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Arab satellite channels and challenges ahead
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by Abdallah Kassir
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 The recent remarkable growth in Arab satellite channels have given rise to many questions. For decades, state-owned media were considered the only reference in the Arab World. However, their credibility was severely weakened as was their influence, because of their unlimited reverence for official leaders.
Arab and Muslim viewers were pushed into considering Western media as a more reliable source of information and news, and thus becoming victims of that biased media, drenched in American and Zionist propaganda.
Technological developments and economic reforms in Arab and Muslim countries paved the road for the private media to grow, especially in the fields of radio and television. This growth was spurred by an environment that was in desperate need for credible non-governmental sources of information. A quick glance over the size and the reach of the more than 250 Arab channels, confirms the success of some in fulfilling this need.
Many of the larger Arab channels such as Al Jazeera, Al Manar, Abu Dhabi, MBC, LBC, Al Arabiya, and Dubai TV are on the forefront of the media scene. They became an international authority with their presence and performance, extending far beyond the Arab scope and affecting the Western public opinion. Despite being Arabic language channels, they have proved to be up to par with their distinguished and exclusive coverage of breaking news and other important regional events.
This, in turn, has forced the Western channels to sometimes relay Arab broadcasts and acknowledge their scoop or even discuss issues brought forth by those channels, which indirectly helped solidify their presence within the Western circles of opinion.
These satellite channels have become an integral part of the Arab and Muslim persona, now recovering from the pressure of Western challenges. Thanks to the Arab channels’ improvement in performance, the bias in the long-dominating Western TVs has become more noticeable.
The mounting events in the Muslim world especially in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan gave the Arab media a perfect opportunity to prove themselves and the viewers’ confidence. Those are the same viewers who long suffered of Western media bias.
Not only did Arab channels foster variety, but they have instigated a sense of competition through their respective mottos: opinion- counter opinion, dotting the i's, and closer to the truth. Each of them is now aiming at mirroring all points of views and being the first to deliver the news.
Al Manar has become a unique experience through offering support to occupation’s resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also working continuously on improving its professional performance and resorting to new and contemporary technologies in broadcast and production.
In a record time, from 1991 to 2000, Al Manar proved itself as one of the most important Lebanese channels. From 2000 onwards, it occupied an important space among the larger pan-Arab and Islamic channels.
Its contribution in forging Arab public opinion and support of the resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq through its programming has managed to shake the Zionist entity. Hence, it became the target of vicious attacks from Israeli lobbies in the US and Europe who established various groups specialized in tracking Al Manar’s international broadcasts. They even accused the station of "terrorism", even though Al Manar has always been adamant on seeking objectivity, diversity, accuracy and credibility. It is only enough to point out that the channel’s news bulletins were ranked first among other Lebanese and Arab peers in a 2005 Lebanese University credibility survey.
Arab satellite stations now face an immense challenge. They should start cooperating and banding together in order to counter the injustice and oppression laid out by Western governments. A perfect example lies in the US administration's intentions to bomb Al Jazeera in addition to the random rulings imposed on Al Manar, banning its broadcasts through American and European satellites. However, through patience and persistence, it faced these challenges and re-launched its international broadcast through non-European and non-US satellites. Viewers all around the world were once again able to enjoy watching Al Manar, which managed to draw vast sympathy in many Arab and Western capitals.
The future certainly carries many challenges for Arab satellite channels. Therefore we are calling for cooperation and collaboration to urge Arab and Muslim governments to enact laws and regulations to protect and preserve pan-Arab stations from possible oppression and injustice. We would like to point at the Arab League’s essential role in helping to resolve this matter.
However, the most difficult challenge for our channels remains in drawing in the Western viewer, especially in Europe and in the Americas so as to break the Western media’s monopoly over international public opinion.
A cooperation initiative is needed to launch several competent Arab channels in many languages to compete with the Western media. Those channels will deliver the Arab and Islamic point of view to the world, thus offering a different perspective from that of the West. The latest insult to the Muslim Prophet and religious sacraments is indeed the proof needed for the creation of such channels to introduce Islam and its culture to the world, far from its conventional distorted image.
I surely think that Western public opinion, especially in Europe, is willing to deepen its knowledge of Islam and Arabs, through a direct source, or
a source that is different from the currently available ones. Perhaps the evidence lies in the increasing numbers
of Westerners interested in learning about Islam through attending university lectures, conferences and the reading of books.
Will this urgent call be heard?Abdallah Kassir is general manager at Al Manar TV.
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