each aspect of the study, the underlying assumption was that shifting balances between supply and demand in various parts of the industry could potentially trigger or promote change in practices. That in turn raised the question of whether new practices would reflect the beginnings of a transfer of power over content from ruling families and their associates, who were shown to have been behind Arab television in the 1990s, to others elsewhere in the chain of television production and distribution – others whose approaches to content and ratings would be those of media or marketing professionals and not self-interested members of a ruling elite. Not surprisingly for an industry whose transition has been subject to an unusual configuration of extreme internal and external influences, including some resulting from foreign invasion and occupation, indicators regarding the direction of change in television were mixed. Any attempt to sum up the conclusions has to begin by saying that established firms with the backing of powerful political forces continued to enjoy big advantages in their political ability to control economic aspects of the business. Membership of the resulting oligopoly was shown to be tied to a centralized nexus of arrangements

200

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

for sales of advertising airtime. Leading television firms’ oligopolistic practices could be seen in their dealings with suppliers, especially performers and production houses, and their dealings with customers, notably advertisers. Besides their commercial rationale, an additional stimulus for such practices was generated by the shared political interests of the people behind individual firms, including – in the case of MBC, Rotana, LBC-Sat and Melody – the aim of counteracting alleged extremism among Arab youth. Much as the oligopoly firms paid increased attention to questions of brand, identity and restructuring, this attention did not appear to indicate responsiveness to consumer demand. In most cases, a strong sense of identity was viewed as a means to lend coherence to expansion plans, rather than an asset that would reflect a particular relationship with viewers. Indeed, the widely criticized absence of reliable or in-depth audience feedback was at least partly the result of the oligopoly firms’ resistance to any findings they found inconvenient or unflattering. On the other hand, the region did see the rise of a new form of patronage, geared to producing something akin to public-service television, at least in the field of information. Components of the Al-Jazeera group, notably the Arabic and English-language news channels, plus Al-Jazeera Mubasher and Al-Jazeera Children’s Channel, were explicitly given a public-service mission, even though mechanisms for public accountability on the part of Al-Jazeera’s main funder had yet to be developed. The emergence of a quasi public-service style of broadcasting opened up a space in which a few prominent journalists could try to move on from longstanding ideologies of journalism prevalent in Arab media, by pursuing what was summarized here as a ‘no-agenda agenda’. In doing so, this small but influential group of practitioners could be seen to open up other spaces, this time for sources that were unrepresented or under-represented hitherto. Any serious attempt to represent all sides to any conflict, whether social, political or military, would inevitably bring in unfamiliar voices. But evidence in Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrated that wider society’s unfamiliarity with, and mistrust of, the new-style journalism had the effect of limiting its application and impact. In practical terms, besides negative feedback received from viewers and newspaper columnists, limitations were sometimes imposed by sources themselves, through their refusal to appear on screen in the company of adversaries. The notion of

BU S I N E S S S T R AT E GI E S OF L E A DI N G T V F I R M S

201

representing conflicting opinions was also taken by some presenters to extremes. In one case discussed here, this effectively closed down a space that had nominally been opened up to a new source eager to share the findings of a media monitoring exercise. Importantly, the opening of so many new television channels created possibilities for the circulation and promotion of journalists who, in the words of one, consider it a duty to seek ‘real answers to the real questions’ on behalf of Arab citizens. But growth in channel capacity did not lead to new structures that would enable these individuals to collaborate across companies or borders to defend their right to report. Nor could it be said to have unleashed the full creative talents of local cultural producers, since the latter remained subject to restraints on subject matter, casting and costs. Nevertheless, pressure to produce innovative television in Arabic was clearly mounting. For one thing, the launching of free-to-air film and sports channels, combined with a surge in American imports and global formats across the free-to-air sector, left the pay-TV channels struggling to find types of content by which to differentiate themselves. For another, it seemed clear that, whereas Arab audiences would watch the American versions of talk shows (like Oprah) based on intimate confessions, or lifestyle experiment formats (like Wife Swap or Supernanny) that probe family relationships, these genres did not readily lend themselves to replication in local Arabic versions. In societies where protecting personal information is a matter of honour, local equivalents of Oprah or Dr Phil would have a hard time finding guests. As to who would invest in novel and stimulating Arabic television fiction or documentaries in an oligopoly market taught by pan-Arab politics to be risk averse, this was unclear. The challenge was to secure local patronage and thereby reduce reliance on foreign support, since foreign partnership in feature films and documentaries was seen to involve foreign choices of subject matter and treatments oriented to non-Arab audiences. If competition had become slightly more noticeable among the dominant television companies by the mid-2000s, this could be attributed in part to a certain breaking of ranks over attitudes to audience figures. With expansion in the number of channels pushing owners and managers to spend more on content in order to maintain audience share, there was more at stake in persuading advertisers about audience size and loyalty than merely reporting a few statistics about

202

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

viewers’ telephone votes for contestants in reality game shows. These pressures were reflected in litigation over comparative viewership data and moves by major advertisers to push for long-delayed upgrading of data through the gradual introduction of people meters in three Gulf countries. Financial pressures may also explain talk of possible stockmarket flotations by major firms. But the fact that share offerings were more talked about than carried out during the period under review illustrates the persistence of owners’ reluctance to reveal information or relinquish any measure of personal control. Garnham’s comparison between media systems and supermarkets, quoted at the start of this final chapter, underlined the need to scrutinize business networks that put media artefacts into circulation, since the nature of these systems determines the pattern of what is made available and ‘above all, where in the chain the major profits are taken’.139 Among the dominant firms in Arab television, a high proportion of resource allocation continued to be the sole prerogative of a small, interconnected group of owners who kept their reasons and trade-offs to themselves. Thus the task of identifying the precise nature of profits taken, and where they were taken from, remained to be achieved.

Notes Chapter 1. Publicity Machine or Complex Industry? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Eutelsat, Cable and Satellite TV Market (Paris, 2004). Raymond Williams, Culture (London, 1981), pp 44–45, 55. Abdel-Wahab El-Affendi, presentation on ‘The politics of Arab media’ to a seminar on Arab Satellite Channels: Ownership and Control (London, 19 March 2004). Author’s transcript. Rami Khouri, ‘Arab satellite marriage – Ben Laden and Madonna’, Jordan Times, 27 November 2002. Hazem Saghiyeh, ‘The war of the Arab satellite TV stations’, Al-Hayat, 5 May 2004. Translation from Middle East Economic Survey, 31 May 2004. Naomi Sakr, Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East (London, 2001), p 207. For a non-evolutionist, non-functionalist application of differentiation theory, see Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini, Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics (Cambridge, 2004), pp 66–85. See, for example, Colin Sparks, ‘Media theory after the fall of European communism’, in J. Curran and M.-J. Park (eds), De-Westernizing Media Studies (London 2000), pp 35–49. Serge Regourd, ‘Two conflicting notions of audiovisual liberalisation’, in M. Scriven and M. Lecomte (eds), Television Broadcasting in Contemporary France and Britain (New York, 1999), pp 29–45. Paul Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony (London, 2004). Robert Picard, Media Economics: Concepts and Issues (London, 1989), pp 17–19. Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time (London, 1994), pp 29–30, 56–62. Marc Raboy, ‘Public service broadcasting in the context of globalization’, in Marc Raboy (ed), Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century (Luton, 1996), pp 5–7. Remarks to a conference on New Media and Change in the Arab World, Amman, 28 February 2002. Author’s transcript.

203

204

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

15. Jon Alterman, New Media, New Politics? From Satellite Television to the Internet in the Arab World (Washington, 1998), p 21. 16. Sakr, Satellite Realms, pp 42–43. 17. Interview with Samir Abdulhadi, tbsjournal.com 9 (Fall/Winter 2002). 18. Emir’s statement quoted in ‘US pressure on Al-Jazeera slammed’, Gulf Times, 9 October 2001. 19. Author’s interview with Mohammed Jassem Al-Ali, Amman, 1 March 2002. 20. Mohammed Samih, ‘Beltagi honours Safwat al-Sharif and Howaidy and Abul-Magd’, Al-Izaa w’al-telefiziyun (in Arabic), 7 August 2004. 21. Author’s interview, Cairo, 15 August 1998. 22. Soheir Hafez, deputy director of news at ERTU, quoted by Gihan Shahine and Hanan Sabra in ‘Making waves on air’, Al-Ahram Weekly, 640 (29 May–4 June 2003). 23. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Second Report by the CIHRS Media Monitoring Team, 6 September 2005. 24. Colin Hoskins, Stuart McFadyen and Adam Finn, Media Economics: Applying Economics to New and Traditional Media (London 2004), pp 97– 100. 25. Nabil Dajani, ‘The confessional scene in Lebanese television’. Paper presented at the seminar on Islam on TV, Copenhagen, December 1999. 26. Hadi Tawil, ‘FPM to launch its own television station’, Daily Star, 22 March 2006. 27. Author’s telephone interview, 28 November 2006. 28. AFP, ‘Exile sets up Saudi opposition group in France’, Paris, 9 August 2006. 29. Lysandra Ohrstrom, ‘Satellite television expands – but who’s watching?’, Daily Star, 18 November 2006. 30. See Ma’an’s web pages at maannet.org. 31. See online at maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=Content&Do= Aboutus (accessed 28 November 2006). 32. Author’s interview, Amman, 20 September 2006. 33. Abdel-Bari Atwan, ‘Tarheeb al-ilam al-arabi’ [Terrorizing the Arab media], Al-Quds al-Arabi, 6 May 2006. 34. Graham Murdock, ‘Large corporations and the control of the communications industries’, in M. Gurevitch, T. Bennett, J. Curran and J. Woollacott (eds), Culture, Society and the Media (London, 1982), pp 122– 123. 35. Peter B. de Selding, ‘Eutelsat beefing up its Middle East business’, Space News, 5 September 2006. 36. ‘Leading Arab television stations reject Zogby report’, Asharq alAwsat, 2 January 2006. Online at asharqalawsat.com/English/article.

NOT ES

205

asp?artid=id3285 (accessed 25 June 2006). 37. Results of the survey were published online, dated 3 May 2006, at globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut.html (accessed 9 May 2006). 38. Goldsmiths Media Group, ‘Media organizations in society: central issues’, in J. Curran (ed), Media Organisations in Society (London, 2000), p 30. 39. Philip Schlesinger, ‘Rethinking the sociology of journalism: source strategies and the limits of media-centrism’, in M. Ferguson (ed), Public Communication: The New Imperatives (London, 1990), pp 63–64. 40. Marlin Dick, ‘The thin red lines: censorship, controversy and the case of the Syrian soap opera “Behind Bars”’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 2/1, p 124. 41. Ibid., p 127. Chapter 2. Law and Policy on Ownership and Content 1. 2.

3. 4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

This was my central finding in Satellite Realms. The reference to ‘radical potential’ was drawn from Brian Winston’s Media Technology and Society (London, 1998). This is slightly similar to Khaled Hroub’s point, when he says that protest was diverted away from the street and into homes, where it took the form of ‘surfing different channels to follow more details about a hot or sensitive issue’. See Hroub’s ‘Satellite media and social change in the Arab world’, in Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ed), Arab Media in the Information Age (Abu Dhabi, 2006), p 102. Marwan Kraidy, ‘Broadcasting regulation and civil society in postwar Lebanon’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (Summer 1998), p 397. A rough translation might be ‘The time for cronyism is over’. Loubna Bernichi, ‘Quelle télévision pour demain?’, Maroc Hebo (nd). Online at maroc-hebdo.press/ma/Mhinternet/Archives_691/html_691/quelle. html (accessed 18 April 2006). Robert B. Horwitz, ‘“Negotiated liberalization”: the politics of communications sector reform in South Africa’, in N. Morris and S. Waisbord (eds), Media and Globalization: Why the State Matters (Lanham, 2001), pp 39–40. Ellen Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions (Cambridge, 2005), p 20. Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Prospects for democratisation in the Middle East’, in Birgitte Rahbek (ed), Democratisation in the Middle East: Dilemmas and Perspectives (Aarhus, 2005), pp 38–39. Joshua Stacher, ‘Rhetorical acrobatics and reputations: Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights’, Middle East Report 235 (Summer 2005), p 7.

206 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Center for Strategic and International Studies, ‘Morocco trip report’ (Washington, March 2006), p 6. Volker Perthes, ‘Politics and elite change in the Arab world’, in V. Perthes (ed), Arab Elites: Negotiating the Politics of Change (Boulder, 2004), p 6. Ibid. For a summary of broadcasting law and policy in Iraq in 2002–04 see Naomi Sakr, ‘Media policy in the Middle East: a reppraisal’, in J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds), Mass Media and Society, 4th ed (London, 2005), pp 244–246. For a discussion of the effectiveness of ‘occupiers’ law’ in Iraq see Naomi Sakr, ‘Foreign support for media freedom advocacy in the Arab Mediterranean: globalization from above or below’, Mediterranean Politics 11/1 (March 2006), pp 4–5. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, ‘Ending the War? The Lebanese Broadcasting Act of 1994’, PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2003, p 99. Ibid., p 108. Ibid., pp 110–116. Ibid., pp 137–139. Remarks to a conference on Media and European-Middle Eastern Relations: A Virtual Dialogue?, Beirut, 10 November 2005. Author’s transcript. Online at surete-general.gov.lb/english/elist2.htm (accessed 27 August 2006). Comment made to Moroccan researcher Mahdi Bouziane and quoted in his MA dissertation, ‘The Liberalisation of Broadcasting in Morocco’, London, University of Westminster, 2005. The decree is available online at mincom.gov.ma/French/generalites/ communic/haute-autorite/daher%20audio%visual.htm (accessed 27 August 2006). ‘Media Council to meet Sunday, set bylaws’, Jordan Times, 21 December 2001. Alia Shukri Hamzeh, ‘Where the Higher Media Council fits in the push to liberalise the press’, Jordan Times, 7 June 2002. Quoted by Lubna Khader, ‘Higher Media Council trips over in Jordan as Abu Jaber resigns’, The Star, 23 July 2002. Quoted by Alia Shukri Hamzeh, ‘Higher Media Council revamped Monday following Royal Decree’, Jordan Times, 3 December 2002. Details of the commission are available online at avc.gov.jo/faqeng. html. Noha El-Hennawy, ‘Reforming the airwaves’, Egypt Today, April 2006. Online at egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6624 (accessed 27 May 2006). Sakr, Satellite Realms, p 108. Daoud Kuttab, ‘The challenge of independent Palestinian broadcast-

NOT ES

29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44.

207

ing’. Paper presented at the conference on Arab Satellite Broadcasting in the Age of Globalisation, Cambridge, November 2002. Ibid. AFP, ‘Palestinian prosecutor moves to shut down Hamas TV’, Daily Star, 23 January 2006. Toby Mendel and Ali Khashan, ‘The legal framework for media in Palestine and under international law’, Article 19, 2 May 2006. Online at article19.org/pdfs/analysis/palestine-media-framework.pdf (accessed 27 August 2006). Quoted by Walid Batrawi in ‘Media-less reforms vs. reform-less media’, posted 3 July 2002 at ayamm.org/English/articles/articles.htm. Kuttab, ‘The challenge of independent Palestinian broadcasting’. Saeda Hamad, ‘Palestinian media map: the clash between sovereignty and occupation’, in Arab Press Freedom Watch (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2004 (London, 2005), p 141; Giovanna Maiola and David Ward, ‘Democracy and the media in Palestine: a comparison of election coverage by local and pan-Arab media’, in N. Sakr (ed), Arab Media and Political Renewal (London, 2007), p 98. ‘Private TV stations licensed in Kuwait’, 3 July 2003. Online at arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/030703/2003070315.html (accessed 2 January 2005). Javid Hassan and Naif al-Shehri, ‘Saudi TV going digital’, Arab News, 13 April 2006. Andrew Hammond, Pop Culture Arab World! (Santa Barbara, 2005), p 58. Quoted in Oxford Business Group Economic Briefing, 1 November 2005. Online at oxfordbusinessgroup.com/weekly01.asp?id=1640 (accessed 15 April 2006). AFP, ‘Libya to allow independent media’, Middle East Times, 30 January 2006. Quoted in Dabbous-Sensenig, ‘Ending the War?’, p 187. Dabbous-Sensenig, ‘Ending the War?’, pp 174–186. Noha El-Hennawy, The business of politics’, Egypt Today, February 2006, p 37. In Al-Masri al-Youm on 2 January 2006, Dhia Rashwan wrote, ‘Is this not a public invitation to them [the new ministers] from the prime minister to give a boost to their private enterprises from the widespread powers available to them in the public and government sector? In other words, is this not a brazen invitation to corruption?’ Translation by Middle East Economic Survey, 16 January 2006. Timothy Mitchell, ‘No factories, no problems: the logic of neo-liberalism in Egypt’, Review of African Political Economy 82, vol. 26 (December 1999), p 463. John Sfakianakis, ‘The whales of the Nile: networks, businessmen, and

208

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

bureaucrats during the era of privatization in Egypt’, in S. Heydemann (ed), Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited (New York, 2004), p 93. Amira Howeidy, ‘Interview with Naguib Sawiris’, Al-Ahram Weekly 481 (11–17 May 2000). Karim Abdalla, ‘Naguib Sawiris’, Business Today, May 2006. Online at businesstodayegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6727 (accessed 28 August 2006). Frederik Richter, ‘A virgin market’, Cairo Magazine, 29 September 2005. Online at cairomagazine.com/?module=displaystory&story_ id=1415&format=html (accessed 27 May 2006). CNN transcript, 18 November 2005. Online at edition.cnn.com/2005/ BUSINESS/11/15/boardroom.sawiris (accessed 27 May 2006). Hanan Sabra, ‘Public–private waves’, Al-Ahram Weekly 644 (26 June–2 July 2003). Ibid. Charles Levinson, Issandr El Amrani and Paul Schemm, ‘How electing a president changed Egypt’, 8 September 2005. Online at cairomagazine. com/?module=displaystory&story_id=1328&format=html (accessed 22 October 2005). Naila Hamdy, ‘Latest tenants at EMPC: private Egyptian channels and a one million dollar show’. tbsjournal.com 8 (Spring/Summer 2002). For more on this see Naomi Sakr, ‘Egyptian TV in the grip of government’, in D. Ward (ed), Television and Public Policy: Change and Continuity in an Era of Global Liberalization (Mahwah, NJ, 2007). Bernichi, ‘Quel télévision pour demain?’ ‘Two radio stations launched in Jordan’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 6 (April–May 2006), p 13. Petra news agency, ‘Channel 2 to become first private terrestrial TV station’, Jordan Times, 31 October 2005. Kuttab, ‘The challenge of independent Palestinian broadcasting’. Petra news agency, ‘JRTVC seeks to safeguard “vital” archives’, Jordan Times, 18 December 2003. Author’s interview, Doha, 1 February 2006. Gaëlle Le Pottier, ‘Le monde de la télévision satellitaire au Moyen-Orient et le rôle des libanais dans son développement’, in Franck Mermier (ed), Mondialisation et nouveaux médias dans l’espace arabe (Paris, 2003), p 66. Chris Forrester, ‘It’s in the Cannes’, Gulf Marketing Review, May 2002, p 65. Hadi Khatib, ‘Samaha envisions nurturing power of information’, Daily Star, 23 June 2003. Osama Habib, ‘Lebanon’s state-owned television and radio stations slated for privatization’, Daily Star, 21 June 2005.

