Egypt media market survey

The BBC World Service has released a survey of the Egyptian media market, conducted in December 2004.  No real surprises, but here's the main findings:

*"The gap between TV watching and radio listening has widened - 89 per cent of respondents said they watched television daily, compared with 79 per cent in 2003. For radio, only 50 per cent listen to it on a daily basis, down from 62 per cent in 2003."   

* The survey also found that Radio Sawa's "weekly reach" had increased from 7% to 11%.  For perspective, "Listeners said they were most interested in religious programming: 58 per cent of respondents said that they listened to Holy Koran Radio."

*"The cable/satellite TV market continues to grow, with 28 per cent having access in their own homes, compared with 16 per cent in 2003. This growth is seen as eating into the radio market. Al-Jazeera's weekly reach has grown from 15 per cent in 2003 to 28 per cent. This far exceeds that of any other international TV broadcaster.  CNN, for example, has a weekly reach of 3 per cent.  The domestic state broadcaster, ERTU, scores highly for trust, objectivity and relevance with its nearest competitor being Al-Jazeera. However, ERTU registered a slight decline in trustworthiness while Al-Jazeera's ratings improved in all three categories."

The survey either did not ask about al-Hurra, or else al-Hurra did not show up enough to merit mention.

Comments

[SP]

"ERTU scores highly for trust, objectivity and relevance" - really? Is this among the population as a whole, most of whom do not have access to cable news? I'd like to know what the relevant figures are for those who do have a basis for comparison

[simsim]

What does the abbreviation ERTU exactly stand for? Is it Egypt Radio & TV or what ?

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Golly, I would sure like to know more about the people who run al-Jazeera.

For example, the people behind the Paris paper Le Monde, Patrick Jarreau, Laurent Greislamer, Jean-Marie Colombani, provide a center-left narrative to international events, culture and politics with wide acceptance among educated middle class. The same goes for the team behind La Repubblica, Vittorio Zucconi and Eugenio Scalfari. Unlike the Washington Post or The New York Times, there appear to be no pundits who regularly slap their readership in the face with innuendo, provocation, sometimes idiocy (thinking of Friedman here) and carrying water for the Administration. They don't censor debate and are progressive (leftish) in their outlook.

So who are these al-Jazeera men and women behind the scenes? What universities did they attend? Do they have links to foreign academia or media people? What is there philosophy? Why do they bother to offer debate? What are their political beliefs? Are they serving the middle class? What are they trying to achieve? Are they comrades in arms with the Monde and Repubblica people mentioned above?

[SP]

ERTU stands for Egyptian Radio and Television Union, if I remember correctly.