JEDDAH, 1 December 2006 — Many have said there need to be bridges of understanding between the West and the Muslim world, but Muzzammil S. Hassan has created an American Muslim television network to do just that, and it is appropriately named Bridges TV.
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Hassan studied at the American School in Bahrain before going to the United States in 1980 where he earned an MBA from the University of Rochester (New York). He started his American banking career in Buffalo, New York, where he expanded M&T Bank’s online lending portfolio from $2 million in 1998 to more than $350 million by 2003. It was in 2001 at the advice of his wife and in response to growing anti-Muslim sentiments in the US that the network got its start.
“The idea of Bridges TV came about soon after 9/11,” Hassan told Arab News in Jeddah during a recent fund-raising drive for the network. “My wife, Aasiya Zubair, and I were driving from New York to Detroit in November 2001 and we were listening to the radio. During the radio program, a number of derogatory comments were made about Muslims and Arabs. It was very upsetting. So my wife suggested that there should be some kind of media which would give Muslims in America a voice. ‘Why don’t you do it?’ she asked me. That is how I got started on this project.”
Hassan used his financial acumen to get the ball rolling. “We wrote up a business plan,” he said, “and then 10,000 Muslims pitched in with $100 each. Then there were 100 doctors who put in another $10,000 each. That is how we got our couple of million dollars as seed capital, and that is how we more or less got started. My career as a banker helped me write up a plan that was workable. A business plan is something that can work and stand on its own two feet.”
The network now functions as a platform for a Muslim viewpoint in America’s marketplace of ideas. “We refer to Bridges TV as a lifestyle network. News is part of it. We have news bulletins a couple of times in the day for an hour. We also have lifestyle programming that ranges from cartoons for kids to movies to dramas to comedy, travel shows, cooking shows, talk shows and a variety of interfaith programs.”
According to Hassan, Bridges TV is not about opinions. “It is not an editorial-based TV channel. We are more of a platform for other groups who are more knowledgeable about various issues. Having a network like this allows Muslim organizations and civil rights groups to be able to present their perspectives on things ranging from the Danish cartoons to the Pope’s comments or from the Dubai ports issue to Bush’s Islamofascist terminology.”
Hassan says the network fills a necessary niche. “Bridges TV is a very important need in our time,” he said. “It is very historic. For the first time in America, the estimated eight million American Muslims have a voice in the mainstream media. We have been able to present Arab and Muslim points of view, but at the same time we have been very respectful of other people. In any case, we don’t have to put anyone down to present our viewpoint in a positive manner.”
The network president and CEO also notes that it is an American business and embraces traditional American values in terms of diversity and free speech. “Since we are a mainstream American network, it is important that we also have non-Muslim American people on the air because that helps viewers identify with their own and helps us to communicate our viewpoints better,” Hassan said. “There are all kinds of people, and we felt that a lot of time people who have a better understanding of the Muslim world or have a slightly different viewpoint usually don’t end up getting airtime in the corporate American media. On Bridges TV, however, we have been able to provide these people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with airtime and allow them a platform in order to express their views.”
Hassan said beginning an American Muslim network in the post-9/11 era presented a range of challenges. “The climate still remains rather anti-Arab and anti-Muslim and that was the whole reason for a project like this: To really build those bridges at the human level — people-to-people bridges — and try to improve the level of trust and friendship between the peoples of the Abrahamic faiths,” Hassan said. “Our programming is geared to uniting people. Bridges TV allows Americans to learn more about Muslims. Most importantly, we have a cable distribution contract. That is extremely difficult to come by. Unlike other TV stations (referring indirectly to the recently launched Al Jazeera English TV channel, of course) we are considered an American channel, owned and operated by Americans and that kind of gives us credibility with average Americans.” Al Jazeera English does not reach the average American because cable TV companies have so far shied away from carrying it.
The network has given the Muslim community a two-way street. It is not only a place to listen to viewpoints but to debate and listen and learn as well. “There is tension between the Muslim community and the FBI. So we recently had a show in which we did something like a FBI-Muslim town hall meeting. We invited a top FBI official,” Hassan said. “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest civil rights Muslim organizations in the US, hosted the show, and then people from all across the country called in with their questions and issues. It became a direct, live interaction between the Muslim community and the FBI. It gave the FBI an opportunity on national television to listen to our people’s concerns and worries.”
Although Bridges TV does not yet have major network distribution, programming of this type does grab the attention of major broadcasters. “The program was very popular,” he said. “CNN and MSNBC covered the event big time. Some of the American media were hard on the FBI by asking: ‘Why is the FBI doing something like this to Muslims? Why is it not being sensitive to Muslims?’”
Hassan has no agenda beyond letting reason prevail over some highly charged issues. “Just as we feel that the government needs to understand us better, it may also feel that its own message may not be understood by us,” Hassan said. “So we give the opportunity to both sides. And it is up to the viewer to make his or her own choices.”
Hassan also says that going wide and becoming part of a network will expand the reach of Bridges TV. “When we were in the pay-channel model, people had to pay to watch us and so 90 percent of the subscribers of Bridges TV were Muslims. But now since we are moving into the basic cable TV model where the channel will be free, it will be watched by everybody. And so there will be substantial participation from non-Muslims.”
Hassan is now raising the money to take the fledgling network to the next level. “Now we are expanding the network,” he said. “So in order to fund that growth we are in the process of raising $5 million. There are about one million shares of $5 each. We were in Saudi Arabia talking to different people about doing the fund-raising. The minimum investment is $25,000.”
The network expansion will also get the programming to a much larger audience — the American people. He says Americans will find they have much in common with their Muslim brethren. “Most Middle Eastern TV channels are classified as non-English and so they are available only on satellite and for that, people have to pay extra,” Hassan said.
“For all those reasons, an average American has no access to that kind of information. The level of ignorance regarding Muslims and Islam is very high in the United States and it will take a lot of time for non-Muslim Americans to realize that they and their Muslim neighbors share many of the same values — raising families, pursuing careers and finding peace.”
(Muzzammil S. Hassan can be reached at [email protected].)