NOT ES

209

64. Mohammed Samih, ‘Beltagi honours Safwat al-Sharif and Howaidy and Abul-Magd’, Al-Izaa w’al-telefiziyun (in Arabic), 7 August 2004, pp 9–10. 65. Issandr El Amrani, ‘The long wait: reform in Egypt’s state-owned broadcasting service’, tbsjournal.com 15 (January–June 2006) 66. Hennawy, ‘Reforming the airwaves’. 67. Amal Jamal, Media Politics and Democracy in Palestine (Sussex, 2005), p 101. 68. Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Thirty-Ninth Annual Report (Riyadh, 2003), p 54. 69. P.K. Abdul Ghafour, ‘Radio, TV lined up for privatization’, Arab News, 25 June 2005. 70. ‘Sanousi suspends some budgets’, Arab Times, 29 May 2006. 71. Tim Burrowes, ‘No loyalty, no radio licence, says AMG’, Campaign Middle East, 28 May 2006. 72. For examples, see the section on ‘Talk TV’ in Chapter 7. 73. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report 2004 (New York, 2005), p 120. 74. Remarks made at pre-launch briefing on the report in London, 30 March 2005. Author’s transcript. 75. AP, ‘Al-Maliki warns he will close any media outlet that incites violence’, 12 July 2006. 76. Online at english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3EBB72B4-5781-4886A4FF-3629C9488DA1.htm (accessed 6 September 2006). 77. Quoted by Paul Garwood, ‘Government defends “unnecessary” emergency laws’, AP/Jordan Times, 3 April 2005. 78. CNN, 27 April 2006. Online at edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/ meast/04/07/Egypt.jazeera/?section=edition=meast (accessed 30 May 2006). 79. Associated Press, ‘Egypt frees Al-Jazeera Cairo bureau chief’, 27 April 2006. 80. Quoted in Sam Dagher, ‘Two US films draw ire of Gulf Arab censors’, AFP/Middle East Times, 17 April 2006. 81. BBC, ‘Morocco’s TV clampdown’, 19 April 2000. Online at news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/718603.stm (accessed 4 September 2006). 82. For a background summary see Naomi Sakr, ‘Media policy as a litmus test of political change in the GCC’, in A. Khalaf and G. Luciani (eds), Constitutional Reform and Political Participation in the Gulf (Dubai, 2006), pp 141–142. See also Ibrahim Nawar, ‘Bahrain is deeply divided on the press law’, April 2006. Online at apfw.org/indexenglish.asp?fname=articles\ english\2006\04\are1031.htm (accessed 8 September 2006). 83. ‘Bahrain issues new press law’, Gulf News, 26 November 2005. 84. Sakr, ‘Media policy as a litmus test’, pp 139–140. 85. Eissa said, ‘[W]hen the prime minister himself insists on canceling my

210

86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

program in order to support Ahmad Bahgat in his financial troubles, this is really a question mark.’ See Ahmad Osman, ‘Rude awakening: Dream drops top talkers’, tbsjournal.com 12 (Spring/Summer 2004). Arab Press Freedom Watch, ‘Lebanon chronology’, in APFW (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2003 (London, 2003), p 93. Leila Hatoum, ‘MTV reinstatement prompts call for fair media policy’, Daily Star, 17 August 2005. Jim Quilty, ‘The politics of television’, Middle East International 691 (10 January 2003), p 18. Quoted in Nayla Khazzaka, ‘Row grows in Lebanon over government bar on Saudi programme’, Middle East Times, 3 January 2003. Mohieddin recounted the incident, which he described as ‘TV news censoring a minister’, at a World Bank conference in Egypt in 2005. See ‘Economy turning the corner’, Middle East International 760 (14 October 2005), p 9. Report on Al-Arabiya, 9 November 2005. Eyewitness account by Mona Eltahawy in ‘The danger’s of Egypt’s lowgrade fever’, Daily Star, 25 June 2005. According to Hussein Abdel-Ghani, Al-Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief, addressing a seminar on The Image of the Other (Alexandria, 26 May 2003). Nayla Razzouk, ‘Protests over TV Hezbollah parody’, middle-east-online. com, 2 June 2006. Reuters, ‘Kuwaitis occupy TV office over “offensive” show’, Khaleej Times, 28 October 2005. Ha’aretz and other reports are quoted in Joel Campagna/Committee to Protect Journalists, Picking up the Pieces (New York, 2002).

Chapter 3. Conflicting Influences on Arab TV Journalism 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

International Federation of Journalists, The Changing Nature of Work: A Global Survey and Case Study of Atypical Work in the Media Industry (Brussels, April 2006), p vi. Faisal Al Kasim, ‘The Opposite Direction: a programme which changed the face of Arab television’, in M. Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (London, 2005), p 98. See David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries (London, 2002), p 18 for the logic and contradictions of granting ‘limited autonomy’ to ‘symbol creators’. Dina El-Khawaga talks of Arab television journalism in the satellite era as a ‘new profession’ in ‘Le journalisme télévisuel dans le monde arabe: l’essor d’une nouvelle profession’ in F. Mermier (ed), Mondialisation et nouveaux médias dans l’espace arabe, p 19. Naomi Sakr, ‘The changing dynamics of Arab journalism’, in H. de

NOT ES

6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

211

Burgh (ed), Making Journalists (London, 2005), pp 143, 147. John H. McManus, Market-Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware? (London, 1994), p 203. For example, UNESCO’s Sanaa Declaration of January 1996, which was endorsed by the UNESCO General Conference at its 29th session in November 1997. Kenneth Lynn, ‘Introduction to the Issue “The Professions”’, Daedalus 92/4 (Fall 1963), p 653. For a summary of some of the arguments as they relate to journalism, see Kaarle Nordenstreng, ‘Professional ethics: between fortress journalism and cosmopolitan democracy’, in K. Brants, J. Hermes and L. van Zoonen (eds), The Media in Question: Popular Cultures and Public Interest (London, 1998), pp 125–127. Kai Hafez, ‘Journalism ethics revisited: a comparison of ethics codes in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Muslim Asia’, in K. Hafez (ed), Media Ethics in the Dialogue of Cultures (Hamburg, 2003), p 61. Interview with Hisham Milhem by Joe Stork and Sally Ethelson, ‘Politics and media in the Arab world’, Middle East Report 180 (January–February 1993), p 18. Mark Deuze, ‘What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered’, Journalism 6/4 (2005), p 445. Mohammed el-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar, Al-Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East (Cambridge, MA, 2002), p 202. Peter Dahlgren, ‘Enhancing the civic ideal in television journalism’, in Brants et al (eds), The Media in Question, p 95. Nico Carpentier, ‘Identity, contingency and rigidity: the (counter-) hegemonic constructions of the identity of the media professional, Journalism 6/2 (2005), pp 205–207. Barbie Zelizer and Stuart Allan, ‘Introduction: when trauma shapes the news’, in B. Zelizer and S. Allan (eds), Journalism after September 11 (London, 2002), p 1. Annabelle Sreberny, ‘Trauma talk: reconfiguring the inside and outside’, in Zelizer and Allan (eds), Journalism after September 11, p 221. Howard Tumber, ‘Reporting under fire: the physical safety and emotional welfare of journalists’, in Zelizer and Allan (eds); Journalism after September 11, pp 256–257. Clause 2 of Article 79 of Protocol I, Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, 8 June 1977. Lisa Hajjar, ‘From Nuremberg to Guantánamo: international law and American power politics’, Middle East Report 229 (Winter 2003), p 13. Tom McFadden, Daily Journalism in the Arab States (Columbus, OH,

212

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

1953), pp 14–15. 22. Ibid., p 17. 23. Conversation with the author, Cambridge, 29 September 2004. 24. Quoted by John Bradley in Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (New York and Basingstoke, 2005), p 204. 25. Interviewed by Naila Hamdy, ‘A Dream TV come true’, tbsjournal.com 8 (Spring/Summer 2002). 26. Quoted in Ahmad Osman, ‘Rude awakening: Dream drops top talkers’, tbsjournal.com 12 (Spring/Summer 2004). 27. Youssef Rakha, ‘Hafez El-Marazi: Arab contemporary’, Al-Ahram Weekly 805 (27 July–2 August 2006). 28. Remarks to the Arab Women Media Centre annual conference, Amman, 20 September 2006. Author’s transcript. 29. Anthony Shadid, ‘A newsman breaks the mold in Arab world’, Washington Post, 1 May 2006. Khatib has repeated this belief in an article for Bitterlemons.org. See note 47 below. 30. Stork and Ethelson, ‘Politics and media in the Arab world’, p 18. 31. Faisal Al Kasim, ‘Humanizing the Arab media’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 4 (November–December 2005), p 42. 32. Remarks to a conference on the Media and Political Change in the Arab World, Cambridge, 28 September 2004. Author’s transcript. 33. Remarks to a seminar on the Interplay of Influence between ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Arab Media, London, 12 March 2005. Author’s transcript. 34. Author’s interview, Doha, 30 January 2006. 35. Remarks to Cambridge conference, 30 September 2004. Author’s transcript. 36. Remarks to Amman conference, 20 September 2006. Author’s transcript. 37. Remarks to a conference on New Media and Socio-Political Change in the Arab World, Beirut, 1 June 2005. Author’s transcript. 38. Speech printed under the heading ‘Al-Jazeera came at the right time to fill a vacuum’, The Independent, 16 June 2003. 39. Faisal Abbas, ‘Q & A with Al-Arabiya’s Jihad Ballout’, Asharq al-Awsat. Online at asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=5&id=id1619 (accessed 25 June 2006). 40. Remarks to Cambridge conference, 30 September 2004. Author’s transcript. 41. Remarks to Alexandria seminar, 26 May 2003. Author’s transcript. 42. See Chapter 2. 43. Remarks to Beirut conference, 1 June 2005. Author’s transcript. 44. Interview with Stork and Ethelston, ‘Politics and media in the Arab world’, p 19. 45. Hussein Abdel-Ghani, remarks to seminar on Media and The Other,

NOT ES

213

Alexandria, 26 May 2003. Author’s transcript. 46. Samantha Shapiro, ‘The war inside the Arab newsroom’, New York Times, 2 January 2005. 47. Nabil Khatib, ‘Struggling for renewal, remaining prisoner to the system’, bitterlemons-international.org 19/4, 25 May 2006. 48. Remarks by Al-Manar spokesperson Ibrahim Moussawi to a conference on Arab and Western TV Coverage of the War in Iraq, Cambridge, 21 March 2004. Author’s transcript. 49. Presentation by Al-Manar managing director Hussein Humayed at a conference on New Media and Change in the Arab World, Amman, 27 February 2002 (in Arabic). 50. Quoted by Peter Feuilherade, ‘Arab TV eyes reform agenda’, 22 November 2004. Online at bbc.news.co.uk. 51. Shapiro, ‘The war inside the Arab newsroom’. 52. Shadid, ‘A newsman breaks the mold’. 53. Remarks to Arab Women Media Centre fifth annual conference, Amman, 21 September 2006. Author’s transcript. 54. Shapiro, ‘The war inside the Arab newsroom’. 55. Bulletin on 21 May 2004. 56. Remarks to Alexandria seminar, 26 May 2003. Author’s transcript. 57. Quoted by Ali Khalil in AFP report from Dubai, 8 September 2006. 58. Salah Negm interviewed by Abdallah Schleifer, tbsjournal.com 10 (Spring/ Summer 2003). 59. Remarks to a conference on Arab and Western TV Coverage of the War in Iraq, Cambridge, 20 March 2004. Author’s transcript. 60. Transcript of teletext subtitles generated live for BBC Newsnight programme on 21 December 2001. 61. Remarks to Cambridge conference, 28 September 2004. Author’s transcript. 62. Habib Battah, ‘Ben Jeddou speaks out’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 9 (November–December 2006), p 30. 63. Faisal Abbas, ‘Q & A with Al-Arabiya’s Jihad Ballout’, Asharq al-Awsat. Online at asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=5&id=id1619 (accessed 25 June 2006). 64. Ibid. 65. Remarks to Cambridge conference, 20 March 2004. Author’s transcript. 66. Rakha, ‘Hafez El-Marazi’. 67. Rakha, ‘Hafez El-Marazi’. Statistics compiled by the US media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) on three weeks of coverage of the Iraq war on US evening newscasts in March–April 2003 showed heavy imbalance. See Steve Randall and Tara Broughel, ‘Amplifying officials, squelching dissent’, Extra! 16/3 (June 2003), pp

214

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

12–14. 68. Remarks to a conference on Media Ethics and Journalism in the Arab World, Beirut, 10 June 2004. Author’s transcript. 69. Conversation with the author, Cambridge, 29 September 2004. 70. Steve Tatham, Losing Arab Hearts and Minds: The Coalition, Al Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion (London, 2006), p 119. 71. Speech to the World Electronic Media Forum, Geneva, 10 December 2003. Official transcript. 72. AFP, ‘Al Jazeera TV chief sacked’, Middle East Times, 30 May 2003. 73. Interfax report, 20 September 2005. 74. ‘Ayoon wa Azan’ (Eyes and Ears), Al-Hayat, 16 February 2006. 75. Reuters report from Cairo, 22 June 1999. 76. Noha El-Hennawy, ‘Reforming the airwaves’, Egypt Today, April 2006. Online at egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6624 (accessed 27 May 2006). 77. See ‘Notes for applicants for IFJ membership’. Online at ifj.org (accessed 3 October 2005). 78. Ibid. 79. Argument made by Hassan Hamed when he was ERTU deputy director. Author’s interview, Cairo, 15 August 1998. 80. Rasha al-Atrash, ‘The Lebanese journalists’ trade union: a story not recommended before bedtime’, in Arab Press Freedom Watch (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2004 (London, 2005), p 118. 81. This is the usual interpretation of Article 10 of the 1962 Press Law. 82. Atrash, ‘The Lebanese journalists trade union’, pp 118–120. 83. Author’s interview, Amman, 6 September 2006. 84. Section 3 of the Statutes of the organization. 85. Section 4 of the Statutes. 86. Kamel Labidi, ‘At 40, the Federation of Arab Journalists is still valueless’, Daily Star, 22 May 2004. 87. ‘Arab TV journalists “not good enough for Arabic radio”’, Journalist, June/July 1996, p 27. 88. Ibrahim Nawar, ‘To survive in London …’, Journalist, October/November 1998, p 21. 89. See NUJ account online at nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1365 (accessed 29 October 2006). 90. See Naomi Sakr, ‘Foreign support for media freedom advocacy in the Arab Mediterranean: globalization from above or below?’, Mediterranean Politics 11/1 (March 2006), pp 9–13. 91. AP, ‘Arab journalists protest death of colleagues’, Baghdad, 30 March 2004. 92. Leslie Crawford, ‘A dangerous subject’, Financial Times, 14 July 2006. 93. Joel Campagna/Committee to Protect Journalists, The Enemy? (New

NOT ES

215

York, 3 October 2006). 94. Author’s interview, Doha, 1 February 2006. 95. Habib Battah, ‘A life of terror’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 4 (November/December 2005), p 20. 96. Lisa O’Carroll, ‘US makes Al-Jazeera complaint’, Guardian, 28 April 2004. 97. BBC, ‘Qatar pledges al-Jazeera “review”’. Online at news.bbc.co.uk, 30 April 2004. 98. Personal communication to the author, Beirut, 11 June 2004. 99. Remarks to Cambridge conference, 30 September 2004. Author’s transcript. 100. Author’s interview, Doha, 31 January 2006. 101. Ibid. 102. AP, ‘Arab media muted in coverage of beheading’, 12 May 2004. 103. Author’s interview, Doha, 31 January 2006. 104. Author’s interview, Doha, 1 February 2006. 105. Opening address to the Second Aljazeera Forum, Doha, 1 February 2006. 106. Hafez, ‘Journalism ethics revisited’, p 61. 107. Cokie and Steven Roberts, ‘Hezbollah’s “cowardly” campaign’, Eagle Herald, 3 August 2006. 108. See the introduction to this chapter for details of the relevant provisions. 109. CPJ news alert, 24 July 2006. 110. IJF press release, 23 July 2006. 111. Thair Abbas, ‘Al Manar TV’s director general talks to Asharq al-Awsat’, 1 August 2006. Online at aawsat.com/English/asp?artid=id5839 (accessed 4 August 2006). 112. BBC, 23 April 1999. Online at news.bbc.co.uk. 113. Quoted from the report by Robert Fisk in ‘Amnesty International: NATO deliberately attacked civilians in Serbia’, The Independent, 7 June 2000. 114. Joel Campagna/CPJ, Bloodied and Beleaguered (New York, October 2000). 115. RSF alert, 19 January 2002. 116. The Israeli army did not dispute the charge of vandalism. See the Haaretz report quoted by Joel Campagna/CPJ in Picking Up the Pieces (New York, June 2002), p 3, and Daoud Kuttab, ‘Starting with the individual’, Common Ground News Service, 28 September 2006. 117. Matt Wells, ‘How smart was this bomb?’, Guardian (G2), 19 November 2001. 118. Communication to the author, London, 6 December 2001. 119. Quoted in ‘Jordan Times reporter in Baghdad killed’, Jordan Times, 8

216

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

April 2003. Ayyoub was also a reporter for the Jordan Times. 120. BBC, ‘Foreign media suffer Baghdad losses’, 8 April 2003. Online at news.bbc.co.uk. 121. Quoted by Richard Norton-Taylor in ‘For their eyes only’, Guardian, 13 October 2006. 122. BBC, ‘Al-Jazeera seeks “US bomb” talks’, 25 November 2005. Online at news.bbc.co.uk. 123. AKI, ‘Al-Jazeera demands White House denial of alleged attack plans’, 23 November 2005. 124. Second episode of The Blunkett Tapes, shown on 16 October 2006. 125. Aired 14 July 2006. 126. El-Khawaga, ‘Le journalisme télévisuel dans le monde arabe’. 127. See, for example, the episode of the BBC’s Correspondent series, aired 1 June 2003, and later by PBS. See also Control Room, dir. Jehane Nougaim (2004). 128. Hugh Miles, Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World (London, 2005), pp 127–137. 129. Sarah Sullivan, ‘The courting of Al-Jazeera’, tbsjournal.com 7 (Fall 2001). 130. Sara Sullivan, ‘The courting of Al-Jazeera, the sequel: estrangement and signs of reconciliation’, tbsjournal.com 7 (Fall 2001). 131. Quoted in Shapiro, ‘The war inside the Arab newsroom’. 132. ‘Al-Arabiya, Rumsfeld trade insults’, Middle East Times, 5 December 2003. 133. NPR programme On the Media, 30 April 2004. 134. Smith’s article appeared on 25 April. The Wall Street Journal published Ballout’s reply on 6 May 2005. 135. Abdallah Schleifer, ‘Interview with Ibrahim Helal and Amr al-Kahky’. tbsjournal.com, 11 (Fall/Winter 2003). 136. ‘Now reporters will have to think twice’, Journalist, August 2006, p 18. 137. Mohammed el-Oifi, ‘Gained in translation’, Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2005, p 12. 138. ‘Why the Mayor of London will maintain dialogues with all of London’s faiths and communities’ (London, January 2005). Online at london. gov.uk/news/docs/qaradawi_dossier.pdf (accessed 1 November 2006). 139. Personal communication to the author from the Iraqi Operations Unit, Foreign Office, London, 7 July 2004. 140. Remarks to conference on Arab and Western TV Coverage of the War in Iraq, Cambridge, 20 March 2004. Author’s transcript. 141. Kamel Labidi, ‘Planting the seeds of an Arab press freedom network’, Daily Star, 22 May 2004. Online at apfw website, no date. 142. Tamara Cofman Wittes and Sarah Yerkes, ‘The Middle East Partnership Initiative: Progress, problems, and prospects’, Saban Center Middle East Memo 5 (29 November 2004), p 5. Online at brookings.edu/views/op-

