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ARABIAN SIGHTS
INTRO
Arab ex-patriots living in Europe have at least five
satellite channels to choose from, but we have found out that the most popular
Arab TV station comes from Parson's Green...
COPY
Arab satellite television is almost as
diverse as the Arabian people. If your geography's not so hot the Arabian
peninsular is made up of twenty-one countries, mostly bordering the Red Sea,
with a combined population of around 200 million. The unifying factors are the
Arabic language and the Islamic religion, and that's where the hard facts begin
and end for no-one can say with any degree of certainty how many ex-patriots
there are living in Europe, and in particular the UK, though informed sources
suggest there may be as many as 75,000 in London alone.
Right now there are five TV and two radio
channels carrying programmes in Arabic, broadcast across Europe from Eutelsats
F1 and F3; they're positioned at 13 and 16 degrees East of South respectively,
which puts them almost next-door to the Astra satellites. Several other
channels are rumoured to be in the pipeline, though no-one we've spoken to is
willing to commit themselves on satellites or start-up dates, we'll keep you
informed. Reception in the UK is fairly straightforward; a large (80cm to
1-metre) dish and regular receiver set-up is normally adequate for the Southern
half of the country.
Suleyman Cangoz from Express Satellite
has installed many systems for his Arab-speaking customers, like many other
dealers he favours systems based around Pace and Nokia receivers, with matching
positioners for full multi-satellite operation. 'We reckon a typical motorised
system, with an 80cm dish costs around £550'. We asked him if a fixed dish
system be simpler and cheaper? 'It's the most flexible option' he says, 'it's easier to sell motorised systems
nowadays, people have become used to the idea of the dish moving around to
receive signals from other satellites'.
THE PROGRAMMING
MBC or Middle Eastern Broadcasting is the
only Arabic STV channel not to originate from the Middle East, in fact they're
based in Parson's Green, in London, which hardly fits the image of a romantic
desert setting, but MBC are quite unique, their output is primarily intended
for a Middle Eastern audience. The channel, which runs for 12 hours a day (15
on Friday) is carried by both Eutelsat and Arabsat, and it's the Eutelsat
coverage that is picked up in the UK by viewers with satellite dishes, or
subscribers to cable networks on the continent. MBC's output is predominantly
general entertainment with a typical mix of soaps, current affairs, news and at
least one movie each day, usually produced by the thriving Egyptian film
industry. An Indian film is normally shown on Sundays. MBC are particularly
proud of their news coverage -- up to ninety minutes every day -- they have
around 80 people working in their London news room, with international
correspondents in most major cities. During our research the quality of news
and current affairs on Arabic STV channels was frequently criticised for being
insular and biased, MBCs popularity appears to be based to large extent on the
impartiality of their news and current affairs programming.
Sport is another key element in MBCs
schedule and there are cartoons, women's and home interest shows during the
morning and afternoon. Some Western drama serials and soaps are also shown,
they're dubbed into Egyptian. Surprisingly religious content is fairly
low-level, though the station opens and closes each day with readings from the
Koran.
CASE HISTORIES
Our admittedly small scale survey of Arab
satellite TV viewers failed to find any real enthusiasts for the other four
channels, indeed several of our interviewees were not even aware that some of
them even existed, even though they had multi-satellite systems capable of
picking them up. Those who who did watch them had very little to say about the
scope or nature of the programming. In contrast MBC was widely praised and a
consistent favourite; Sahab Ell Salish,
a businessman and father of two from North London had his system installed just
over a year ago. 'I personally don't see much TV, I watch CNN, Sky News and occasionally MBC which is
quite good, my children are students and they don't see it much either, the
other channels are not very interesting'.
Deja Ourdi, originally from Morocco now living in North London follows
the news programmes on the Arabic channels. 'I'm interested in current affairs
and you get better coverage of events in the region from MBC. I watch a lot of
CNN for the world news, and RTM1, mostly because it's from Morocco, and I'm
Moroccan.
We asked where you could find out about
Arabic television programmes, most of those we spoke too either didn't know, or
seem particularly interested, though Deja Ourdi pointed out that there were a
number of Arabic newspapers, published in London. Listings are carried by
Middle-Eastern dailies Asharq, Al Awsat Al Hayat, Al Arab and Al Ahran. MBC
schedules are also available on teletext, though there is a problem in that few
teletext decoders have the necessary Arab chipset, needed to display all the characters.
Philips apparently make one, though it seems it is not very widely available.
BOX COPY 1. -- ARABIC TV AND RADIO CHANNELS
CHANNEL SAT TR FQ/POL CONTENT
RTM1 EII F3 16E 25L 10.972/V Moroccan gen. ent.
ESC EII F3 16E 27U 11.178/V Egyptian gen. ent
TV7 Tunisie EII F3 16E 39 11.658/V Tunisian state chan
MBC EII F1 13E 32 11.554/H Middle-Eastern B-cast
Emirates Dubai TV EII
F1 13E 34L 11.638/H Gen. ent and news
RADIO CHANNELS
RTM Intl EII F3 16E 25L 7.02 Arabic news music
Radio Tunisia Intl EII
F3 16E 39 7.2 Arabic news music
contact nos.
Deja Ourdi -- 081-985 1318
Sahab Ell Salish -- 081-907 8218
MBC -- 071-371 9595 PR man Nick Hart (ex BSB)
---end---
R.Maybury 1994 2601
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