Feb. 20, 2002: When TBS reported from Doha in October about the affiliation between CNN and Al-Jazeera, both sides were describing their resource-sharing agreements as mutually beneficial, a good example of what two major broadcasters can do when they work together. Three months and one Osama bin Laden interview later, there was …

An interview with John Tydeman, CEO, Arab Digital Distribution John Tydeman is CEO of Arab Digital Distribution (ADD), the platform company for the Arab Media Corporation (AMC) group which owns ART. ADD creates and manages bouquets of channels and markets and distributes these channels across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle …

The problematic posed by the organizers of this colloquium pose a number of issues to consider when looking at the economic feasibility of specialized and general channels. But first let me clarify the points from which I draw my own perspectives on this issue—and it is not from comprehensive research, the …

Several satellite projects are breaking new ground in the Middle East. Egypt needed to find an effective medium for transmissions that reach all parts of the country and the Arab region as well, with minimum expense. The Egyptian government wanted to take a piece of the satellite cake by taking advantage …

Will it be cooperation or competition for Nilesat and Arabsat, the Middle East's two major satellites? And what will be the impact of Cairo's new Media Free Zone on any competition? TBS Senior Editor Hussein Amin spoke with Arabsat Assistant Director General Omar Shoter in Paris, and TBS Cairo Correspondent Heba Kandil …

Special section: "Actors and New Stakes in the Euro-Arab Satellite Scene": Reports from the Institut du Monde Arabe's first Arab broadcasting seminar The essential question at hand in this seminar—the complex state of the Arab satellite broadcasting industry, and its relations with Mediterranean neighbors—was "phrased" in various ways by different panels, with …

Two years ago, Nilesat was launched carrying a vast array of Egyptian and Arabic channels, promising to change the Arab media scene and reassert Egypt's role as the region's media leader. Among that array were the thematic channels, owned by the government's "public corporation" the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU), …

A Conversation with Michael Hudson and Jon Anderson,  Co-Directors of the Arab Information Project, The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University "Access to new information resources is shaping up as a major issue across the Arab Middle East," says Dr. Michael Hudson, Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies and Professor of International …

With the enormous and ever-increasing number of TV programs being offered nowadays—it could soon reach 500 digital channels worldwide—viewers are in need of help in navigating this myriad of options, a solution that will provide them with more information on the programs and give them a simple, easy-to-follow guide. Perhaps nowhere …

This article first appeared in the May 2000 bulletin of the Society Suisse Moyen Orient et Civilisation Islamique and is republished with the Society's kind permission.  Dr. Naomi Sakr is a Research Associate of the University of Westminster in the UK. She specializes in aspects of media development in the …