NOT ES

217

ed/fellows/wittes20041129.htm (accessed 5 October 2005). 143. Author’s interview with Mohammed Gohar of VideoCairoSat, Cairo, 12 March 2006. 144. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK and US. 145. US State Department press release, Washington File, 10 November 2005. 146. Information online at bmena.state.gov/bmena/69104.htm (accessed 1 November 2006). See Chapter 2 for details of Sawiris’s television interests. Chapter 4. Women in the Public Eye: ‘Advancement’ via TV? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

The council’s creation and purpose were covered in several issues of the Jordan Times. For example, Hussein Amin, ‘Arab women and satellite broadcasting’, tbsjournal.com 6 (Fall/Winter 2001). Shereen Aboul-Naga made these arguments in her presentation to the conference on Media and Political Change in the Arab World, Cambridge, 30 September 2004. Fatema Mernissi, ‘The satellite, the prince, and Shaherazad: women as communicators in digital Islam’, in F. Nouraie-Simone (ed), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era (New York, 2005), p 13. James Curran, Media and Power (London, 2002), p 35. Ibid., pp 47, 51. Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘Feminist longings and postcolonial conditions’, in L. Abu-Lughod (ed), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Cairo, 1998), pp 7–22. Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘On- and off-camera in Egyptian soap operas: women, television and the public sphere’, in Nouraie-Simone (ed), On Shifting Ground, pp 20–27. Ibid., p 34. Lisa McLaughlin, ‘Something old, something new: lingering moments in the unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism’, in E. Meehan and E. Riordan (eds), Sex and Money: Feminism and Political Economy in the Media (Minneapolis, 2002), pp 42–43. Ibid. Saba Mahmood, ‘Feminist theory, agency, and the liberatory subject’, in Nouraie-Simone (ed), On Shifting Ground, p 120. Amal Treacher and Hala Shukrallah, ‘The realm of the possible: Middle Eastern women in political and social spaces’, Feminist Review 69 (Winter 2001), p 7. Ibid., p 12. Marianne Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, ‘Conclusion’, in M.H. Marchand and A.S. Runyan (eds), Gender and Global Restructuring:

218

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Sightings, Sites and Resistances (Oxford, 2000), p 227. 16. Eric Davis, ‘Theorizing statecraft and social change in Arab oil-producing countries, in E. Davis and N. Gavrielides (eds), Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory and Popular Culture (Florida, 1991), p 15. 17. For examples and other references, see Noga Efrati, ‘The other “Awakening” in Iraq: the women’s movement in the first half of the twentieth century’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31/2 (November 2004), p 172. 18. ‘The world through their eyes’, The Economist, 26 February 2005. 19. Quoted in Helga Graham, Arabian Time Machine: Self-Portrait of an Oil State (London, 1978), p 201. 20. Naima al-Mutawwaa, ‘Al-Mar’a al-Qatariya wa’l-Ilam: ma laha wa ma aaliha [The Qatari woman and the media: rights and responsibilities]’. Paper presented to the fourth annual conference of the Arab Women Media Centre, Amman, September 2005. 21. Graham, Arabian Time Machine, pp 295–307. 22. Haya al-Mughni and Mary Ann Tétreault, ‘Engagement in the public sphere: women and the press in Kuwait’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through Self-Expression (London, 2004), p 128. 23. Peter Mansfield, Kuwait: Vanguard of the Gulf (London, 1990), p 13. Cited in Al-Mughni and Tétreault, ‘Engagement in the public sphere’, p 128. 24. David Holden and Richard Johns, The House of Saud (London, 1981), p 261. 25. Author’s interview, Amman, 19 September 2006. 26. Douglas Boyd, Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of the Electronic Media in the Middle East (Ames: Iowa, 1999), pp 163–165. 27. Quoted in Voice of America News, 28 September 2005. 28. Heba Assaf, Dur al-Mar’a fi’l-Ilam al-Filistini: Dirasa Mujaza [The Role of Women in the Palestinian Media: A Brief Study] (Ramallah, 2001). 29. Benaz Somiry Batrawi, ‘Echoes: gender and media challenges in Palestine’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East, p 111. 30. Benaz Somiry Batrawi, ‘Waqaa al-Mar’a fi’l-Amal al-Tilifiziyuniyya wa’lIzaiyya fi Filistin’ [The Situation of Women in Television and Radio Work in Palestine]. Paper presented to the first annual conference of the Arab Women Media Centre, Amman, June 2001, p 16. 31. Eileen Kuttab, ‘Women’s studies program in Palestine: between criticism and new vision’, Cairo Papers in Social Science 20/3 (1998), p 121. 32. Wafa’ Abdel-Rahman, Media Coverage of Female Candidates during 2006 Legislative Council Election Campaigns (Ramallah, March 2006), pp 4–10. 33. Heba Nassar, ‘Egypt: structural adjustment and women’s employment’, in E. Doumato and M. Posusney (eds), Women and Globalization in the

NOT ES

219

Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy & Society (Boulder, 2003), p 106. 34. Mervat Hatem, ‘Economic and political liberation in Egypt and the demise of state feminism’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992), pp 234, 241. 35. Ibrahim Saleh, Unveiling the Truth about the Middle Eastern Media (Cairo, 2003), p 94. 36. Cinderella Hassan, ‘A bench of one’s own’, Cairo Magazine, 13 October 2005. Online at cairomagazine.com/?module=displaystory&story_ id=1472&format+html (accessed 22 October 2005). 37. BBC news, 12 December 2005. Online at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ middle_east/4521392.stm. 38. Author’s interview with Mustafa Karkouti, then head of programme evaluation at MBC, London 17 November 1997. 39. Remarks to the fourth annual conference of the Arab Women’s Media Centre, Amman, 7 September 2005. Author’s transcript. Khawla Mattar of the International Labour Organization’s Beirut office made very similar remarks about both LBC and Future TV when addressing the AWMC’s first annual conference, Amman, 17 June 2001. Author’s transcript. 40. Quoted in Naomi Sakr, Satellite Realms, p 197. 41. Survey led by Aylin Talgar of Washington-based InterMedia, in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. See Aylin Talgar, ‘Ignoring MENA women is no longer an option’, The Channel 8/4 (September 2005), p 28. 42. Remarks to the conference on New Communication Media in the Arab World, Berlin, 26 June 2004. Author’s transcript. 43. For names and detail see Victoria Firmo-Fontan, ‘Power, NGOs and Lebanese television: a case study of Al-Manar TV and the Hezbollah Women’s Association’ in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East, pp 177–178. 44. Remarks to the fourth annual conference of the Arab Women Media Centre, Amman, 7 September 2005. 45. Magda Abu-Fadil, ‘Straddling cultures: Arab women journalists at home and abroad’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East, pp 192–193. 46. Diana Moukalled, ‘A journalist’s diary: on the horrors of war’, Al-Raida 103 (Fall 2003), pp 56–66. 47. Diana Moukalled, ‘Women and war’, Al-Raida, No. 103 (Fall 2003), p 3. 48. Committee to Protect Journalists, ‘Baghdad car bomb kills five AlArabiya employees’, New York, 1 November 2004. Online at cpj.org/ news/2004/Iraq01nov04na-2.html (accessed 3 November 2004). 49. Shapiro, ‘The war inside the Arab newsroom’.

220

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

50. Anthony Lloyd, ‘Half Sunni, half Shia – a target for everyone’, The Times, 24 February 2006; Ziad Khalaf, ‘Al-Arabiya journalist killed in Iraq’, Associated Press, 23 February 2006. 51. Ali Khalil, ‘Arab women reporters on frontlines of Lebanon war’, Agence France Presse, 28 July 2006. 52. See, for example, a July 1991 report in The Times, quoted by Anne Sebba in Battling for News: The Rise of the Woman Reporter (London, 1994), p 277. 53. Khalil, ‘Arab women reporters on frontlines’. 54. Ben Dowell, ‘Al-Jazeera technician “shot in West Bank”’, Media Guardian, 19 July 2006. Online at guardian.co.uk/international/ story/0,,1824208,00.html. 55. Reem Hunayni, ‘Arab media: the rise of the female financial news anchor’. Online at asharqalawsat.com/English/asp?artid=id4709 (accessed 25 June 2006). 56. Remarks to the conference on New Communication Media in the Arab World, Berlin, 26 June 2004. Author’s transcript. 57. Remarks to Berlin conference, 26 June 2004. Author’s transcript. 58. Author’s interview, Washington, 16 May 2004. 59. Quoted in Raid Qusti, ‘Al-Ikhbariya makes waves’, Arab News, 13 January 2004. 60. Susan Zawawi, ‘Media forum fails to mention the lack of training for women in the field’, Saudi Gazette, 4 December 2005. 61. For arguments against being ‘publicly too assertive too soon’, see Nimat Hafez Barazangi, ‘Self-identity as a form of democratization: the Syrian experience’, in J. Bystydzienski and J. Sekhon (eds), Democratization and Women’s Grassroots Movements (Bloomington, 1999), pp 141–142. For an example of highly targeted negotiation behind the scenes see Nawal Ammar and Leila Lababidy, ‘Women’s grassroots movements and democratization in Egypt’ in the same volume, p 162. 62. See the interview with Manal al-Sharif in Hassan Fattah’s report ‘Evolution, not revolution, for Saudi women’, International Herald Tribune, 22 December 2005. 63. Josi Salem-Pickartz, Yasmin Haddad and Ruba Farkh, Women in Jordan: Empowered or Handicapped? (Amman, 2002), pp 116–117. 64. See for example Wendy Kristianasen, ‘Egypt: Islamic sisters advance’, Le Monde Diplomatique, September 2005, p 5, or Katherine Zoepf, ‘In Syria, a quiet Islamic revival’, International Herald Tribune, 29 August 2006. 65. For arguments for and against all-women programmes see Naomi Sakr, ‘Women, development and Al-Jazeera: a balance sheet’, in M. Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon, pp 127–132. 66. Global Media Monitoring Project 2005, Who Makes the News? Online at whomakesthenews.org/who_makes_the_news/report_2005.

NOT ES

221

67. Quoted by Wimco Ester, ‘A great effort by a small team in Egypt’, Media and Gender Monitor 16. Online at wacc.org.uk/wacc/publications/ media_and_gender_monitor/issue_16. 68. Data from the Egyptian monitoring exercise supplied by Wimco Ester of MediaHouse. 69. Nadje Al-Ali, Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women’s Movement (Cambridge, 2000), pp 178–179. 70. Maggie Morgan, ‘Challenging violence against women in Egypt’, Media and Gender Monitor 12. Online at wacc.org.uk/wacc/publications/ media_and_gender_monitor/issue_12. 71. Hammond, Pop Culture Arab World!, p 72. 72. MediaHouse and NWRC, Together We Can Confront Violence against Women (Cairo, 2003), p 4. 73. Ibid., pp 12–15. 74. Author’s interview, Cairo, 9 March 2006. 75. Naomi Sakr, ‘Friend or foe? Dependency theory and women’s media activism in the Arab Middle East’, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 13/2 (Summer 2004), pp 162–167. 76. The failure to provide a detailed explanation contravened Article 6 of Law 84 of 2002 on NGOs. 77. Mariz Tadros, ‘A battle half-won’, Al-Ahram Weekly 662 (30 October–5 November 2003). 78. The episode, entitled Al-Drama al-Ijtimaai fi Ramadan (Social Drama in Ramadan) was presented by Luna al-Shebel, hosting Enam Mohammed Ali, a producer, Nadeen, an actress, and Anisa al-Dirazi, an actress and professor of dramatic art. Transcript from aljazeera.net (accessed 26 May 2004). 79. Author’s interview, Doha, 1 February 2006. 80. Author’s conversations, Doha, 31 January–2 February 2006. 81. Programme description online at allied-media.com/ARABTV/ MBCprograms.htm (accessed 10 October 2006). 82. Curran, Media and Power, p 33. 83. Mutawwaa, ‘Al-Mar’a al-Qatariya wa’l Ilam’. Chapter 5. Facing up to Reality: Entertainment Programming Rationales 1. 2.

3.

Colin Hoskins, Stuart McFadyen and Adam Finn, Global Television and Film (Oxford, 1997), pp 38–39. For summaries of the risks involved in cultural output see David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries (London, 2002), pp 17–18, and Gillian Doyle, Understanding Media Economics (London, 2002), pp 108– 110. W. Russell Neuman, The Future of the Mass Audience (Cambridge, 1991), p 139.

222 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 . 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Author’s interview, London, 3 May 1994. Albert Moran, ‘Television formats in the world/the world of television formats’, in A. Moran and M. Keane (eds), Television across Asia: Television Industries, Programme Formats and Globalization (London and New York, 2004), p 6. Joe Khalil, ‘Blending in: Arab television and the search for programming ideas’, tbsjournal.com 13 (Fall/Winter 2004). ‘The reality after the show’, The Economist, 14 September 2002, p 74. Annette Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television (London, 2005), p 2. According to Trevor Phillips, chairman of the UK Commission for Racial Equality, quoted in Dominic Timms, ‘Big Brother smashes racial stereotypes’, Guardian, 28 June 2005. Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson, Broadcast/Cable/Web Programming: Strategies and Practices, 6th ed (Belmont CA, 2002), p 8. Albert Moran and Michael Keane, ‘Joining the circle’, in Moran and Keane (eds), Television Across Asia, p 204. ‘What TV planners hope we’ll be watching in 2005’, Gulf Marketing Review, 13 January 2005. Habib Battah, ‘Your guide to the frontlines of Arab television’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 34. Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA) and Screen Digest, The Global Trade in Television Formats. Summary of main findings. Online at frapa.org/news/screen_digest_und_frapa_report/index.html (accessed 1 June 2006). The interview was given to the Washington Times, owned by a subsidiary of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. It appeared under the headline ‘Al-Arabiya seeks media niche’ on 1 October 2003. Quoted by Gordon Robison in his report, The Rest of Arab Television, for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy (Los Angeles, June 2005), p 5. Naomi Sakr, Satellite Realms, p 82. See, for example, Marwan Kraidy, ‘Idioms of contention: Star Academy in Lebanon and Kuwait’, in N. Sakr (ed), Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (London, 2007), pp 44–55. Bridget Byrne, ‘ABC’s “Millionaire” cashes in’. Online at eonline.com/ News/Items/0,1527,5249,00.html, 31 August 1999 (accessed 3 June 2006). According to Alan Boyd of FremantleMedia, addressing an audience at the University of Westminster, 26 February 2003. Quoted in Amil Khan, ‘Pop Idol-type series to hit Arab world’, Middle East Times. Online at metimes.com/2K2/issue2002-50/eg/pop_idol_ type.htm (accessed 18 December 2002). Samar Farah, ‘Can reality TV “survive” in the Middle East?’, Christian

NOT ES

223

Science Monitor, 26 March 2004. 23. BBC News, ‘Jordanian wins Arab “Idol”’. Online at news.bbc.co.uk, 18 August 2003; Adam Sherwin and Ian McKinnon, ‘Arafat and Gaddafi sing the praises of Arab Pop Idols’. Online at timesonline.co.uk, 23 August 2004; ‘Facts and figures’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 4. 24. Arab Advisors Group press release, 24 August 2003. 25. Ed Waller, ‘Arabic deal for Star Academy’. Online at c21media.net, 15 September 2003. 26. Joe Khalil, ‘Inside Arab reality television: development, definitions and demystification’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2005), p 63. 27. Ed Waller, ‘Dubai TV picks up format foursome’. Online at c21media. net, 28 May 2004. 28. ‘Mid-East sale for Screentime Partners’. Online at c21media.net, 2 September 2004. 29. See for example John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka and Stuart Cunningham, ‘Peripheral vision’ in J. Sinclair, E. Jacka and S. Cunningham (eds), New Patterns in Global Television (Oxford 1996), pp 17–18; Moran and Keane, Television across Asia, p 4. 30. Farah, ‘Can reality TV “survive”?’ 31. According to its producer, Ziad Batel, quoted by Gulf Marketing Review, in ‘What TV planners hope we’ll be watching in 2005’, 13 January 2005. 32. Khalil, ‘Blending in’. 33. Moran and Keane, ‘Joining the circle’, p 199. 34. Hammond, Pop Culture Arab World!, p 64. 35. Khalil, ‘Blending in’. 36. Annia Ciezadlo, ‘Reality TV hits home in Baghdad’, Christian Science Monitor, 27 July 2004. The making of Labour and Materials was also covered in TV Iraqi Style, a documentary screened as part of a week of programmes under the title Iraq: The Bloody Circus, on the UK’s Channel 4 on 12 and 14 January 2006. 37. UPI, ‘Iraqi reality TV sprouts hope amid war’, Middle East Times, 2 August 2005. 38. ‘Hezbollah’s unconventional quiz’. Online at newsvote.bbc.co.uk, 20 April 2004. 39. So-called ‘ordinary’ people are perhaps more aptly described as ‘nonmedia’ people. Nick Couldry points out that ‘media power rests not only on an institutional structure, but also on an intricate web of background assumptions about the media and non-media people’s relationship to them’. See his chapter, ‘Media organisations and non-media people’, in James Curran (ed), Media Organisations in Society (London, 2000), p 285.

224

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

40. Natasha Twal, ‘Rania Kurdi to cohost first pan-Arab “Pop Idol” competition’, Jordan Times, 18 November 2002. 41. Point made by Khalil, ‘Inside Arab reality television’, p 56. 42. Robison, The Rest of Arab Television, p 8. 43. Ibid. 44. Riam Dalati, ‘The great call-in giveaway’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 4 (November–December 2005), p 35. 45. Quoted in ‘Mohamed Ali Alabbar to host Arabic version of The Apprentice’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal, April–June 2005, p 31. 46. Rhys Jones, ‘Alabbar withdrawal puts TV show in doubt’, Arabian Business, 27 March 2005. 47. Rhys Jones, ‘Kanoo drops out of CEO reality show’, Campaign Middle East, 3 April 2005. 48. Khalil, ‘Inside Arab reality television’, p 61. 49. Arab Advisors Group news release, 1 February 2006. 50. ‘Saudi telecom stops text vote for Arab talent show’, Jordan Times, 27 December 2005. 51. See Habib Battah, ‘The SMS invasion’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 6 (April–May 2006), pp 18–22. 52. Kingdom Holding Company press release, 29 November 2005. 53. Lubna Hussain and Michel Cousins, ‘Alwaleed: the man with the Midas touch’, Arab News, 8 December 2005. 54. Riz Khan, Alwaleed: Businessman Billionaire Prince (London, 2005), p 262. 55. Ibid., p 146. 56. Ibid., p 264. 57. Battah, ‘The SMS invasion’, p 20. 58. AFP report, ‘Muslim scholars blast reality TV show, Saudi winner’, Middle East Times, 12 May 2005. 59. Khan, Alwaleed, pp 370–371. 60. Roula Khalaf and William Wallis, ‘Egypt billionaire aims to build satellite TV empire’, Financial Times, 22 May 2006. 61. Karine Boushra, ‘Quand les clips entrent en jeu’, Al-Ahram Hebdo, 31 August 2005. 62. Yasser Moheb, ‘Polémique sur les ondes’, Al-Ahram Hebdo, 9 July 2003. 63. Al-Bawaba, ‘Muhsin Jabr sues Ragheb Alama and “Melody”’, 29 August 2005. Online at albawaba.com/en/countries/188036/&mod=print (accessed 8 June 2006). 64. See, for example, the comments of Moe Hamzeh of Temple Entertainment and the Lebanese singer Marcel Khalifa, quoted in Freemuse (ed), All That is Banned is Desired (Beirut and Copenhagen, 2006), pp 36–38. 65. Marlin Dick, ‘Prime-time Ramadan 2005: rivalry and controversy’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 3 (September–October 2005), p 24.

