Saudi Arabia bans live programming
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by MEB Journal Staff
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Saudi Arabia’s information minister has banned live programming on all five of the government’s television channels. The government reacted very strongly after viewers of news channel Al Ekhbariya phoned into a political program and criticized the recent increase of public-sector wages as “inadequate.” Al Ekhbariya director Muhammad Al Tunsi was fired, and replaced by one of the information minister’s personal aides. “The decision prohibits the broadcasting of any show before it is approved by a censorship committee that was formed for this purpose,” reports the independent Saudi news website Elaph, “which means that this committee will also have a say concerning the guests hosted by the shows of the television channel.” A programming executive at Al Ekhbariya, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the MEB Journal that live programming was suspended – not banned and would be resumed once the state broadcaster had finished performing a “general overhaul.” An online travel and tourism channel has begun streaming from Abu Dhabi and is said to be the firstdever Internet tourism channel. The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and Asfar magazine launched Asfar TV to provide an online platform for Arab tourism sectors, says the magazine’s publisher Ibrahim Al Dhuhli. He said all employees of Saudi television received a memo in October of 2007 informing them of a development and restructuring campaign “for both form and content” to be completed by 2009. “People are linking the suspension of live programming to a par incident, but this is not true,” said the executive, insisting that the government plans to resume live programming. Al Ekhbariya began broadcasting seven years ago, quickly gaining popularity as it reported on local social issues and became a platform for discussing national problems. The Saudi government announced a five percent salary increase for its employees in late January meant to ease the effect of growing inflation.
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