Two interesting notes from al-Sharq al-Awsat today with regard to American Arabic-language broadcasting.
First, Sulayman al-'Aydi, director of Saudi TV channel one, complains that al-Hurra's budget is five times his budget. Seeing as how nobody watches either one of them, this might be rephrased as "Saudi Arabia wastes one-fifth the money on official state television broadcasting as does America." Of course, since al-'Aydi claims that al-Hurra's budget is $500 million a year (it isn't, at least not on any books that I've seen), take the whole thing with several large grains of salt.
The first question al-Sharq al-Awsat asks al-Aydi is this: "how do you respond to those who say that Saudi Channel One is backward compared to other satellite stations?" How come nobody ever starts an interview with Muwafic Harb (director of al-Hurra) like that? Instead of "is it true that you have state of the art, highly expensive studios in Northern Virginia? How cool is that?"
Second, al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Rotana (the leading purveyor of Arab video clips and pop music) is launching an FM radio station in Jordan. One of the main reasons for Radio Sawa's relative success in attracting market share was that it faced no real competitors - it was just really hard to find good radio in places like Amman. Rotana presumably will change that, giving Jordanians the option of an Arab purveyor of pop music. It will be very interesting to see how Sawa's market numbers look a year from now - especially since those market numbers are its only claim to success.
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