NOT ES

225

66. Quoted in Mahmoud Habboush, ‘Artists call for increasing local cinema, television production’, Jordan Times, 25 April 2006. 67. Ana M. Lopez, ‘Our welcomed guests: telenovelas in Latin America’, in R.C. Allen (ed), To be continued …: Soap Operas around the World (London, 1995), p 258. 68. Lila Abu-Lughod, Dramas of Nationhood (Chicago, 2005), p 21. 69. Ibid., p 23. 70. Christa Salamandra, ‘Television and the ethnographic endeavour: the case of Syrian drama’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1, p 7. 71. Layal Abu Darwich, ‘Egyptian TV soaps fail to stay afloat’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 28. 72. Sebastian Usher, ‘Ramadan TV feast enthralls Arabs’. Online at bbc. news.co.uk, 13 October 2005. 73. Hammond, Pop Culture Arab World!, p 70. 74. Dick, ‘Prime-time Ramadan 2005’, p 23. 75. Al Bawaba, ‘“Agent 1001” disappears’, 12 October 2005. Online at albawaba.com/en/countries/190302. 76. Manal el-Jesri and Noha Mohammed, ‘Serial killers’, Egypt Today, February 2006, p 74. 77. Layal Abu Darwich, ‘Egyptian TV soaps fail to stay afloat’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 28. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid. 80. Salamandra, ‘Television and the ethnographic endeavor’, pp 6–7. 81. Salam Kawakibi, ‘Le rôle de la télévision dans la relecture de l’histoire’, Monde arabe: Maghreb-Machrek 158 (October–December 1997), p 51 82. Salamandra, ‘Television and the ethnographic endeavor’, pp 11–12. 83. Marlin Dick, ‘The state of the musalsal: Arab television drama and comedy and the politics of the satellite era’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2005), p 181. 84. Dick, ‘Prime-time Ramadan 2005’, p 22. 85. Ursula Lindsey, ‘TV versus terrorism: why this year’s Ramadan soap operas tackled one controversial subject, but were barred from broaching others’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2005), p 203. 86. Kawakibi, ‘Le rôle de la télévision’, p 54. 87. Peter Feuilherade, ‘Media jihad’, Middle East International 737 (5 November 2004), p 15. 88. Charles Levinson, ‘What’s on during Ramadan? Antiterror TV’, Christian Science Monitor, 3 November 2005. 89. Quoted in Ayat Basma, ‘ATS rejects “Road to Kabul” lawsuit’, Middle East Broadcasting Journal 7 (June–July 2006), p 12. 90. Jafar Irshaidat, ‘First hearing in MBC lawsuit slated for today’, Jordan Times, 3 April 2006.

226

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

91. ‘Egyptian television censors sharpen their knives’, Middle East Times, 12 January 2005. 92. Lindsey, ‘TV versus terrorism’, p 202. 93. According to Lindsey, in ‘TV versus terrorism’ (p 200), the three scriptwriters were given access to archives of the Saudi authorities’ investigation into the November 2003 bombing in Riyadh. 94. Salamandra, ‘Television and the ethnographic endeavor’, p 10. 95. ‘No Big Deal’ is the version chosen by John Bradley in Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (New York and Basingstoke, 2005), p 7. Another suggestion is ‘What comes, comes’. Tash means to splatter or bubble over. According to Pascal Ménoret the phrase tash ma tash refers to a game in which bottles of fizzy drink are shaken to see whether the top will pop off. See ‘Saudi TV’s dangerous hit’, Le Monde Diplomatique (September 2004), p 13. 96. Edmund Sanders, ‘Cameras on a roll in Iraq’, Los Angeles Times, 9 May 2005. 97. Article 19, The Egyptian Predicament: Islamists, the State and Censorship (London, 1997), p 84. 98. Sarah Sullivan, ‘ART relaunches as “total entertainment solution”’, tbsjournal.com 6 (Spring 2001). 99. Ian Akerman, ‘MBC hints that new channels possible’, Campaign Middle East online, 18 December 2005. 100. Tim Burrowes, ‘MBC agrees sponsorship deals’, Campaign Middle East online, 19 March 2006. 101. Robison, The Rest of Arab Television, p 6. 102. According to One TV website (accessed 15 April 2006). 103. According to a press release issued on behalf of DMI and Warner Bros on 16 June 2004. 104. ‘Melody goes to the movies’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February– March 2006), p 7. 105. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, ‘Ahead of the bandwagon: Lebanon’s free media market’, in S. Harvey (ed), Trading Culture: Global Traffic and Local Cultures in Film and Television (Eastleigh, 2006), p 66. 106. Ahmad Heikal, an EFG-Hermes board member, told a London conference on Middle East capital markets in 1999 that cinemas and the film industry were among the most promising sectors in Egypt. See Middle East Economic Digest, 5 March 1999, p 18. 107. Youssef Rakha, ‘No business like show business’, Al-Ahram Weekly 524 (8–14 March 2001). 108. Youssef Sherif, ‘The end’, Middle East Times, 26 March 2004. 109. Yasser Moheb, ‘La polémique du monopole’, Al-Ahram Hebdo, 26 January 2005. 110. Hussein and Cousins, ‘Alwaleed: the man with the Midas touch’.

NOT ES

227

111. Quoted by the Association for International Broadcasting in an AIB Industry Briefing, 5 April 2006. 112. The best known are The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City. 113. Tim Burrowes, ‘Pay TV network plans to produce Arabic shows’, Campaign Middle East, 21 May 2006. 114. See, for example, Peter Lagerquist and Jim Quilty, ‘Reel Casbah’, Middle East Report online feature, March 2006. Online at merip.org/mero/ interventions/lagerquist_quilty_interv.html. Also Garay Menicucci, ‘Europe and the political economy of Arab cinema’, Middle East Report 235 (Summer 2005). 115. Menicucci, ‘Europe and the political economy of Arab cinema’, p 47. 116. Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (Cairo, 1998), p 43. 117. Sherif Awad, ‘Achtung, Baby!’, Egypt Today, March 2006, p 78. 118. AFP report, ‘New-look Egyptian cinema to bridge Mideast/west divide’, Middle East Times, 23 May 2006. 119. See Chapter 2 of this volume for more details. 120. Eastman and Ferguson, Broadcast/Cable/Web Programming, p 8. Chapter 6. Calculations Behind News, Sport and Talk TV 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

Robert G. Picard, The Economics and Financing of Media Companies (New York, 2002), p 46. Ibid., p 44. Ibid., p 47. Curran, Media and Power, p 183. Ibid., p 179. Jean K. Chalaby, ‘Deconstructing the transnational: a typology of crossborder television channels in Europe’, New Media & Society 7/2 (2005), p 158. Emphasis in original. Ibid., pp 158, 171. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, ‘Ending the War?’, PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2003, pp 133, 135. Greg Dyke’s address was published as ‘Impact of global news channels on international relations’, in Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ed), Arab Media in the Information Age (Abu Dhabi, 2006), pp 371–385. Ibid., p 373. Presentation at the University of Westminster, Harrow, 17 October 2005. Matt Wells and Lisa O’Carroll, ‘Sky News chief quits after disappointing relaunch’, Guardian, 8 May 2006. Gillian Doyle, Understanding Media Economics (London, 2002), pp 80– 81.

228

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

14. Graham Murdock, ‘Talk shows: democratic debates and tabloid tales’, in J. Wieten, G. Murdock and P. Dahlgren (eds), Television across Europe: A Comparative Introduction (London, 2000), p 204. 15. Quoted in Richard Abbott, ‘Why viewers prefer their news “ideologyfree”’, Campaign Middle East, 2 July 2006. 16. Address to Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 26 April 2006. Author’s transcript. 17. Faisal Abbas, ‘Q&A with Showtime Arabia’s CEO Peter Einstein’, Asharq al-Awsat, 29 June 2006. Online at aawsat.com/English/news. asp?section=5&id=5463. 18. Arab Advisors Group news release, 11 October 2004. 19. See Sakr, Satellite Realms for background on these stations and Naomi Sakr, ‘Maverick or model? Al-Jazeera’s impact on Arab satellite television’, in J. Chalaby (ed), Transnational Television Worldwide (London, 2005), pp 71–73. 20. Rasha El Ibiary, ‘Arab businessmen target Iraqi audience with a new news channel’, tbsjournal.com 12 (Spring/Summer 2004). 21. Quoted in ‘New satellite TV “Arabic News Broadcast” targets Iraq’, BBC Monitoring, 1 July 2004. 22. Peter Feuilherade, ‘Niche TV channels target Arab viewers’, BBC Monitoring, 15 October 2004. 23. Nicola Clark, ‘A calmer voice comes to nascent Iraqi television scene’, International Herald Tribune, 16 August 2004. 24. ‘New satellite TV’, BBC Monitoring. 25. David Pallister, ‘Media mogul accused of running Saudi-funded propaganda campaign’, Guardian, 26 January 2005. Online at guardian.co.uk/ international/story/0,,1398597,00.html. 26. Quoted by Albawaba, ‘Al-Jazeera struggles from beneath financial pressures’. Online at gvnews.net/html/DailyNews/alert2709.html (accessed 6 November 2002). 27. Naomi Sakr, ‘Challenger or lackey? The politics of news on Al-Jazeera’, in D.K. Thussu (ed), Media on the Move (London, 2006), p 128. 28. Author’s interview, Doha, 31 January 2006. 29. Author’s interview, Doha, 31 January 2006. 30. For example, ‘US pressure on Al-Jazeera slammed’, Gulf Times, 9 October 2001; ‘Interview with Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani’, tbsjournal. com 7 (Fall 2001). 31. See Naomi Sakr, ‘Media policy in the Middle East: a reappraisal’, in J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds), Mass Media and Society, 4th ed. (London, 2005), p 242–244. 32. According to Al-Jazeera brochure, Doha, 2006. 33. Author’s interview with Ahmad al-Sheikh, editor-in-chief of Al-Jazeera, Doha, 31 January 2006.

NOT ES

229

34. Author’s interview Doha, 1 February 2006. 35. Ibid. 36. ‘Jazeera Sports Plus to launch $60m game show’, The Peninsula, 6 April 2006. 37. ‘MobileCom launches Al Jazeera Mobile’, Jordan Times, 13 May 2004. 38. ‘Dubai Media Inc. re-launches Dubai Sports Channel with new identity’. Online at ameinfo.com/news/Detailed/74924.html (accessed 23 June 2006). 39. For examples see Hugh Miles, Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World (London, 2005), and Olfa Lamloum, Al-Jazira, miroir rebelle et ambigu du monde arabe (Paris, 2004). 40. Sakr, ‘Challenger or lackey?’, p 120. 41. Hugh Miles, ‘Think again: Al Jazeera’, Foreign Policy, July/August 2006. 42. Arab Advisors Group news release, 26 January 2005. 43. Arab Advisors Group news release, 5 September 2004. 44. Susan Postlethwaite, ‘Softer news could play well with advertisers’, Business Monthly. Online at amcham-egypt.org/Publications/BusinessMonthly/ March%2003/reports (accessed 11 April 2006). 45. Anthony Shadid, ‘A newsman breaks the mold in Arab world’, Washington Post, 1 May 2006. 46. Quoted in Habib Battah, ‘Plugging in’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 7 (June–July 2006), p 21. 47. Quoted in ibid. 48. ‘Reforming the airwaves’, Egypt Today, April 2006. Online at egypttoday. com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6624 (accessed 27 May 2006). 49. Mustafa El-Menshawy, ‘Live broadcast spurs Jazeera arrests’, Al-Ahram Weekly 743 (19–25 May 2005). 50. Author’s interview with Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, then managing director of Al-Jazeera, Amman, 1 March 2000. 51. Naomi Sakr, ‘Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel: global newscasting in Arabic’, in C. Paterson and A. Sreberny (eds), International News in the TwentyFirst Century, p 162. 52. Author’s interview with Rima Azar, Head of Programming, Al-Jazeera Documentary Channel, Doha, 31 January 2006. 53. Author’s interview with Rima Azar. 54. Author’s interview, Doha, 1 February 2006. 55. According to an article online at alarabiya.net/Articles/2005/03/03/1 0879.htm (accessed 19 July 2005). 56. Paul Cochrane, ‘Documenting through Arab eyes’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 3 (September–October 2005), p 39. 57. Magda Abu-Fadil, ‘Straddling cultures: Arab women journalists at home and abroad’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East, p 194.

230

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

58. Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson, Broadcast/Cable/Web Programming: Strategies and Practices (Belmont, CA, 2002), p 252. 59. Muhammad Ayish, ‘The Impact of Arab Satellite Television on Culture and Value Systems in Arab Countries: Perspectives and Issues’. Paper presented at a conference on Arab Satellite Broadcasting in the Age of Globalisation, Cambridge, November 2002. 60. According to Abdullah al-Awadhy, writing in Al-Bayan, and quoted in Rasha Hassan, ‘Arab perspective’, Gulf News, 20 April 2001. 61. Quoted in Layal Abu Darwich, ‘Al Majd keeps on growing’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 2 (July–August 2005), p 21. 62. Feuilherade, ‘Niche TV channels target Arab viewers’. 63. Quoted in AFP report, ‘Coptic Christians get own satellite television stations amid Egypt tension’, Daily Star, 3 November 2005. 64. Ehab Galal, ‘Reimagining Religious Identities in Children’s Programs on Arabic Satellite-TV. Intentions and Values’. Paper presented at a conference on New Media in the Middle East, Odense, November 2005. 65. Al Bawaba, ‘MBC3 celebrates its first anniversary’, 8 December 2005. Online at albawaba.com/en/countries/192399 (accessed 12 June 2006). 66. Ibid. 67. MBC press release, 4 April 2006. 68. Samantha Shapiro, ‘Ministering to the upwardly mobile Muslim’, New York Times, 30 April 2006. 69. Ibid. 70. Quoted by Ursula Lindsey, ‘The new Muslim TV: media-savvy, modern, and moderate’, Christian Science Monitor, 2 May 2006. 71. Quoted in AdnKronosInternational report, 7 March 2006. 72. Lindsey, ‘The new Muslim TV’. 73. Lindsey Wise, ‘Interview with Tareq Alsuwaidan’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 2/1 (2006), p 55. 74. News release entitled ‘Al Jazeera children’s channel goes on air’, datelined Doha, 9 September 2005, and carried by Eutelsat. Online at eutelsat.com. 75. Faisal Baatout and Christian Chaise for AFP, ‘Al-Jazeera launches kids channel – with difference’, Middle East Times, 12 September 2005. 76. Lagardère press release, Paris, 10 September 2005. 77. According to producer, Nia Ceidiog, quoted in Adam Sherwin, ‘A family of Welsh sheep – the new stars of Al-Jazeera’, The Times, 3 April 2006. 78. Baatout and Chaise, ‘Al Jazeera launches kids channel’. 79. News release, ‘Al Jazeera children’s channel goes on air’. 80. S. Abdallah Schleifer, ‘Al-Jazeera: once more into the fray’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), p 104.

NOT ES

231

81. Ibid., p 105. 82. Rebecca Hawkes, ‘The Zilo interview’, Middle East Broadcast & Satellite (May 1997), p 28. 83. Chris Forrester, ‘Broadcasting censorship: it’s a question of culture’, Middle East Broadcast & Satellite (October 1999), p 15. 84. Faisal Al Kasim, ‘The Opposite Direction’. Presentation to a conference on Broadcasting in the Arab World – Challenges and Prospects, University of Westminster, London, June 2003. 85. Miles, Al-Jazeera, p 39. 86. Drawing on Joshua Gamson’s work, Muhammad Ayish makes the point that a talk-show host’s instigation can prevent rational dialogue. See ‘Media brinkmanship in the Arab world: Al-Jazeera’s The Opposite Direction as a fighting arena, in M. Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon, p 116. 87. Andrew Hammond, ‘Egyptian TV fights Arab rivals with tepid glasnost’, Middle East Times, 8 June 2001, and ‘The rise of Hamdi Kandil’, Middle East International 664 (7 December 2001), p 23. 88. See comments by Ali al-Hedeithy, head of Middle East News, and Saleh Qallab, first editorial director of Al-Arabiya, quoted in press coverge of the channel’s launch, for example, Sana Abdullah, ‘New news channel “calmer” than Al-Jazeera’, Middle East Times, 28 February 2003. 89. Naila Hamdy, ‘A Dream TV come true’, tbsjournal.com 8 (Spring/ Summer 2002). 90. Ibid. 91. Marc Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York, 2006), pp 79–80. 92. Ibid., pp 240–241. 93. Dena Rashed, ‘A star for our nights’, Al-Ahram Weekly 776 (5–11 January 2006). 94. Author’s interview with Mohammed Gohar, Cairo, 12 March 2006. 95. Nayla Assaf, ‘LBC faces action for alleged media code offense’, Daily Star, 14 May 2005. 96. Lina Khatib, ‘Television and public action in the Beirut Spring’, in N. Sakr (ed), Arab Media and Political Renewal (London, 2007), p 41. 97. The phrase used at zavenonline.com (accessed 19 June 2006). 98. Dubai TV press release, 3 January 2006. 99. Dyke, ‘Impact of global news channels’, p 373. 100. Chalaby, ‘Deconstructing the transnational’. Chapter 7. Business Strategies of Leading TV Firms 1. 2.

Nicholas Garnham, Emancipation, the Media and Modernity (Oxford, 2000), pp 59–60. As summarized by Maria Moschandreas in Business Economics (London,

232

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

1994), pp 60–63. As summarized in Moschandreas, Business Economics, p 65. Garnham, Emancipation, p 53. Booz Allen Hamilton, Strategic Review of the Television Broadcasting Sector in the Middle East (Dubai, November 2005; revised March 2006), p 16. Quoted in Richard Abbott, ‘Why viewers prefer their news “ideologyfree”’, Campaign Middle East, 2 July 2006. Toby Dodge, ‘Bringing the bourgeoisie back in: globalization and the birth of liberal authoritarianism in the Middle East’, in T. Dodge and R. Higgott (eds), Globalization and the Middle East: Islam, Economy, Society and Politics (London, 2002), p 186. Ibid. Tim Addington, ‘New boss to shake up Starcom’, Campaign Middle East, 7 August 2005. Robert Picard, The Economics and Financing of Media Companies (New York, 2002), pp 147–149. Sylvia M. Chan-Olmsted and Yungwook Kim, ‘Perceptions of branding among television station managers: an exploratory analysis’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 45/1 (2001), pp 78, 89. For the role played by trust and relevance in the survival of major media brands see Mark Tungate, Media Monoliths: How Great Media Brands Thrive and Survive (London, 2004), pp 7, 247–269. James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, ‘Beyond globalization theory’, in J. Curran and M.-J. Park (eds), De-Westernizing Media Studies (London, 2000), p 14. Gillian Doyle, Understanding Media Economics (London, 2002), p 9. Alan B. Albarran and Terry Moellinger, ‘The top six communication industry firms: structure, performance and strategy’, in R. Picard (ed), Media Firms: Structures, Operations, and Performance (Mahwah, NJ, 2002), pp 116–117. Moschandreas, Business Economics, p 261. Booz Allen Hamilton, Strategic Review, p 22. Jihad Fakhreddine, ‘The rise and potential fall of pan-Arab satellite TV’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), p 159. ‘Tangled webs’ (Special Report on Media Conglomerates), The Economist, 25 May 2002, p 82. State budgets in Saudi Arabia have traditionally been published only in the broadest outline, preventing detailed scrutiny and giving rise to the assumption that not all transfers are recorded on the balance sheet. Naomi Sakr, ‘Channels of interaction: the role of Gulf-owned media firms in globalisation’, in P. Dresch and J. Piscatori (eds), Monarchies and Nations: Globalization and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf (London, 2005), pp 39–41.

