The Arab viewer is in a state of bliss. Last year ended with some well-wrapped gifts in the form of free-to-air channels, and there are serious prospects for introducing new ones this year. This paper will focus on the arrival of two new free-to-air entertainment channels, Dubai's One TV and …

Juha once remarked, as he sat on the beach and looked at the incoming waves, "There are more coming in than there are going out." Critics of Arabic music video clips may wish to ponder this wisdom and bow to the inevitable, since their efforts to stem the tide are …

Inexpensive analogue satellite TV gear introduced to the Arab world during the 1990s, and the even cheaper digital TV satellite technologies that have followed since the beginning of this decade, have been instrumental in short-circuiting a number of stages in the evolution of the TV distribution landscape in the Arab …

A voluptuous female swings her body back and forth in an atmosphere torrid with sex. She revolves around a respectable middle-aged gentleman seated behind a desk and surrounded by heaps of papers. The female bends her trunk and straightens her lower limbs in a desperate attempt to convince the gentleman …

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced in February that his country will hold its first multi-candidate presidential elections in 2005. Mubarak hopes that this "historic step," as many have deemed it, will convince outsiders and Egyptians alike that Egypt is finally leading the way to democracy in the Middle East, as …

BEIRUT -- A visual orgy. A human tsunami. A numbers game. Observers ran out of labels to describe Lebanon's made-for-TV intifada against a three-decade Syrian presence and attempts to counter it by Damascus' allies.  In a bid to sway public opinion for or against the government and its Syrian patron, …

(Translated by David Wilmsen, TBS contributing editor)  A persistent question amongst Arab thinkers simply stated is this: What does the future hold for culture in our land? If we think about it, the word "culture" holds multiple meanings for each of us. For that reason, I should begin with a …

In quantitative terms one could say that video clips dominate Arab satellite television. At any given time as many as a fifth of the free-to-air channels on Nilesat may be broadcasting video clips. Other programming categories that preoccupy observers of Arab satellite television -- specifically news, religion, and dramatic serials …

In a March 25 interview with The Washington Post, American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice marveled at the contribution of satellite television to the emerging democratic trend in the Middle East and the world. Watching the Lebanese protestors in the streets, she argued, inspired people around the globe to take matters …

This article appeared originally in the guide to News Xchange 2004, Algarve, 18-19 November 2004 The twenty-first century terrorist fights with a Kalashnikov in one hand and a video camera in the other. Ten weeks ago, from the ruins of the Beslan School, a tape surfaced showing the hostages, pathetically huddled …