LBC Sat and Saudi Arabia: the sex scandal

As most of the readers of this blog know by now, LBC Sat's office in Jeddah has been closed by the Saudi Ministry of Information and Culture. This happened after LBC's "Ahmar Bil Khat Al Arid" showed the "confession" of a Saudi man, recalling how he had numerous sexual encounters with many Saudi women. The witness, explained how to pick up Saudi women using Bluetooth etc...

The interesting thing is LBC Sat's reaction. Silence (what can they say, they rely on Saudi ad money and LBC Sat is partly owned by Saudi prince Walid Bin Talal),and most unexpectedly... reruns!

Indeed, LBC Sat has been rerunning a 3-4 month old interview with Saudi Minister of Information and Culture, Abdel Aziz Khoja, where he proclaims how he wants to work with private owned Satellite channels (such as LBC Sat) and how the freedom of these channels is good for Saudi Arabia.

That said, the interview itself is quite interesting. Mr. Khoja is very candid and talks openly about the media, internet, freedom, Saudi problems etc...

China's Arabic TV

China's CCTV will start today (Saturday 25th July) its Arabic language broadcasting. The channel aims at "enhancing China's image in the Middle East"

This comes after CCTV's English, French and Spanish services.

Jordan and the Media Tax

Jordan's government was planning to cancel a media tax on advertising revenues (currently set at 5%). The Senate Education Committee rejected this cancellation and proposed lowering the tax to 1% of ad revenues.
The Senate has now to approve this change.

LAST MINUTE: Arabiya in Iran closed

LAST MINUTE:

Iranian authorities closed this morning Al Arabiya's office in Teheran. This happened as internal fighting is happening in the Iranian capital over the contested presidential elections (Ahmadinejad vs. Moussavi)

Various Arab media news

Dear Blog followers,

Sorry for not updating the blog, but we have been busy preparing reports and studies on the Lebanese elections, Obama's visit and Ahmadinejad's relection.

Here is some of the "best" you missed this last period:

1) Rotana Music finally moved out of Beirut, destination...Egypt (we had announced Amman); it turns out Jordan was indeed in the short list, but Egypt was finally selected as Rotana already broadcasts some programs from there.

2) Lebanon's Al Akhbar announced that LBC's Pierre EL Daher and Walid Ben Talal had a fallout(to be followed)

3) CNN was voted the "favorite news channel" by a panel of Arab voters (from the top earners) followed by BBC, Jazeera, CNBC and then Euronews (Study by Sinofit)

4 ) The Arab Media Forum was held this year. We attended the debates in Dubai. I have to say it was quite interesting. Especially when Arabiya's Nabil El Khatib faced Jazeera's Ahmed El Sheikh and BBC Arabic team; to discus the Gaza war coverage. Debates were heated as to the content of the coverage. Unfortunately, the content experts that Comtrax Solutions is, we did not have time to provide the necessary data to show scientifically how the coverage was.

Media visibility

For all of you french speakers, here are my latest media interventions in French

Small interview on France 24
Subject: MTV's reopening
http://www.france24.com/fr/20090411-murr-tv-revient-ecrans-beyrouth-medias

Interview on RFI (Radio France International)
Subjects: Electoral campaign in Lebanon
http://atelier.rfi.fr/profiles/blogs/emission-n803-campagne (I am in the middle of the recording)

Our program on MTV

Dear Blog fans,

Please make sure to take a look at the program MTV Lebanon (MTV Al Lubnaniya) is producing, and for which my company (Comtrax Solutions) is the data provider.

The program is called "Bil Arkam" it runs right before the evening newscast (at 19h50 Lebanese time, 16h50 GMT) The 3 minutes program is a daily comparison of how Lebanese newscasts approached the news from the day before.

Be sure to watch it! Your comments are welcome bitar@comtraxsolutions.com