NOT ES

233

22. ‘Al-Arabiya seeks media niche’, Washington Times, 1 October 2003. 23. ‘MBC’s new channel launch today’, Gulf News, 12 January 2003. 24. Matt Labash, ‘When a kiss is not just a kiss’, The Weekly Standard, 18 October 2004. 25. Quoted by Lianne Stewart, ‘Arab Big Brother for 2004’, C21 Media News, 8 September 2003. 26. The $6 million estimate was mentioned to the author in a private communication from an MBC source, 20 March 2004. A figure of $7 million is given in Labash, ‘When a kiss is not just a kiss’. 27. MBC press release, Dubai, 24 November 2005. 28. S. Abdallah Schleifer, ‘Stealth bouquet: the MBC group moves on’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), p 109. 29. Author’s interview with Muhannad al-Khatib, ATV managing director, Amman, 20 September 2006. 30. Iain Akerman, ‘Middle East broadcaster adds hope into its brand’, Campaign Middle East, 23 April 2006. 31. Richard Abbott, ‘MBC rules out news channel in English’, Campaign Middle East, 2 July 2006. 32. Tim Addington, ‘Agency quits MBC4 creative account’, Campaign Middle East, 14 May 2006. 33. DMI press release, Dubai, 31 May 2004. 34. Jeffrey Sampler and Saeb Eigner, Sand to Silicon: Achieving Rapid Growth Lessons from Dubai (London, 2003), p 150. 35. Jihad Fakhreddine, ‘Balancing act: UAE satellite TV channels between national and pan-Arab markets’, tbsjournal.com 13 (Fall 2004). 36. Notice issued by Dubai Press Club, 21 December 2005. 37. Riz Khan, Alwaleed, p 146. 38. For background on Alwaleed’s media investments, see Sakr, Satellite Realms, pp 69–74. 39. According to a press release issued by Prince Alwaleed’s Saudi Arabiabased Kingdom Holding Company, 29 November 2005. 40. For background to the changing status of Murr TV under Lebanese law, see Chapter 2 of this volume. 41. Khan, Alwaleed, pp 366–368. See also Giacomo Luciani, ‘From private sector to national bourgeoisie: Saudi Arabian business’, in P. Aarts and G. Nonneman, Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs (London, 2005), p 175. 42. Habib Battah, ‘Alwaleed takes veiled potshots at Hariri’, Lebanonwire, 17 July 2003. Online at lebanonwire.com/0307/03071711DS.asp (accessed 28 June 2006). 43. Khan, Alwaleed, p 265. 44. Ibid., p 368. 45. Interviewed by Abdallah Schleifer, tbsjournal.com 9 (Fall 2003).

234

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

46. According to news alert by the Committee to Protect Journalists, New York, 24 July 2006. 47. ‘LBCI TV may break with founding party’, Daily Star, 2 June 2006. 48. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, ‘Ending the War?’, pp 187–188. 49. According to Nadim Munla, quoted in ‘Future TV names top media executive to spearhead expansion’, ArabAd, October 2005. 50. Richard Abbott, ‘The house that sales built’, Campaign Middle East, 23 October 2005. 51. ‘Tarek Ayntrazi’, Executive Magazine 76, October 2005. Online at executive-magazine.com/76.article.php?id=540 (accessed 28 June 2006). 52. Naomi Sakr, ‘Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel: global newscasting in Arabic’, in C. Paterson and A. Sreberny (eds), International News in the TwentyFirst Century, p 161. 53. Naomi Sakr, ‘Challenger or lackey? The politics of news on Al-Jazeera’, in D.K. Thussu (ed), Media on the Move, pp 119–120. 54. ‘MBC considers stock listing, English channel’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 8. 55. Stuart Thomson, ‘Al-Jazeera aims to be alternative’, Cable and Satellite Europe, March 2006, p 38. 56. AFP report from Hong Kong, 27 October 2004. 57. ‘Al Jazeera needs Israelis’, Ma’ariv, 2 November 2005. Translation from Mideast Wire Daily Briefing, 4 November 2005. 58. Press conference in Doha, 31 January 2006. Author’s transcript. 59. ‘Aljazeera Network head named’. Online at english.aljazeera.net, 24 March 2006. 60. News item carried on Association for International Broadcasting website, aib.org.uk/news, 31 April 2006. 61. Author’s interview, Doha, 1 February 2006. 62. Association for International Broadcasting Industry Briefing, 19 October 2005. 63. Private communication to the author, Doha, 1 February 2006. 64. Booz Allen Hamilton, Strategic Review, pp 22–23. 65. PARC estimate in Maha Akeel, ‘Gulf advertising market picks up steam’, Arab News, 27 June 2005. 66. PARC estimate in Wissam Keyrouz, ‘Dubai tops Mideast advertising league’, Middle East Times, 19 June 2006. 67. Akeel, ‘Gulf advertising market picks up steam’. 68. According to Joseph Ghossoub, chair of the International Advertising Association, quoted in Wissam Keyrouz, ‘Dubai tops Mideast advertising league’, Middle East Times, 19 June 2006. 69. Figures quoted by Prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, head of Saudi Research and Marketing Group, in an address to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 26 April 2006.

NOT ES

235

70. Study quoted in Keyrouz, ‘Dubai tops Mideast advertising league’. 71. Quoted in Tim Addington, ‘Choueiri: “I am not the godfather”’, Campaign Middle East, 13 November 2005. 72. Quoted in Wissam Keyrouz, ‘Dubai tops Mideast advertising league’. 73. Fakhreddine, ‘Balancing act: UAE satellite TV channels between national and pan-Arab markets’. 74. Jihad Fakhreddine, ‘The rise and potential fall of pan-Arab satellite TV’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), p 158. 75. Booz Allen Hamilton, Strategic Review, p 22. 76. Habib Battah, ‘Your guide to the frontlines of Arab television’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 35. 77. Vivian Salama, ‘Race is on for best Ramadan ads’, Middle East Times, 30 September 2005. 78. Fakhreddine, ‘The rise and potential fall of pan-Arab satellite TV’, p 159. 79. Arab Advisors Group news release, 1 February 2006. 80. Arab Advisors Group, TV Advertising Rates in the Arab World, January 2006, as reported in Middle East Broadcasting Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 12. 81. Arab Advisors Group news release, 1 February 2006. 82. Fakhreddine, ‘The rise and potential fall of pan-Arab satellite TV’, p 159. 83. Tim Burrowes, ‘MBC agrees sponsorship deals’, Campaign Middle East, 19 March 2006. 84. Tim Addington, ‘New boss to shake up Starcom’, Campaign Middle East, 7 August 2005. 85. Dubai Media Incorporated press release, 3 June 2004. 86. Fakhreddine, ‘Balancing act’. 87. ArabAd news brief, July 2005. Online at arabadmag.com/past2. asp?month=7&year=2005 (accessed 11 April 2006). 88. Addington, ‘Choueiri: “I am not the godfather”’. 89. ‘Friend or foe?’, ArabAd, 30 January 2005. 90. Quoted in Abbott, ‘The house that sales built’. 91. Battah, ‘Your guide to the frontlines of Arab television’, p 35. 92. Peter Barton, ‘Media agency’, Gulf Marketing Review, June 2003, p 54. 93. Tim Addington, ‘Dirty data’, Campaign Middle East, 20 May 2005. 94. Tim Addington, ‘Details of ratings push unveiled’, Campaign Middle East, 19 March 2006. 95. Addington, ‘Dirty data’. 96. Prince Faisal bin Salman, address to Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 26 April 2006. Author’s transcript. 97. ART sources quoted in Rehab El-Bakry, ‘Feeding the TV habit’, Business Today, November 2002. Online at mafhoum.com/press4.120T45.htm

236

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

(accessed 12 August 2006). Einstein quoted in Addington, ‘Dirty data’. 98 Addington, ‘Dirty data’. 99. ‘Facts and figures’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal, February–March 2006, p 4. 100. Booz Allen Hamilton, Strategic Review, p 27. 101. El-Bakry, ‘Feeding the TV habit’. 102. Faisal Abbas, ‘Q&A with Showtime Arabia’s CEO Peter Einstein’, Asharq al-Awsat, 29 June 2006. Online at aawsat.com/english/news. asp?section=5&id=5463 (accessed 9 July 2006). 103. ‘Report: TV ad rates are falling’, Middle East Broadcasting Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 12. 104. Abbas, ‘Q&A with Showtime Arabia’s CEO’. 105. Ibid. 106. Quoted in ‘Pan-Arab satellite pay-TV losses mount’, The Channel 7/2 (April 2004), p 9. 107. Quoted in Chris Forrester, ‘It’s in the Cannes’, p 65. 108. Dina Darwich, ‘Les cables rebelles’, Al-Ahram Hebdo, 18 January 2006. 109. Tim Addington, ‘ART aims to score with World Cup ad campaign’, Campaign Middle East, 9 April 2006. 110. Abbas, ‘Q&A with Showtime Arabia’s CEO’. 111. Steve Wrelton, ‘World Cup PR woes as fans catch ART offside’, Campaign Middle East, 25 June 2006. 112. Charles Levinson, ‘Free World Cup RV gives Palestinians something to cheer about’, Middle East Times, 14 June 2006. 113. Raed El Rafei, ‘Lebanese cable pirates strike deal to broadcast World Cup’, Daily Star, 6 June 2006. 114. Riam Dalati, ‘The future is sharper’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 15. 115. Battah, ‘Plugging in’, p 20. 116. Deutsche Welle staff, ‘Bertelsmann preparing to sell stake in Sony BMG’, 27 March 2006. Online at dw.world.de (accessed 30 March 2006). 117. Quoted in ‘Separate IPO for Al-Madina’, Arab News, 10 April 2006. 118. ‘MBC considers stock listing’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5. 119. AFP, ‘Sheikh Sabah: Dean of Arab diplomacy’, Kuwait Times, 25 January 2006. 120. ‘KIPCO: diversity is the key to success’, Middle East Economic Digest, 11–17 November 2005, p 48. 121. ‘Showtime Arabia IPO seen in ’06 for LSE listing’, Reuters from Kuwait, 1 April 2006. 122. Nic Hopkins, ‘Saudi royal plans float of hotel and media assets’, The Times, 19 July 2005. 123. Reports from Damascus by Al-Thawrah and UN Integrated Regional Information Networks on 13 March and 30 April 2006 respectively.

NOT ES

237

124. Sampler and Eigner, Sand to Silicon, pp 26–27, 118–119. 125. See background in Sakr, Satellite Realms, pp 109–111. 126. Sarah Sullivan, ‘Private-sector media city launched in Amman’, tbsjournal.com 7 (Fall 2001). 127. ‘16 satellite channels start transmission from JMC’, Jordan Times, 10–11 September 2004. 128. Sarah Sullivan, ‘Dubai Media City prepares for next phase’, tbsjournal. com 7 (Fall 2001). 129. Stephen Quinn, Tim Walters and John Whiteoak, ‘A tale of three (media) cities’, Global Media Journal 3/5 (Fall 2004). Online at lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj. These authors, two of whom were based in the UAE at the time of their research, say of DMC that ‘Money has never been an issue. … DMC is really run and operated for the benefit of the Al-Maktoum family and its business friends.’ 130. Alain Battegay, ‘La publicité au Moyen-Orient: recomposition régionale et discours professionels’, in Franck Mermier (ed), Mondialisation et nouveaux médias dans l’espace arabe (Paris, 2003), p 382. 131. Sullivan, ‘Dubai Media City prepares for next phase’. 132. Quoted in ‘Fujairah sets up media city and launches four new channels’, Middle East Broadcasters Journal 5 (February–March 2006), p 13. 133. Naomi Sakr, ‘The impact of commercial interests on Arab media content’, in Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ed), Arab Media in the Information Age (Abu Dhabi, 2006), p 72. 134. Jafar Irshaidat, ‘Mamnou channel transmission halted’, Jordan Times, 21 December 2005. 135. Sullivan, ‘Private-sector media city launched in Amman’. 136. Abdel-Qader Kamili, ‘Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone’. Presentation to conference on New Media and Change in the Arab World, Amman, 27 February–1 March 2002. 137. Andrew Picken, ‘Sunshine and censorship: press freedom in the UAE’, in Arab Press Freedom Watch (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2004 (London, 2005), p 232. 138. Sam Dagher, ‘Two US films draw ire of Gulf Arab censors’, AFP, 17 April 2006. 139. Garnham, Emancipation, the Media and Modernity, p 59.

Bibliography Abdel-Rahman, Wafa’, Media Coverage of Female Candidates during 2006 Legislative Council Election Campaigns (Ramallah, March 2006) Abu-Fadil, Magda, ‘Straddling cultures: Arab women journalists at home and abroad’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through Self-Expression (London, 2004), pp 192–193 Abu-Lughod, Lila, ‘Feminist longings and postcolonial conditions’, in L. Abu-Lughod (ed), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Cairo, 1998), pp 3–31 ——, Dramas of Nationhood (Chicago, 2005) ——, ‘On- and off-camera in Egyptian soap operas: women, television and the public sphere’, in F. Nouraie-Simone (ed), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era (New York, 2005), pp 17–35 Al-Ali, Nadje, Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women’s Movement (Cambridge, 2000) Al-Atrash, Rasha, ‘The Lebanese journalists’ trade union: a story not recommended before bedtime’, in Arab Press Freedom Watch (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2004 (London, 2005), pp 117–121 Al Kasim, Faisal, ‘The Opposite Direction: a programme which changed the face of Arab television’, in M. Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (London, 2005), pp 93–105 Al-Mughni, Haya, and Tétreault, Mary Ann, ‘Engagement in the public sphere: women and the press in Kuwait’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through Self-Expression (London, 2004), pp 120–137 Al-Mutawwaa, Naimi, ‘Al-Mar’a al-Qatariya wa’l-Ilam: ma laha wa ma aaliha’ [The Qatari woman and the media: rights and responsibilities’]. Paper presented at the fourth annual conference of the Arab Women Media Centre, Amman, September 2005 Albarran, Alan B., and Moellinger, Terry, ‘The top six communication industry firms: structure, performance and strategy’, in R. Picard (ed), Media Firms: Structures, Operations, and Performance (Mahwah, NJ, 2002), pp 103–122

239

240

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Alterman, Jon, New Media, New Politics? From Satellite Television to the Internet in the Arab World (Washington, 1998) Amin, Hussein, ‘Arab women and satellite broadcasting’, tbsjournal.com 6 (Fall/Winter 2001) Ammar, Nawal, and Lababidy, Leila, ‘Women’s grassroots movements and democratization in Egypt’, in J. Bystydzienski and J. Sekhon (eds), Democratization and Women’s Grassroots Movements (Bloomington, 1999), pp 150–170 Article 19, The Egyptian Predicament: Islamists, the State and Censorship (London, 1997) Assaf, Heba, Dur al-Mar’a fi’l-Ilam al-Filistini: Dirasa Mujaza [The Role of Women in the Palestinian Media: A Brief Study] (Ramallah, 2001) Ayish, Muhammad, ‘The Impact of Arab Satellite Television on Culture and Value Systems in Arab Countries: Perspectives and Issues’. Paper presented at a conference on Arab Satellite Broadcasting in the Age of Globalisation, Cambridge, November 2002 ——, ‘Media brinkmanship in the Arab world: Al-Jazeera’s The Opposite Direction as a fighting arena’, in M. Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (London, 2005), pp 106–126 Barazangi, Nimat Hafez, ‘Self-identity as a form of democratization: the Syrian experience’, in J. Bystydzienski and J. Sekhon (eds), Democratization and Women’s Grassroots Movements (Bloomington, 1999), pp 129–149 Batrawi, Walid, ‘Media-less reforms vs. reform-less media’, July 2002. Online at ayamm.org/English/articles/articles.htm Battegay, Alain, ‘La publicité au Moyen-Orient: recomposition régionale et discours professionels’, in Franck Mermier (ed), Mondialisation et nouveaux médias dans l’espace arabe (Paris, 2003), pp 379–408 Boyd, Douglas, Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of the Electronic Media in the Middle East (Ames, Iowa, 1999) Bouziane, Mahdi, ‘The Liberalisation of Broadcasting in Morocco’, MA dissertation, University of Westminster, 2005 Bradley, John, Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (New York and Basingstoke, 2005) Campagna, Joel/Committee to Protect Journalists, Bloodied and Beleaguered (New York, October 2000) ——, Picking up the Pieces (New York, June 2002) ——, The Enemy? (New York, October 2006) Carpentier, Nico, ‘Identity, contingency and rigidity: the (counter-)hegemonic constructions of the identity of the media professional’, Journalism 6/2 (2005), pp 199–219 Chalaby, Jean K., ‘Deconstructing the transnational: a typology of crossborder television channels in Europe’, New Media & Society 7/2 (2005), pp 155–175

BI BL IO G R A PH Y

241

Chan-Olmsted, Sylvia M., and Kim, Yungwook, ‘Perceptions of branding among television station managers: an exploratory analysis’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 45/1 (2001), pp 75–91 Couldry, Nick, ‘Media organisations and non-media people’, in J. Curran (ed), Media Organisations in Society (London, 2000), pp 273–287 Curran, James Media and Power (London, 2002) ——, and Park, Myung-Jin, ‘Beyond globalization theory’, in J. Curran and M.J. Park (eds), De-Westernizing Media Studies (London, 2000), pp 3–18 Dabbous-Sensenig, Dima, ‘Ending the War? The Lebanese Broadcasting Act of 1994’, PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2003 ——, ‘Ahead of the bandwagon: Lebanon’s free media market’, in S. Harvey (ed), Trading Culture: Global Traffic and Local Cultures in Film and Television (Eastleigh, 2006), pp 61–75. Dahlgren, Peter, ‘Enhancing the civic ideal in television journalism’, in K. Brants, J. Hermes and L. van Zoonen (eds), The Media in Question: Popular Cultures and Public Interest (London, 1998), pp 89–100 Dajani, Nabil, ‘The confessional scene in Lebanese television’. Paper presented at the seminar on Islam on TV, Copenhagen, December 1999 Davis, Eric, ‘Theorizing statecraft and social change in Arab oil-producing countries’, in E. Davis and N. Gavrielides (eds), Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory and Popular Culture (Florida, 1991), pp 1–35 Deuze, Mark, ‘What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered’, Journalism 6/4 (2005), pp 442–464 Dick, Marlin, ‘The state of the musalsal: Arab television drama and comedy and the politics of the satellite era’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2005), pp 177–190 ——, ‘The thin red lines: censorship, controversy and the case of the Syrian soap opera “Behind Bars”’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 2/1 (2006), pp 115–128 Dodge, Toby, ‘Bringing the bourgeoisie back in: globalization and the birth of liberal authoritarianism in the Middle East’, in T. Dodge and R. Higgott (eds), Globalization and the Middle East: Islam, Economy, Society and Politics (London, 2002), pp 169–187 Doyle, Gillian, Understanding Media Economics (London, 2002) Dyke, Greg, ‘Impact of global news channels on international relations’, in Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ed), Arab Media in the Information Age (Abu Dhabi, 2006), pp 371–385 Eastman, Susan Tyler, and Ferguson, Douglas A., Broadcast/Cable/Web Programming: Strategies and Practices, 6th ed (Belmont, CA, 2002) Efrati, Noga, ‘The other “Awakening” in Iraq: the women’s movement in the first half of the twentieth century’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31/2 (November 2004), pp 153–173 El Amrani, Issandr, ‘The long wait: reform in Egypt’s state-owned broadcast-

