I am not one who discourages people from venturing into new areas but I am against pursuing fanciful ideas or hastily embarking on major projects without thorough planning and preparation. Now I would like to ask if we really need an additional television news channel to add to the three existing stations — Channel One and Two of Saudi Arabian Television and the newly established Sports Channel. Is adding a fourth channel for only broadcasting news a pressing need at this moment? Wouldn’t it be more sensible if the money were spent on other more important priorities so as not to put additional burdens on a treasury already suffering a deficit?
Operating a news channel requires a broad range of freedoms which allow people to express their views. It needs wide room for maneuvering in order for the work to gain and then maintain momentum and, above all, an ability to compete with both Arab and international channels. It means using unconventional and daring tactics to attract viewers. An example which should spring to mind here is the Qatar-based Al-Jazeerah.
An equally important point is that the presence of women is vital to a channel’s success and this means that those planning the new station should address the matter carefully. The experience of channels on which women appear wearing Islamic dress should be looked at carefully.
Abu Dhabi television is government-owned. Until recently it was largely a local channel, drawing the majority of its viewers from UAE population. Suddenly, the channel has changed and emerged as a widely popular and sought-after station; it is now firmly established in the world of satellite television. What happened was that the Emirate’s Ministry of Information gave the channel a free hand to reform and improve. At the height of the Iraqi crisis, the channel broadcast full statements by Iraqi officials, vehemently attacking the initiative of the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahyan asking for Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership to resign in order to avoid war. The channel in Dubai, another state-run UAE entity, is to follow suit and is now undergoing a radical restructuring to enable it to compete with its neighbor in Abu Dhabi.
We have a number of alternatives which we might choose. We could wait until the time for such a project was feasible, when the channel would be capable of real competition and would not simply produce copies of what we already have on other channels. We could, however, settle for what we have and focus on improving the performance of those three channels. We could use the funds allocated for the new channel to operate one that addresses Europeans and Americans in their own languages. If the last alternative is not feasible, the least we could do is produce programs in English and pay Western stations to transmit them.
- Arab News From the Local Press 8 May 2003
