JEDDAH, 24 June 2006 — Why spend SR1,500 on the World Cup when SR700 will do? That’s the question many residents in Jeddah have been asking themselves.
“We ran out of stock of decoding receivers two weeks before the World Cup,” said Ali Adam, a Sudanese technician at a satellite shop in Hail Street. “In one week we sold 200 units of decoding receivers.”
Indeed, the vendors of the decoding hardware that allows people to unlock paid satellite channels say demand has increased recently, raising the price of the equipment by as much as SR200 per unit. They attribute the sales spike to football fans that didn’t want to subscribe to ART, the sole provider of World Cup matches in the region, which required a one-year commitment for access to the games.
With a satellite decoder, viewers have access to direct feeds to European networks, allowing customers in the Middle East an alternative to ART’s subscription broadcasts. Many Arab speakers are happy to sacrifice the Arabic play-by-play commentary in order to watch the matches at a lower cost narrated in European languages.
Subscription satellite feeds are protected through an elaborate system that uses codes that are changed from time to time in order to throw code-crackers off the trail. But these updated codes are offered through an equally elaborate system. New codes can be obtained through local vendors, or through Internet sites that make trading codes easier than trading MP3s.
Kamal, an Egyptian technician at Sahari center for satellite dishes, said new codes could be broken and receivers reprogrammed for a small fee, usually SR10.
“Usually it takes two to three months for codes to change and when they do, the market floods with customers looking to reprogram their receivers,” he said.
Meanwhile, satellite-television code-crackers are entering a new generation of technology: using a DSL Internet line connected to the receiver that automatically applies new code changes in real time; no more taking your receiver down to the local shop to get the new codes.
Salah Ahmad, a Saudi computer technician at a private computer company in Jeddah, calls this new technique a major breakthrough, one that will likely be adopted as fast as it becomes available.
Hatim Misfer, a 34-year-old Saudi government employee, says he’s using a decoding receiver to watch the World Cup matches because his salary isn’t enough for an ART subscription.
Though it is bothering to watch the games with unrecognized languages, Misfer said it’s better than nothing.
“Many people in the Kingdom cannot afford to subscribe to paid channels,” he said, tossing in a populist ideal to the concept of world football: “The World Cup is for all to watch, not only for a few who can afford it.”
Saudi bank employee Ahmad Shaif, 29, said he chipped in with his three brothers to subscribe to ART just for the World Cup.
“Since it’s a once-every-four-years event, the subscription fee was worth it to us,” he said.
He said having ART’s Arabic commentary was important to him. Otherwise, he might have been one of the many in Jeddah that took the alternative, and less costly, route to watching the World Cup.