242

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

ing service’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2006), pp 324–334 El-Khawaga, Dina, ‘Le journalisme télévisuel dans le monde arabe: l’essor d’une nouvelle profession’, in F. Mermier (ed), Mondialisation et nouveaux médias dans l’espace arabe (Paris, 2003), pp 17–42 El-Nawawy, Mohammed, and Iskandar, Adel, Al-Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East (Cambridge, MA, 2002) Eutelsat, Cable and Satellite TV Market (Paris, 2004) Fakhreddine, Jihad, ‘Balancing act: UAE satellite TV channels between national and pan-Arab markets’, tbsjournal.com 13 (Fall 2004) ——, ‘The rise and potential fall of pan-Arab satellite TV’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), pp 156–160 Fattah, Hassan, ‘Zen TV reaches out to Arab youth’, tbsjournal.com 9 (Fall 2002) Firmo-Fontan, Victoria, ‘Power, NGOs and Lebanese Television: a case study of Al-Manar TV and the Hezbollah Women’s Association’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East (London, 2004), pp 162–179 Freemuse (ed), All That is Banned is Desired (Beirut and Copenhagen, 2006) Galal, Ehab, ‘Reimagining Religious Identities in Children’s Programs on Arabic Satellite-TV: Intentions and Values’. Paper presented at a conference on New Media in the Middle East, Odense, November 2005 Garnham, Nicholas, Emancipation, the Media and Modernity (Oxford, 2000) Ginsborg, Paul, Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony (London, 2004) Gitlin, Todd, Inside Prime Time (London, 1994) Global Media Monitoring Project 2005, Who Makes the News? Online at whomakesthenews.org/who_makes_the_news/report_2005 Goldsmiths Media Group, ‘Media organizations in society: central issues’, in J. Curran (ed), Media Organisations in Society (London, 2000), pp 19–65 Graham, Helga, Arabian Time Machine: Self-Portrait of an Oil State (London, 1978) Hafez, Kai, ‘Journalism ethics revisited: a comparison of ethics codes in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Muslim Asia’, in K. Hafez (ed), Media Ethics in the Dialogue of Cultures (Hamburg, 2003), pp 39–68 Hajjar, Lisa, ‘From Nuremberg to Guantánamo: international law and American power politics’, Middle East Report 229 (Winter 2003), pp 8– 15 Hallin, Daniel and Mancini, Paolo, Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics (Cambridge, 2004) Hamad, Saeda, ‘Palestinian media map: the clash between sovereignty and occupation’, in Arab Press Freedom Watch (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2004 (London, 2005), pp 137–141 Hammond, Andrew, Pop Culture Arab World! (Santa Barbara, 2005)

BI BL IO G R A PH Y

243

Hatem, Mervat, ‘Economic and political liberation in Egypt and the demise of state feminism’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992), pp 231–251 Hesmondhalgh, David, The Cultural Industries (London, 2002) Hill, Annette, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television (London, 2005) Hinnebusch, Raymond, ‘Prospects for democratisation in the Middle East’, in Birgitte Rahbek (ed), Democratisation in the Middle East: Dilemmas and Perspectives (Aarhus, 2005), pp 31–40 Holden, David, and Johns, Richard, The House of Saud (London, 1981) Horwitz, Robert B., ‘“Negotiated liberalization”: the politics of communications sector reform in South Africa’, in N. Morris and S. Waisbord (eds), Media and Globalization: Why the State Matters (Lanham, 2001), pp 37–54 Hoskins, Colin, McFadyen, Stuart, and Finn, Adam, Global Television and Film (Oxford, 1997) ——, Media Economics: Applying Economics to New and Traditional Media (London, 2004) Hroub, Khaled, ‘Satellite media and social change in the Arab world’, in Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ed), Arab Media in the Information Age (Abu Dhabi, 2006), pp 89–119 International Federation of Journalists, The Changing Nature of Work: A Global Survey and Case Study of Atypical Work in the Media Industry (Brussels, April 2006) Jamal, Amal, Media Politics and Democracy in Palestine (Sussex, 2005) Kamili, Abdel-Qader, ‘Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone’. Paper presented at a conference on New Media and Change in the Arab World, Amman, February 2002 Kawakibi, Salam, ‘Le rôle de la télévision dans la relecture de l’histoire’, Monde arabe: Maghreb-Machrek 158 (October–December 1997), pp 47–55 Khalil, Joe, ‘Blending in: Arab television and the search for programming ideas’, tbsjournal.com 13 (Fall/Winter 2004) ——, ‘Inside Arab reality television: development, definitions and demystification’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2005), pp 51–68 Khan, Riz, Alwaleed: Businessman, Billionaire, Prince (London, 2005) Khatib, Lina, ‘Television and public action in the Beirut Spring’, in N. Sakr (ed), Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (London, 2007), pp 28–43 Kraidy, Marwan, ‘Broadcasting regulation and civil society in postwar Lebanon’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (Summer 1998), pp 387–400 ——, ‘Idioms of contention: Star Academy in Lebanon and Kuwait’, in N. Sakr (ed), Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (London, 2007), pp 44–55

244

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Kuttab, Daoud, ‘The Challenge of Independent Palestinian Broadcasting’. Paper presented at a conference on Arab Satellite Broadcasting in the Age of Globalisation, Cambridge University, November 2002 Kuttab, Eileen, ‘Women’s studies program in Palestine: between criticism and new vision’, Cairo Papers in Social Science 20/3 (1998), pp 118–131 Lamloum, Olfa, Al-Jazira, miroir rebelle et ambigu du monde arabe (Paris, 2004) Le Pottier, Gaëlle, ‘Le monde de la télévision satellitaire au Moyen-Orient et le rôle des libanais dans son développement’, in Franck Mermier (ed), Mondialisation et nouveaux médias dans l’espace arabe (Paris, 2003), pp 43– 72 Lindsey, Ursula, ‘TV versus terrorism: why this year’s Ramadan soap operas tackled one controversial subject, but were barred from broaching others’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/2 (2005), pp 199–204 Lopez, Ana M., ‘Our welcomed guests: telenovelas in Latin America’, in R. C. Allen (ed), To be continued …: Soap Operas around the World (London, 1995), pp 256–275 Luciani, Giacomo, ‘From private sector to national bourgeoisie: Saudi Arabian business’, in P. Aarts and G. Nonneman (eds), Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs (London, 2005), pp 144–181 Lust-Okar, Ellen, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions (Cambridge, 2005) Lynch, Marc, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York, 2006) Lynn, Kenneth, ‘Introduction to the Issue “The Professions”’, Daedalus 92/4 (Fall 1963), pp 649–653 McFadden, Tom, Daily Journalism in the Arab States (Columbus, OH, 1953) McLaughlin, Lisa, ‘Something old, something new: lingering moments in the unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism’, in E. Meehan and E. Riordan (eds), Sex and Money: Feminism and Political Economy in the Media (Minneapolis, 2002), pp 30–46 McManus, John H., Market-Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware? (London, 1994) Mahmood, Saba, ‘Feminist theory, agency, and the liberatory subject’, in F. Nouraie-Simone (ed), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era (New York, 2005), pp 111–152 Maiola, Giovanna, and Ward, David, ‘Democracy and the media in Palestine: a comparison of election coverage by local and pan-Arab media’, in N. Sakr (ed), Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (London, 2007), pp 96–117 Marchand, Marianne, and Runyan, Anne Sisson, ‘Conclusion’, in M.H. Marchand and A.S. Runyan (eds), Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances (Oxford, 2000), pp 225–230 MediaHouse/NWRC, Together We Can Confront Violence against Women

BI BL IO G R A PH Y

245

(Cairo, 2003) Mendel, Toby, and Khashan, Ali, ‘The legal framework for media in Palestine and under international law’, May 2006. Online at article19.org/pdfs/ analysis/palestine-media-framework.pdf Menicucci, Garay, ‘Europe and the political economy of Arab cinema’, Middle East Report 235 (Summer 2005), pp 46–47 Mernissi, Fatema, ‘The satellite, the prince, and Shaherazad: women as communicators in digital Islam’, in F. Nouraie-Simone (ed), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era (New York, 2005), pp 3–16 Miles, Hugh, Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World (London, 2005) ——, ‘Think again: Al Jazeera’, Foreign Policy, July/August 2006 Mitchell, Timothy, ‘No factories, no problems: the logic of neo-liberalism in Egypt’, Review of African Political Economy 82, vol. 26 (December 1999), pp 455–468 Moran, Albert, ‘Television formats in the world/the world of television formats’, in A. Moran and M. Keane (eds), Television across Asia: Television Industries, Programme Formats and Globalization (London and New York, 2004), pp 1–8 ——, and Keane, Michael, ‘Joining the circle’, in A. Moran and M. Keane (eds), Television across Asia (London and New York, 2004), pp 197–204 Moschandreas, Maria, Business Economics (London, 1994) Murdock, Graham, ‘Large corporations and the control of the communications industries’, in M. Gurevitch, T. Bennett, J. Curran and J. Woollacott (eds), Culture, Society and the Media (London, 1982), pp 118–150 ——, ‘Talk shows: democratic debates and tabloid tales’, in J. Wieten, G. Murdock and P. Dahlgren (eds), Television across Europe: A Comparative Introduction (London, 2000), pp 198–219 Nassar, Heba, ‘Egypt: structural adjustment and women’s employment’, in E. Doumato and M. Posusney (eds), Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy & Society (Boulder, 2003), pp 95–118 Neuman, W. Russell, The Future of the Mass Audience (Cambridge, 1991) Nordenstreng, Kaarle, ‘Professional ethics: between fortress journalism and cosmopolitan democracy’, in K. Brants, J. Hermes and L. van Zoonen (eds), The Media in Question: Popular Cultures and Public Interest (London, 1998), pp 124–134 Perthes, Volker, ‘Politics and elite change in the Arab world’, in V. Perthes (ed), Arab Elites: Negotiating the Politics of Change (Boulder, 2004), pp 1–32 Picard, Robert, Media Economics: Concepts and Issues (London, 1989) ——, The Economics and Financing of Media Companies (New York, 2002) Picken, Andrew, ‘Sunshine and censorship: press freedom in the UAE’, in Arab Press Freedom Watch (ed), The State of the Arab Media 2004 (London, April 2005), pp 232–235

246

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Quinn, Stephen, Walters, Tim, and Whiteoak, John, ‘A tale of three (media) cities’, Global Media Journal 3/5 (Fall 2004). Online at lass.calumet. purdue.edu/cca/gmj/. Raboy, Marc, ‘Public service broadcasting in the context of globalization’, in Marc Raboy (ed), Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century (Luton, 1996), pp 1–19 Randall, Steve, and Broughel, Tara, ‘Amplifying officials, squelching dissent’, Extra! 16/3 (June 2003), pp 12–14 Regourd, Serge, ‘Two conflicting notions of audiovisual liberalisation’, in M. Scriven and M. Lecomte (eds), Television Broadcasting in Contemporary France and Britain (New York, 1999), pp 29–45 Robison, Gordon/USC Center on Public Diplomacy, The Rest of Arab Television (Los Angeles, June 2005) Sakr, Naomi, Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East (London, 2001) ——, ‘Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel: global newscasting in Arabic’, in C. Paterson and A. Sreberny (eds), International News in the Twenty-First Century (Eastleigh, 2004), pp 147–186 ——, ‘Friend or foe? Dependency theory and women’s media activism in the Arab Middle East’, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 13/2 (Summer 2004), pp 153–174 ——, ‘Maverick or model? Al-Jazeera’s impact on Arab satellite television’, in J. Chalaby (ed), Transnational Television Worldwide (London, 2005), pp 66–96 ——, ‘Women, development and Al-Jazeera: a balance sheet’, in M. Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (London, 2005), pp 127–149 ——, ‘Channels of interaction: the role of Gulf-owned media firms in globalisation’, in P. Dresch and J. Piscatori (eds), Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf (London, 2005), pp 34–51 ——, ‘Media policy in the Middle East: a reappraisal’, in J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds), Mass Media and Society, 4th ed (London, 2005), pp 234– 250 ——, ‘The changing dynamics of Arab journalism’, in H. de Burgh (ed), Making Journalists (London, 2005), pp 142–156 ——, ‘Challenger or lackey? The politics of news on Al-Jazeera’, in D.K. Thussu (ed), Media on the Move (London, 2006), pp 116–132 ——, ‘Foreign support for media freedom advocacy in the Arab Mediterranean: globalization from above or below’, Mediterranean Politics 11/1 (March 2006), pp 1–20 ——, ‘Media policy as a litmus test of political change in the GCC’, in A. Khalaf and G. Luciani (eds), Constitutional Reform and Political Participation

BI BL IO G R A PH Y

247

in the Gulf (Dubai, 2006), pp 133–157 ——, ‘The impact of commercial interests on Arab media content’, in Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ed), Arab Media in the Information Age (Abu Dhabi, 2006), pp 61–85 ——, ‘Egyptian TV in the grip of government’, in D. Ward (ed), Television and Public Policy: Change and Continuity in an Era of Global Liberalization (Mahwah, NJ, 2007) Salamandra, Christa, ‘Television and the ethnographic endeavor: the case of Syrian drama’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), pp 4–17 Saleh, Ibrahim, Unveiling the Truth about the Middle Eastern Media (Cairo, 2003) Salem-Pickartz, Josi, Haddad, Yasmin, and Farkh, Ruba, Women in Jordan: Empowered or Handicapped? (Amman, 2002) Sampler, Jeffrey, and Eigner, Saeb, Sand to Silicon: Achieving Rapid Growth Lessons from Dubai (London, 2003) Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Thirty-Ninth Annual Report (Riyadh, 2003) Schleifer, Abdallah, ‘Al-Jazeera: once more into the fray’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), pp 100–107 ——, ‘Stealth bouquet: the MBC group moves on’, Transnational Broadcasting Studies 1/1 (2005), pp 108–112 Schlesinger, Philip, ‘Rethinking the sociology of journalism: source strategies and the limits of media-centrism’, in M. Ferguson (ed), Public Communication: The New Imperatives (London, 1990), pp 61–83 Sfakianakis, John, ‘The whales of the Nile: networks, businessmen, and bureaucrats during the era of privatization in Egypt’, in S. Heydemann (ed), Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited (New York, 2004), pp 77–100 Shafik, Viola, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (Cairo, 1998) Sinclair, John, Jacka Elizabeth, and Cunningham, Stuart, ‘Peripheral vision’, in J. Sinclair, E. Jacka, and S. Cunningham (eds), New Patterns in Global Television (Oxford, 1996), pp 1–32 Somiry Batrawi, Benaz, ‘Waqaa al-Mar’a fi’l-Amal al-Tilifiziyuniyya wa’l-Izaiyya fi Filistin’ [The Situation of Women in Television and Radio Work in Palestine]. Paper presented at the first annual conference of the Arab Women Media Centre, Amman, June 2001 ——, ‘Echoes: gender and media challenges in Palestine’, in N. Sakr (ed), Women and Media in the Middle East (London, 2004), pp 109–119 Sparks, Colin, ‘Media theory after the fall of European communism’, in J. Curran and M.-J. Park (eds), De-Westernizing Media Studies (London, 2000), pp 35–49 Sreberny, Annabelle, ‘Trauma talk: reconfiguring the inside and outside’, in B. Zelizer and S. Allan (eds), Journalism after September 11 (London, 2002), pp 220–234

248

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Stacher, Joshua, ‘Rhetorical acrobatics and reputations: Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights’, Middle East Report 235 (Summer 2005), pp 2–7 Talgar, Aylin, ‘Ignoring MENA women is no longer an option’, The Channel 8/4 (September 2005), pp 27–29 Tatham, Steve, Losing Arab Hearts and Minds: The Coalition, Al Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion (London, 2006) Treacher, Amal, and Shukrallah, Hala, ‘The realm of the possible: Middle Eastern women in political and social spaces’, Feminist Review 69 (Winter 2001), pp 4–14 Tumber, Howard, ‘Reporting under fire: the physical safety and emotional welfare of journalists’, in B. Zelizer and S. Allan (eds), Journalism after September 11 (London, 2002), pp 247–262 Tungate, Mark, Media Monoliths: How Great Media Brands Thrive and Survive (London, 2004) UNDP, Arab Human Development Report 2004 (New York, 2005) Williams, Raymond, Culture (London, 1981) Winston, Brian, Media Technology and Society (London, 1998) Wittes, Tamara Cofman, and Yerkes, Sarah, ‘The Middle East Partnership Initiative: Progress, problems, and prospects’, Saban Center Middle East Memo 5 (November, 2004) Zelizer, Barbie, and Allan, Stuart, ‘Introduction: when trauma shapes the news’, in B. Zelizer and S. Allan (eds), Journalism after September 11 (London, 2002), pp 1–24

Index 2M 20, 35, 40 Aailet al-Hagg Metwalli 102 Aala al-Hawa 157 Aala al-Qahwa 42, 55 Abbas, Mahmoud 36 Abbassi, Jawad 113, 189 ABC 105, 113–114, 118, 171 Abdallah, Maher 63, 75, 95 Abdel-Aziz, Ali 69 Abdel-Ghani, Hussein 39, 55, 58–59, 61 Abdel-Hadi, Mahmoud 57 Abdel-Nasser, Gamal 29 Abdel-Qader, Sawsan 99 Abdel-Rahman, Hisham 121 Abdel-Razak, Liqaa 97 Abdel-Samad, Bushra 98 Abdulhadi, Samir 5 Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz, King (of Saudi Arabia) 100, 196 Abdullah, King (of Jordan) 196 Abdullah, Suad 90 Abed Rabbo, Yasser 24 Aboul-Ela, Hassan 35 Abr al-Moheet 55, 99 Abu Aqla, Shirin 96, 98 Abu Ayyash, Radwan 35 Abu Deir, Rael 24 Abu Dhabi 37, 140, 173 Emirates Media Incorporated (EMI) 37, 173 Abu Dhabi TV 55, 75, 115, 117, 143, 162, 173 Abu Haiba, Ahmad 154–155 Abu Hamdan, Jamal 128 Abu Jaber, Kamel 22

Abu Sumayah, Bassam 92 Abul-Naga, Nagwa 93 Abu-Lughod, Lila 86–87, 125 Achaari, Mohamed 20 ACT (Appropriate Communication Techniques) 103–104 Action Time 113 Adeeb, Amr 30 Adeeb, Emadeddin 30, 59, 134 advertising 4–13, 16, 25–26, 31, 34–35, 37, 43, 64, 71, 87, 90–91, 106, 111, 118, 120–125, 128, 130, 134–135, 137, 141–145, 147–149, 152, 154, 162–163, 166–168, 171, 174, 176–179, 181–190, 195, 200 advertisement/s 8, 27, 32, 71, 143 advertisers 3–4, 8, 37, 50, 87, 113– 114, 120, 147, 150, 167, 171, 178, 182, 185–189, 200–202 advertising boycott 143, 145, 162, 185 International Advertising Association 183 Afghanistan 52, 69, 75, 77, 82, 96, 128, 143, 179 Kabul 61, 75–77, 128 Africa 16, 51, 109, 153, 179 Aghapy TV 152 AIDS 160 Airey, Dawn 140 Al Kasim, Faisal 49, 55–58, 71, 157 Al Sabah, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad 193 Al Thani 144 Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr 70 Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa 6, 144

