According to a just-released Ipsos Stat survey, al-Arabiya dominates the Iraqi market for Arab satellite television news, while al-Jazeera is doing remarkably poorly:
The Dubai-based channel was considered the most popular choice for news information. According to the same survey, the news channel ranks second after state-run Al Iraqiya in terms of family and general programming. ... The study showed that 41% of the sample chose Al Arabiya as their prime source of news while 46% of respondents follow Al Iraqiya. Sharqiya news channel was ranked third with 39% while MBC1 and 2 were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. Al Arabiya viewership was double its main regional competitor - Al Jazeera - which was ranked sixth.
Al-Arabiya beating out al-Jazeera in the Iraqi market isn't new - al-Jazeera has struggled with an official governmental ban, many Iraqis dislike al-Jazeera because they don't like its coverage or resent its allegedly pro-Saddam coverage before (and after) the war, and al-Arabiya has worked hard to cultivate an area of relative advantage. The scale of its advantage is surprising, though, and significantly larger than in other surveys I've seen.
Just for the record, note that al-Hurra does not appear at all (which should surprise nobody, except for those trusting souls - or CongressPeople - who actually believe Broadcasting Board of Governors press releases about al-Hurra market share and audience).
I don't watch al-Arabiyya very often--does it have better Iraq coverage? Could there be a slight dialect difference that makes al-Jazeera less popular?
Posted by: praktike | October 30, 2005 at 02:55 PM
Pratike, difference of framing. Not dialect. Al-Arabiyah has less (Sunni centric) Arab nationalist bent to its coverage with respect to Iraq.
I personally have long liked Al Arabiyah for being somewhat less sensationalistic.
Sit down and watch it for a while, you'll see the tendancies.
Posted by: collounsbury | October 30, 2005 at 07:22 PM
Does al-Arabiya have talk shows? I haven't noticed much bias in their Iraq coverage in the news bulletin since I began understanding what people say (I guess about a year ago). Although I also don't have access to the video and listen to it maybe once every couple of weeks. But al-Jazeera likes to have colorful folks sounding off at each other or into the camera much more than most news channels. If al-Arabiya puts more sedate officials and bland analysts on the air, that would certainly seem to favor a non-disgruntled-Sunni Iraqi perspective.
Posted by: Michael | October 30, 2005 at 11:13 PM
I haven't noticed much bias in their Iraq coverage
Their meaning al-Jazeera's.
Posted by: Michael | October 30, 2005 at 11:20 PM