JEDDAH: Claims and counterclaims abounded as two leading religious channels competed for a large share in the Saudi market during this Ramadan season. Both Al-Resalah channel and the Iqraa channel are hoping to become more visible at Saudi homes with select programs for this Ramadan.
Al-Resalah is registered in Kuwait and beams programs produced from various production teams. Iqraa, registered in Cairo, has production centers in Jeddah and Cairo and is part of the ART group. Both host a bevy of scholars to spread the message, sometimes the same scholars appearing in the rival channels.
Ironically, the competition between the two TV stations became all the more evident when they simultaneously held press conferences on Sunday to promote their fare for this Ramadan season.
Al-Resalah, which is hoping to attract more viewers in Saudi Arabia this year, was the first to project their season’s vision at the InterContinental Hotel with the station’s manager, Tariq Al-Suwaidan, saying that the channel is targeting 18 million in the Kingdom.
Responding to a query, Al-Suwaidan said the channel was not gaining ground because of the music that precedes every program.
“We would rather focus on the people who do not mind music that appears on our channel rather than focusing on the two million who do not approve of the music,” Al-Suwaidan said, adding that the channel was very popular.
“We are among the top religious channels in the Arab world but we still are second when it comes to the Kingdom,” Al-Suwaidan said while providing a survey to support his claim.
Thousands of respondents were surveyed and asked questions about the scholars appearing on the channel, the content, the presentation and the décor used in the programs.
Al-Resalah’s press conference was well attended with presence of no less than 10 women reporters.
But at the Iqraa press conference, at the Hyatt Park Hotel, only two women reporters were present and this caused some confusion because the organizing team was not prepared for women reporters. The two reporters were taken to a room away from the main conference and a makeshift partition was made with two chairs in it.
That the two channels were targeting the Saudi audience was evident from the number of Saudi scholars they had lined up for the season.
Al-Resalah has about 10 Saudi scholars.
“The Saudi audience is a difficult one … if we succeed here then we would be able to succeed elsewhere.”
Iqraa, meanwhile, has lined up six Saudi scholars.
The competition between the two channels was obvious in the statistics they provided, both claiming to lead the list of religious channels. Al-Resalah claimed to top the list of religious channels in the Arab world and ranked the second only to the popular Al-Majd TV in the Kingdom.
But Iqraa General Manager Mohammad Salam claimed that his channel topped the religious channels and is 12th among all Arabic channels. There are over 500 Arabic channels from 16 different Arab countries. This statistics, he said, is accurate as it comes from Arab States Broadcasting Union.
The channel that tops all religious channels in the Kingdom is Al-Majd TV, a Saudi-based station. Al-Majd is a conservative channel that uses audio effects that is free of music. There are no women on the channel.