249

250

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer 6, 144, 156, 178 Al-Aan 9, 87 Alabbar, Mohammed Ali 119–120 Al-Alam 30, 142 Al-Alam al-Youm 30 Al-Ali, Mohammed Jassem 64, 157 Alam al-Phan 123 Alama, Ragheb 123 Al-Amal TV 93 Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade 36 Al-Aqsa TV 24 Al-Arabiya 27, 44, 54–56, 58–62, 69, 72, 78–80, 95, 97–99, 105, 140–141, 144, 147–148, 150, 158, 161–163, 166, 171–172, 179, 185, 193 Al-Assaad, Shuruq 92 Al-Assad, Bashar 141 Al-Assad, Rifaat 141 Al-Atrash, Farid 123 Al-Atrash, Rasha 66, 67 Alavanthian, Sebouh 5 Alayan, Mohammed 32 Al-Bassam, Maryam 98 Al-Bayane 31 Al-Bazzazz, Saad 142 Al-Budairi, Jivara 60, 98 Al-Ekhbariya 99–100, 142, 144, 146– 147, 159, 172 Al-Etrebi, Soheir 93 Al-Fajr channel 152 Al-Fasad 64 Algeria 1, 38, 44, 61, 95, 176 Tindouf 96 Al-Ghad 10, 32–33 Al-Hadath 159 Al-Hajj, Sami 69, 98 Al-Haqiqa 160 Al-Hayat 54, 152, 176–177 Al-Hiwar 9, 152 Al-Hoor al-Ein 129 Al-Hoss, Selim 28 Al-Huda 152 Al-Hurra TV 63, 82, 142 Al-Hussein, Fatma 90 Al-Ibrahim, Walid 112, 169, 170 Al-Ibrashi, Wael 42 Al-Iraqi, Zuhair 75

Al-Iraqiya 142 Al-Ittijah al-Muaakis 157–158 Al-Jazeera 5–7, 13, 31, 38–40, 44–45, 49, 54–64, 68–73, 75–80, 93, 95–98, 104–105, 107, 120, 132–133, 136, 141–143, 144–150, 152–153, 155–159, 161–163, 168, 178–181, 184–185, 192–193, 199–200 Al-Jazeera English (AJE) 178–181, 192 Al-Jazeera Media Training and Development Centre 57 Al-Jazeera Mobile 146 Al-Jazeera Mubasher 144–145, 149, 181, 200 Al-Jazeera Network 133, 145, 156, 181 Al-Jazeera Sports 145 Al-Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC) 155–156, 180–181, 200 Code of Ethics 70, 72 Al-Jazeera Documentary Channel 150, 162 Television Production Festival 132 Urdu service 181 Al-Jiffri, Sheikha Yousef Hassan 91 Al-Kahky, Amr 189 Alkhas, Radi 198 Al-Khatib, Ali 69 Al-Khatib, Muhannad 55, 57, 67 Al-Khazen, Jihad 65, 176–177 Al-Lahem, Abdel-Rahman 40 Allouni, Taysir 69, 75, 79 Al-Madina (Syrian radio station) 27, 193 Al-Majd 7, 152–153, 161–162, 197 Al-Maktoum, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed 152, 173, 195 Al-Maliki, Nouri 38, 79 Al-Manar 8, 59, 74, 95, 98, 117, 141 Al-Manawy, Abdel-Latif 35 Al-Maqal 159 Al-Masri, Hani 24–25 Al-Mehwar 7, 30, 93, 162 Al-Mirazi, Hafez 55, 62–63, 78 Al-Missned, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser 155–156 Al-Mughni, Haya 90

I N DE X

Al-Mulhem, Mohammed 172 Al-Mustaqilla 141, 158 Al-Mutawwaa, Naima 89–90, 106 Al-Nahar 94, 96 Al-Nasr, Bouthaina 99 Al-Qaida 59, 77 Al-Qaradawi, Yousef 80, 153–154 Al-Qattan, Omar 110 Al-Quds al-Arabi 11 Al-Quds Educational TV (AETV) 23, 46, 92 Al-Rai TV 26, 45 Al-Ramhi, Muntaha 95 Al-Rashed, Abdel-Rahman 59, 81, 148, 166 Al-Rashid, Talal Mohammed 9 Al-Resalah 7, 9, 11, 152, 154–155, 161–162, 174, 176 Al-Sadr, Muqtada 61 Al-Saleh, Maqbool Hameed 27 Al-Sanousi, Mohammed 36 Al-Sayegh, Abdel-Latif 37 Al-Shamikh, Reema 99 Al-Shanimeri, Fahd 152 Al-Sharia wa’l-Hayat 80, 95, 152 Al-Sharif, Iman 92 Al-Sharif, Safwat 29, 125 Al-Sharqiya 97, 117, 129, 142–143 Al-Shatat 198 Al-Sheib, Leila 95 Al-Sheikh, Ahmad 55, 71, 143–144 Al-Shirian, Daoud 54, 159 Al-Sumariya 142 Al-Suwaidan, Tariq 155, 176 Alwaleed bin Talal, Prince 9, 11, 122, 131, 152, 154, 162, 174 Al-Wasat 10 Al-Waseet 32 Al-Watan 101, 152 Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia) 101, 152 Al-Yaziji, Zeina 54 Al-Zibn, Abeer 44 American University of Beirut 19 Amnesty International 75 ANB (Arabic News Broadcast) 142–143 ANN (Arab News Network) 141 Aoun, Michel 9, 187 Arab Advertising Organization 195

251

Arab Advisors Group 12, 113–114, 120, 147, 189 Arab Art Production and Distribution 27, 124 Arab Committee for the Defence of Journalists (ACDJ) 69 Arab Human Development Report 38, 81, 101 Arab League 175 Arab News 54, 142 Arab Press Freedom Watch (APFW) 68–69 ArabAd 186 Arabism 57 Arabsat 6, 12, 130 Arafat, Yasser 23, 32, 36 Aridi, Ghazi 43–44 ART (Arab Radio and Television) 34, 54, 116, 122, 132, 146, 152, 154, 174–176, 188–192, 196–198 Al-Awael 130 Art Sport 192 ARY Digital Network 181 Asharq al-Awsat 35, 148, 180 Ashrawi, Hanan 92 Asian Games 145 Assaf, Heba 92 ATV (Jordan United Company for TV Broadcasting) 10, 32–33, 55, 67, 172 Atwan, Abdel-Bari 11 audience/s 3, 8, 13, 31, 57, 60–62, 90, 95, 97, 103, 105, 110, 114, 125, 127, 129, 137, 139, 143, 145, 148, 151, 153, 154, 162, 168–170, 172, 178, 183, 185–188, 200–201 people meters 187, 202 viewers 8, 130, 148, 161, 170, 202 viewing figures/statistics 5, 129, 186–187 see also ratings Australia, Australian 115, 124, 176 authoritarianism 16–17, 93 Ayish, Muhammad 151 Ayntrazi, Tariq 178 Ayyoub, Tariq 75 Azzawi, Jassem 55 Badreddine, Sharif 172

252

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Bahgat, Ahmad 7, 28–29, 42 Bahjat, Atwar 97, 106 Bahrain 10, 32, 38, 41, 44, 79, 115, 146, 169, 170–172, 195–197 Bahrain TV 172 Manama 197 Baksh, Nawal 91 Ballout, Jihad 58, 61–62, 78, 179, 193 Bani Hani, Hussein 31 Barghouti, Siham 92 Batrawi, Walid 25 Battah, Habib 70 Bayaran, Mohammed 99 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) 5–6, 13, 35–36, 39, 55–56, 58, 62, 68, 71, 75, 117, 119, 139–140, 144, 149, 156, 170, 180, 185 BBC Arabic TV 55, 68 BBC World 56, 140, 180 Beckett, Margaret 76 Belarus 56 Beltagi, Mamdouh 34–35, 129 Ben Ali, President Zein el-Abidin 26, 68 Ben Jeddou, Ghassan 57–58, 60, 62 Benabdellah, Nabil 20 Benjamin, Todd 29 Berg, Nick 72 Berlusconi, Silvio 3 Berri, Nabih 16 Bertelsmann 114, 193 Big Brother (Al-Rais) 115–118, 153, 170–171, 190 Bila Raqib 43–44 Bin Laden, Osama 59, 69, 77 Bin Qenna, Khadija 95 Bint min Shubra 129 Birzeit University 56 Bitterlemons 59 Blair, Tony 58, 75–76 Blunkett, David 76–77 Boodai, Jassem 26 Boodai Corporation 26 Booz Allen Hamilton 166, 168, 181, 183, 189 Boss Swap 10 Boulos, Jean-Claude 142 Bouneb, Mahmoud 156, 180

Bouteflika, Abdel-Aziz 95 Boyd, Douglas 91 branding 4, 167–168, 191 brand extension 161, 167 brand identity 167 mega brand 191 Britain see United Kingdom Bseiso, Farah 105 Bush, President George W. 76 Carroll, Jill 73 cartoons 1, 153 cassettes 20, 122 Celador 113–114 censorship 3, 6, 15, 19–20, 38, 54–55, 57, 85, 110, 111, 128, 157–158, 160 government censorship 35 self-censorship 44 uncensored 198 CEO 116–117, 120 Chahine, Youssef 133 Chalabi, Ahmad 64 Chalaby, Jean 138, 163 Cheney, Dick 70 Chidyac, Mai 70, 95–96, 106 children/children’s programmes 90, 101, 139, 143, 151–153, 155–156, 171 China 112 Choueiri, Antoine 177–178, 183, 185–186 Choueiri Group 185–186 Citicorp 123, 132 civil society 7, 16 Clark, Steve 76, 179, 196 CNBC Arabiya 64, 142, 148 CNN (Cable News Network) 29, 46, 60 Coase, Ronald 165 comedy 142, 156 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 69, 74 competition 13, 15–16, 29–31, 33–34, 49, 94, 96, 110–111, 113–115, 119– 120, 125, 127, 138, 140, 146, 161, 162, 167–168, 176–177, 181, 187–190, 195, 197, 199, 201 anti-competitive behaviour 166 competitiveness 137 convergence 151

I N DE X

253

copyright 120–121, 123 Crossfire 157 cultural industries 2 Curran, James 86, 105, 138 current affairs 1, 10, 53, 137–139, 143, 150, 160–161, 163 Cyprus 126, 152

Dubai Sports City 146 Dubai Studio City 133, 173, 198 Dubai TV 7, 13, 115, 128, 159, 161, 163, 168, 173, 184, 195 One TV 130–131, 134, 173, 189 dubbing 150, 181 Dyke, Greg 139–140, 161

Dabbous-Sensenig, Dima 27 Daher, Pierre 177 Daily Mirror 76 Dajani, Nabil 19 Davis, Eric 89 democracy 6, 9–10, 16, 19, 71, 81 democratization 17, 81, 83, 159 Denmark Danish cartoons of the Prophet 154 Danish embassy in Beirut 149 Deuze, Mark 51 Dick, Marlin 14, 70, 127 digital channels 7, 184 digital technology 72 set-top box 191 Disney 174 documentaries 1, 77, 149–151, 156, 201 drama 1, 14, 26, 102–104, 110–111, 113–114, 124–125, 128–129, 134– 136, 140, 143, 156, 198 musalsal/at 124–126 serialized drama 86, 124 Syrian drama/television drama 14, 129 Dream TV 7, 29–30, 37, 42, 54–55, 93, 103, 107, 158–160, 162–163, 198 Dreamland complex 28 drugs 40, 154, 156 Druze 27 Dubai 7–9, 13, 27, 37, 40, 54, 69, 87, 115, 119, 124, 126, 128, 130–131, 133, 140, 142, 146, 152, 159, 161, 163, 166, 168–169, 173–174, 176, 181, 183–184, 189, 194–198 Censorship Office 40 Dubai Media City (DMC) 166, 169, 173–174, 176, 195–198 Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) 130–131, 173–174, 185 Dubai Sports Channel 173

economies of scale 8, 167 education 39, 56, 85, 123, 137, 155, 182 EFG-Hermes 123, 132 Egypt 1, 6, 10, 14, 16–18, 22, 28–30, 33, 37–39, 41–42, 44–46, 56–58, 65–66, 81, 93–94, 102, 104, 106, 123–126, 129–134, 141–142, 147, 149, 151–152, 159–160, 162–163, 176, 185, 187, 189, 194–196, 198 Al-Azhar 129 Alexandria 133, 152 Bilbeis 39 Cairo 28–29, 33, 39, 54, 68, 102, 114, 122, 147, 149, 154–155, 162, 194, 197 Dahab 39 Egypt Space Channel 185 Egyptian film/s 130, 133, 190 Egyptian TV 81, 190 Egyptian Writers’ Union 126 ERTU (Egyptian Radio and Television Union) 6, 22–23, 30, 33–35, 66, 93, 127, 141, 149, 196 Journalists’ Syndicate 65–66 Khedive Ismail 194 Media Production City (EPMC) 7, 28, 30, 195 National Democratic Party (NDP) 35 National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority 23 presidential election 2005 30, 149 Public Authority for Investment and Free Zones 30, 196 Safaga 149 Shura Council 94 Taba 149 Eid, Ghada 64 Einstein, Peter 133, 141, 188–191 Eish Safari 153 Eissa, Ibrahim 42, 55 El-Fiqi, Anas 22–23, 35, 149

254

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

El-Haje, Nakhle 59 elites 5, 9, 15, 17–18, 28, 50, 199 El-Nawawy, Mohammed 51 El-Oifi, Mohammed 79 El-Shazli, Mona 160 Elwi, Leila 126 Elwi, Nader 123 emergency law/s, emergency legislation 38–39, 104 Endemol 114–115, 170 entertainment 1, 4, 10, 14, 27, 32, 109, 111–113, 134–137, 140, 142, 148, 154–155, 169–170, 177, 184 Ernst and Young 145 ethics 30, 50–51, 67, 70–73, 161 DMI Media Ethics Charter 174 mithaq al-sharaf (honour code) 71 see also Al-Jazeera: Code of Ethics Europe 2, 9, 52, 55, 115, 133, 148, 156, 176, 182 European television content 112 European Union (EU) 109 Eutelsat 12 expatriates 130, 189

Hollywood studios 115, 131, 133, 171 movie theatres 130 Financial Times 69 Fonoun Holding 123, 132 Forbes 174 Fox TV 60, 114, 118, 130, 171 Fox News 64 Twentieth Century Fox 130 France/French 3, 9, 19–20, 24, 31, 39, 133, 155, 181 Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA) 19, 20 Paris 12, 79, 155 freedom 3, 9, 25, 38, 51, 54–55, 58, 67–68, 72–73, 81, 88, 104, 144 freedom of expression 25, 58, 67, 72–73, 161 free-to-air channels 183, 189–191 FremantleMedia 113–114, 119–120 Friends 115, 130–131, 170 Fun FM 32 Future TV 13, 53, 64, 74, 94, 96–97, 113–114, 117, 119, 151, 160, 163, 170, 178, 184, 186, 190, 199

Fahd bin Abdel-Aziz, King 5, 43, 55, 59, 148, 169 Faisal bin Salman, Prince 141, 187, 193 Faisal, King 90–91 Fakhreddine, Jihad 112, 135, 168, 183, 185 Fakhry, Ghida 180 Faour, Adnan 9 Fares, Issam 177 fashion 9, 87, 148 Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ) 68 Filistiniyat 92 film 26, 40, 44, 46, 77, 92, 103, 109, 110, 124–125, 130–134, 136, 150– 151, 154, 176, 189, 198, 201 cinema 123–134, 190 documentaries 1, 77, 149–151, 156, 201 Egyptian film/movie industry 110, 132 film industry 109, 124, 133, 136 foreign films 130 Hollywood film/s 112, 130, 173, 198

Gabr, Mohsen 123 Galal, Ehab 153 game shows 1, 111–112, 116–117, 145, 155, 173, 202 Garang, John 55 Garnham, Nicholas 165, 202 gender equality 81 Geneva Convention 74 Fourth Convention (1949) 74 Germany 72, 114 Ghanem, Marcel 160 Ghossoub, Joseph 183 Gibbs, Paul 180 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 101, 106 Gohar, Mohammed 143 Good News Group 30, 134 GN4ME 133 Goodman, Amy 77 Guantánamo 69, 99 Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) 143 Gulf News 37 Gulf War 2, 52

I N DE X

Haddad, Sami 55, 57 Hafez, Abdel-Halim 123, 133 Hafez, Kai 50, 73 Hafez, Soheir 93 Hajjar, Lisa 53 Halawa, Tahany 93 Halimah, Bassam 114 Hamed, Hassan 6 Hammoud, Ihab 9 Hannibal TV 26 Hariri, Rafiq 53, 96, 175 Harris Corporation 142 Harry Potter 130 Hawi, George 96 HBO 133 HDTV (high-definition television) 12, 192 health 7, 56, 156, 182 hegemony 88 Hegland, Corine 99 Helal, Ibrahim 56, 61–62, 78, 143, 180 Hijazin, Paul 10 Hinnebusch, Raymond 17 Hiwar Maftouh 57 Hollywood see film Hong Kong 179 Horwitz, Robert 16 human rights 9, 14, 40, 71, 73 Hussein, Saddam 64, 96 Ibrahim, Nagwa 93, 103 Imaret Yacoubian 133–134 imperialism 53 incitement 70 India 109 Infinity TV 116 innovation 135, 138, 168, 199 intellectual property 123 International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) 49, 50, 64, 66, 68, 74 Internet 122, 139, 173, 192 Ipsos-Stat 187–188 Iqra 101, 152, 153, 154, 161, 162 Iraq 8, 18, 35, 38, 44, 52, 56, 59, 61, 63, 69, 70–73, 76–80, 82, 88–89, 91, 95–97, 102, 117, 122, 128–129, 139, 141–145, 159, 162, 171, 176–177, 182 Baghdad 38, 61, 69, 75, 77–79,

255

96–97, 117 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) 78, 80, 142 Falluja 60, 70 Interim Government of Iraq 18, 142 Iraqi Christians 152 Iraqi Governing Council 79 Iraqi National Congress 64 Karbala 61 Kurdistan 96 National Communications and Media Commission 18 Samarra 97 US-led invasion 8, 44, 56, 60–61, 69, 71, 78, 80, 88, 95–96, 139, 141, 162, 171, 182 Iskandar, Adel 51 Islam 64, 79, 85, 152, 155, 158, 176, 198 Muslim 42, 51, 61, 87, 124, 127, 129, 152 Shia 8, 45, 61, 97 Sunni–Shia division 158 Islamists 39, 129, 154 Islamist groups 17 Israel 21, 23–25, 51, 60–62, 73–74, 77, 92, 97–98, 119, 177, 179 Israel–Lebanon war 60–61, 73, 77, 177 Israeli forces/troops 25, 32, 45, 60–61, 75 Israelis 56, 75, 119 occupation 8, 23, 36, 117, 141 Italy/Italian 3, 31, 76, 102, 196 Avezzano 196 Rome 68, 196 Jamal, Abdelkader 31 Japan/Japanese 112, 143, 150 Jarrar, Khalida 92 Jerusalem 56, 117 Jerusalem Film Institute 92 Jettou, Driss 31 Joe Millionaire 118 Jordan 1, 10–11, 15–16, 18, 21–22, 25, 31–33, 38, 40, 44–46, 55, 67, 85, 101, 124, 128, 146, 171–172, 195–196, 198 Amman 10, 44, 55, 72, 113–114, 128,

256

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

147, 155, 197 Audiovisual Commission 22, 31 Higher Media Council (HMC) 21, 46 Jordan Media City (JMC) 196–198 Jordanian Press Association 67 JRTVC/Jordan TV 21, 32–33, 128 Petra News Agency 21 journalism 3, 49–54, 56–57, 59, 62–63, 66–67, 72–74, 77–83, 91, 100, 180, 199–200 journalists 4, 13–14, 41–42, 45, 49– 70, 72–74, 76–83, 89, 92–93, 96–99, 147, 160, 180, 190, 198, 199–201 training 56, 80, 83 Jumaa, Alim 40 Jumblatt, Walid 27 Jundi, Mohammed Akram 27, 124 Kafafi, Mounira 93 Kalam al-Nas 160 Kalam Kabeer 7 Kalam Nawaim 105, 107 Kamel, Saleh 34, 130, 132, 175, 190– 191, 196 Kanoo, Mishal 120 Karam, Mohammed 132 Kawalis 72 Keane, Michael 112, 117 Khaddam, Abdel-Halim 128 Khader, Asma 22 Khader, Samir 72 Khaled bin Sultan, Prince 176–177 Khaled, Amr 101, 153, 154, 162 Khaleek bil Beit 64–65 Khalil, Ali 97 Khalil, Joe 111, 116, 192 Khan, Riz 180 Khanfar, Wadah 69, 73, 76, 104, 133, 145, 180–181 Khatib, Nabil 56, 59–60 Khawaja, Dina 77 Khouri, Eli 187 Khoury, Giselle 70, 95 Khoury, Nabeel 80 Khoury, Rita 117 Khreisha, Amal 92 Khuzam, Akram 64 King Abdel-Aziz University 100

Kingdom Holdings Investment Group 194 KIPCO 133, 176, 193–194 Kotb, Magda 93 Kouyoumdjian, Zaven 53, 160 Krichen, Mohammed 149 Kurdi, Rania 118 Kurdi, Walid 64 Kuttab, Daoud 23, 25, 32 Kuwait 26–27, 44–45, 59, 67, 79, 89– 91, 126, 128, 133, 144, 146, 176, 183, 187, 193, 195 Kuwait TV 36, 90, 128 Kuwaiti investors 171 Ministry of Information 26 National Assembly 41 Press Law 41 Wataniya Telecom 176, 193 Labour and Materials 117 Lagardère group/ Lagardère International Images 155–156, 181 Lahoud, Emile 43–44, 65, 175 Lambert, Pierre 31 Latin America 109 Latin American telenovela 124 LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation) Al-Nagham 116, 177 LBCI 45, 119, 172, 176–178, 199 LBC-Sat 159, 174–176, 185, 200 Lebanon 1, 5, 8–9, 13, 15–16, 18–20, 25, 27, 34, 37, 40, 42–44, 46, 58, 60– 61, 65–66, 69, 73–74, 77, 82, 95–98, 102, 131, 139, 142, 152–153, 159–160, 163, 172, 175–178, 191, 194 Audiovisual Media Law 18, 27, 34 Beirut 9, 43, 54, 57, 74, 94, 98, 105, 112, 122, 131, 142, 149, 155, 175, 190, 194 civil war 18, 96, 131, 194 film production 131 Hizbollah 8–9, 45, 59, 74, 95, 97–98, 117, 141 National Audiovisual Council (NAC) 19, 20, 160 Tripoli 74 Levinson, Charles 128

I N DE X

liberalization 17, 21–22, 26, 31, 45, 47, 124, 134, 166 Libya 27, 38 licensing 3, 16–17, 20, 22–32, 37–38, 42, 46–47, 67, 80, 114, 197t Lifemakers 154 Lil Nissa Faqat 104–105, 107 Livingstone, Ken 79 local affairs/events/issues/news 6, 32–33, 46, 51, 56–57, 131 local content/input 114–118, 129, 135, 156 local culture 115–116, 151, 153 Lootah, Hussein Ali 173–174 Lust-Okar, Ellen 16 Luxembourg 114 Lynch, Marc 159 Maa Nashwa 161 Maalouf, Maria 95 McFadden, Tom 53, 81 McLaughlin, Lisa 87 Madani, Iyad 26, 36 Maghni, Ahmad 24 Maher, Ahmed 29 Mahmood, Saba 87 Maktabi, Rima 98 Malash, Amira 42 Mamnou channel 198 Mansour, Ahmad 19 Mansour, Sana 93 Mark Burnett Productions 119 Marwan, Gamal 29, 122 Maskall, Andrew 112, 170 Mauritania 57 Mawarid Group 12 Mazzika TV 122–123, 131, 185, 189 MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Centre) 5, 68, 99, 112, 114, 118, 125, 128, 147, 150, 168–173, 196–197 Arab Group International (AGI) 169, 185–186 MBC2 120, 130–131, 134, 169, 171, 173, 184–185, 189 MBC3 153, 171 MBC4 130, 134, 171–173, 189 MBC-FM 169, 171 Middle East News (MEN) 172

257

O3 150–151, 163 Médi 1 20, 31 media free zone/s 22, 29, 195–198 MediaHouse 102–104 Mehdi, Younes 31 Mekki, Hisham 36 Melody TV 29, 122–123, 131, 185, 189, 200 Mernissi, Fatema 85, 95 Messari, Larbi 20, 40 Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) 79–80 Milhem, Hisham 55–56, 58, 59, 99 Min Jadid 105 Missilmani, Mohammed 119 Mohammed, the Prophet 41, 154 Mohammed, Abdel-Azim 61 Mohammed, Aisha 90 Mohieddin, Mahmoud 44 Moran, Albert 112, 117 Morgan, Maggie 103 Morocco 1, 15–18, 20, 25, 31–32, 35, 38, 40, 45–46, 67, 126, 129, 131 Conseil Supérieur de la Communication Audiovisuelle (CSCA) 20, 31 Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle (HACA) 20 Marrakesh 31 Rabat 155 Société Nationale de Radio et Télévision (SRNT) 35 Moughrabi, Razan 126 Moukalled, Diana 96, 151 movies see film MTV (Murr TV) 37, 115 Mubarak, President Hosni 7, 14 Munla, Nadim 178, 190 Murdoch, Rupert 140 Murdock, Graham 11 Murr, Elias 42 Murr, Gabriel 42–43 Murr, Michel 43, 175 Murr, Myrna 43 Murr TV 42, 43, 175 music 1, 11, 26–27, 29, 31, 85, 110, 113– 116, 121–123, 125, 131, 135–136, 138, 153–156, 170, 175–176, 185, 189, 193

258

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Nagib, Layal 98 Nahrain TV 35, 122, 142–143 Nammour, Joumana 95 Nasra, Larbi 26 Nasrallah, Sheikh Hassan 45, 98 Nasser, Katia 98 NATO 74–75 Nawar, Ibrahim 68 Nazif, Ahmad 39 NBC 119 NBN (National Broadcasting Network) 8 Negm, Salah 55, 61 Netanyahu, Benyamin 157 Netherlands 55, 114 New TV 28, 42–44, 95, 98 New Woman Research Centre (NWRC) 102–104 news 1, 4–6, 9–11, 13–14, 21, 23, 27, 30–33, 36, 38–39, 49–59, 61–62, 64, 66–69, 73–74, 76, 78, 80, 82–83, 90, 92–95, 97–99, 101–102, 105–106, 113, 137–151, 154, 156, 158–163, 169–172, 176–181, 196, 200 news values 56, 62 News Corporation 174 News Xchange 59 newspapers/press 10, 15, 21, 31, 38, 40–42, 45, 57, 58, 67–68, 72–73, 79, 81, 105, 112, 114, 116, 120, 132, 144, 154, 161, 172, 175–177, 180, 193 NGO (non-governmental organization) 80, 92, 104 Nile FM 30 Nile Thematic Channels 35, 93 Nile News 6, 33, 56, 141, 147, 149 Nile Sports 149 Nile TV 92, 103 Nilesat 6, 7, 12, 30, 93, 130, 141 Nogoum FM 30, 123 Noorsat 12 objectivity 49–50, 52, 59, 61–62, 83 contextual objectivity 51 oil 148, 169, 182 Oliver, Lindsay 179 Oman 17, 25–27, 46, 172 Ministry of Information 25

Muscat 143 Oman Holding International (OHI) 27 Oman TV 172 Omar, Shada 159 Oprah 130, 157, 160, 172–173, 201 Orange TV 9 Orascom Telecom Holdings (OTH) 29, 122, 142–143 OTV 29 Orbit 5, 12, 30, 68, 128, 130, 146, 157, 160, 188–190, 192, 196–197 Al-Riyadhia 146 Orbit Network Centre 196 ownership 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 15–17, 20, 26, 30, 37, 46, 49, 51, 66, 122, 132, 163, 167, 175, 177, 195, 197–198 concentration 3, 8, 167 diversification 3 Pakistan 69, 96, 181 Palestine 32, 57, 59, 61, 92, 119, 142, 144 1995 Press Law 24 Al-Sharq al-Adna radio 92 Bethlehem 32 Declaration of Principles (DoP) 23 East Jerusalem 35 first intifada 92 Gaza 24–25, 32, 36, 44, 119 Hamas 9, 24, 36, 149 Hebron 32 Huna al-Quds radio 92 Legislative Council 23 Occupied Territories 92 Oslo Accords 15, 35, 92 Palestinian Authority (PA) 23, 25, 36, 45, 46, 67 Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) 23, 25, 36, 191 Palestinian Electoral Commission 71 Palestinian issues 159 Palestinian Satellite Channel 36 Ramallah 36 second intifada/uprising 56, 92, 95, 141 West Bank 15, 36, 46, 56, 60, 75, 98 Pan Arab Research Centre (PARC)

I N DE X

112, 183, 187–188 Paradise Now 133 Paramount 130 Parsons, Nigel 179–180 patronage 2, 17, 28, 169, 200–201 patronal relations 2, 6, 10 Paxman, Jeremy 62 pay-TV 5, 12, 20, 30, 34, 130, 133, 146, 157, 174, 188–190, 192, 201 subscription 133, 145, 152, 161, 189–191 see also ART; Orbit; Showtime PepsiCo 186 Perthes, Volker 17 Picard, Robert 137, 139 pluralism 17, 57 Polisario 40 political parties 16, 81, 198 Pop Idol 113–114 Powell, Colin 63, 69–70 press 15, 30, 41, 66, 173–174, 194 see also newspapers privatization 33–35, 42, 145, 193 professionalism 33, 50–51, 54, 62, 71, 83, 145 professionals 2, 5, 19, 37, 47, 50, 76, 81, 100, 199 programme formats 10, 51, 105, 107, 111, 112–118, 120–121, 125, 134–135, 153, 155, 157, 170–171, 201 propaganda 73, 77, 79, 104 public opinion 13, 102 public relations (PR) 11, 39, 172, 179 Qaboos, Sultan 25 Qadhafi, Muammar 27 Qadhafi, Seif al-Islam 27 Qandil, Hamdi 54, 158 Qassim, Najwa 96–98 Qassir, Abdullah 74 Qassir, Samir 60, 70, 96 Qatar 6, 70–71, 77, 89, 91, 143–147, 179 Doha 55, 69–70, 75–76, 80, 98, 132, 143, 150, 179, 180 Doha Debates 185 Qatar Foundation for Education 155 Qatar TV 90, 128 stock exchange 145

259

Quran 152–154 radio 20, 23–27, 29, 30–32, 34, 37, 45– 46, 71, 74, 91–92, 123, 152, 169–173, 177, 194 National Public Radio 78 Radio Mosaic 26 Radio Television Serbia (RTS) 75 Ragab, Mervat 93 Ramadan 7, 91, 102–104, 107, 113, 124–126, 128–129, 142, 152–153, 184 Rania, Queen 85 ratings 7, 26, 105, 113, 120, 151, 158, 161, 181, 188, 199 reality TV 111, 113, 117–118, 120–121, 125, 153, 155, 175, 177 Red Sea 163 religion 30, 41, 43, 47, 113, 137, 139, 154–155, 161, 198 religious guidance 1, 7 religious programming 151 religious rationale 162 Renaissance Cinema Company 132 Reporters sans frontières 75 representation 1, 11, 18, 65–66, 94, 105 Reuters 13, 172 Rice, Condoleezza 102 Right Start Foundation 154 Riordan, Tim 112, 118, 130, 170 Ritchie, Ian 113, 169 Ritmo TV 31 Rizk, Charles 34 Rotana 7, 11, 54, 122–123, 131–132, 135, 154, 174–176, 184, 189, 193–195, 200 Rotana Audiovisual Company 174 Rotana Cinema 131 Rotana Clip 122, 175 Rotana Zaman 131 RTM 35 Rumsfeld, Donald 70, 78 Russia 64 Saba, Nicole 126 Sabah Al-Arabiya 148 Sabea, Nancy 98 Safadi, Ayman 33 Samaha, Michel 19, 34

260

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Saker, Zoya 9 Salam Boccaccio ferry 149 Salamandra, Christa 125, 127, 129 Saleh, Fawzia 90 Saliba, Mona 98 SARAvision 169 Sat-7 152 satellite broadcasting/transmission 2, 6, 8, 26, 28–29, 32, 44, 95, 157, 178 satellite access/dishes 1, 147 Saudi Arabia 1, 9, 26, 36, 38–40, 42–44, 81, 90, 99–101, 106, 121, 126, 129–131, 142–143, 146–148, 152, 159, 162–163, 169–171, 174–177, 182–183, 186–187 Basic Law 39 Chamber of Commerce elections 101 Jeddah 100, 172 Makkah 91, 154 Medina 126 municipal elections 91, 100, 159, 163 Radio Makkah 91 Riyadh 100, 122, 152, 169, 177 Riyadh Radio 91 ruling family 42 Saudi authorities 143 Saudi Press Agency 36, 40 Saudi Sports 146 Saudi Telecom 121 Saudi TV 13, 91 siege of Makkah mosque 91 stock exchange/ stock market 148, 193 Taif 18 Saudi Research and Marketing 187 Sawiris, Naguib 29, 35, 81, 122–123, 136 Sawiris family 132 Schlesinger, Philip 13 Science Applications International Corporation 142 Scobey, Margaret 102 Sebastian, Tim 185 September 11 attacks 52 sex/sexual references 54, 198 sexual health 7 sexuality 157 sexual licence 88

sexual violence 103 Sgrene, Giuliana 102 Shaath, Nabil 24, 36 Sham TV 27 Sharafeddin, Doreya 93 Sharafeddine, Najat 94, 96 Sharon, Ariel 119 Shoter, Omar 12 Showtime 130, 133, 136, 141, 176, 181, 183, 188–195 Shukrallah, Hala 88 Siddiqi, Zafar 148 Simon, Joel 74 Sireh w’infatahit 53, 160 Sirhan, Hala 54–55, 93, 159 Sixth October University 103 Sky News 140 Smith, Dorrance 78 SMS (short messaging service) 121–122, 146 soap opera 102, 124 Solidère 175 Somiry, Benaz 92 Sony/Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) 115, 193 South Africa 16 South Korea 112 South Korean hostage 72 Spacetoon 185 Spain 69 Andalucia 127 sport 4, 11, 26, 125, 137, 141, 146, 148, 159 encrypted sports channels 192 World Cup 190–192 Stacher, Joshua 17 Star Academy 114, 118, 120–122, 146, 175, 186 Starting Over 105 stereotype/stereotyping 103, 111 Strix Television 115 subtitles/subtitling 130, 135, 150, 170, 173 Sudan 38, 44, 144 Darfur 150 Sugar, Alan 119 suicide attacks/bombings 52, 79, 91 Supernanny 172, 201

I N DE X

Super Star 114, 118, 120, 186 Survivor 115, 117 Suskind, Ron 77 Suyyagh, Dana 61–62, 99 Sweden 115 Syria 1, 14, 27, 32, 38–39, 42–43, 45, 54, 58, 96, 124–129, 141, 148, 151, 159, 160, 177, 195 Damascus 27, 102, 159 Syrian TV 54 Syriana 40, 198 Taiwan 112 Taliban/’Taliban mentality’ 70, 112, 128, 170 talk shows 7, 49, 53–54, 57, 64, 72, 79, 85, 105–106, 130, 137, 147, 157–161, 163, 173, 201 Tamimi, Azzam 9 Tantous, Wael 98 Tariq ila Kabul 128 Tash ma tash 129 Tatham, Steve 63–64 telecommunications 24, 44, 80, 122 Télé-Liban 34, 53, 142 Télé-Lumière 152 terrestrial broadcasting/terrestrial television 2, 8, 10, 15, 18, 20, 22–23, 26, 29–34, 37, 40–41, 45–46, 55, 65, 67, 91, 110, 122, 134, 139, 172, 176–177, 183 terrorism 39, 155, 176 ‘war on terror’ 52, 53, 79 Tétreault, Mary Ann 90 The Apprentice 116, 119, 120 The Farm (Al-Wadi) 115–116 The Investor 116, 119 The Price is Right 10 The View 105, 157 The Weakest Link 117 theatre 90, 100 Tiba channel 152 Tihama 177 Time Warner 174 Tower Media 9, 87 trade unions 16 General Federation for Trade Unions (Jordan) 124

261

journalism unions 65, 67, 72, 104 non-Arab unions 68 Treacher, Amal 88 Trump, Donald 119 Tueni, Gebran 94 Tunisia 26–27, 44–46, 63, 142, 176 Turkey 126 government 128 Ukhwat al-Turab 128 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 36–37, 40, 121, 126, 146, 160, 163, 173–174, 182–183, 187, 189, 195 Etisalat 121 Fujairah 195, 197 Fujairah Creative City 197 Ras al-Khaimah 195, 197 Sharjah 37 see also Abu Dhabi; Dubai United Kingdom (UK) 56–57, 59, 68, 75–76, 80, 113, 115, 118, 142, 154 British 3, 5, 56, 58, 63, 76, 78, 90, 113, 119, 140, 147, 169, 170 British media history 86 Foreign and Commonwealth Office 80 London 8–9, 11, 35, 57–58, 68, 79–80, 110, 141, 143, 150, 169, 176, 179, 180, 194, 196 National Union of Journalists (NUJ) 68 Royal Navy 63 United Nations (UN) 50, 96 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 100 UNESCO 50, 155 Unilever 186 United Press International (UPI) 169 United States (US) 8–9, 18, 44, 52–53, 55–57, 59–64, 69–70, 72, 74–82, 88, 91, 95, 102, 105, 109–115, 118–119, 124, 128, 131, 133, 135, 139, 141–145, 147–148, 150, 154, 158, 162, 169, 170–171, 173, 176–180, 182 Americans 56, 63, 76 CIA 59, 128 foreign policy 144, 158

262

A R A B T E L E V I S IO N T ODAY

Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) 81, 88 National Public Radio 78 New York 10, 69, 180 New York Stock Exchange 78 Pentagon 63, 76 State Department 55, 75, 142 US forces 61, 75 US government 61, 70, 76–78, 81, 109, 179 Washington 55, 62, 70, 76, 79, 80, 99, 158, 169, 179 White House 76, 158 Viacom 133 video clips 121–122, 176 video/s 62, 72, 75, 77, 123, 155 Video Cairo Sat 143 violence 38, 70–72, 75, 82, 97, 103–104, 107, 142–143, 152, 156 Voice of America (VOA) 55 Wali, Rashid Hamid 60, 61 Warner Bros 131 Watan TV 25

Waznak Dahab 117 Webhe, Haifa 116 Wehbe, Zahi 64 White, Aidan 64, 74, 79 Who Wants to be a Millionaire? 113–114, 117, 146, 170 Wife Swap 118, 201 Williams, Raymond 2 Williamson, Oliver 165 Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) 92 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 64 World Trade Organization (WTO) 182 Yemen 26, 46 Youssefi, Abderrahman 20 Zalatimo, Dima 99 Zaven see Kouyoumdjian Zayani, Fairouz 95 Zilo, Alexander 157 Zionism/Zionists 53, 59 Zogby International 13