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Last month, less a year after its launch in March 2008, BBC Arabic TV started broadcasting 24 hours a day (it previously aired for 12 hours daily). Based in London and with 35 correspondents across the globe, BBC Arabic is now a serious player in the Arabic TV industry, competing with the likes of Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and France 24 Arabic. The channel is already in its second incarnation, and it is making sure it does things differently this time around.
Having first launched in 1994 as a commercial operation in partnership with Orbit Communications Corporation (owned by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Khaled, a cousin of King Fahd), BBC Arabic was on the air for two years before its plug was pulled.
The channel was shut down after the BBC aired an episode of Panorama that was critical of the Saudi Arabian government. It was 1996, the same year Al Jazeera launched, and many ex-BBC Arabic staff joined Al Jazeera, including Hosam El Sokkari, the current head of BBC Arabic services.
Communicate spoke to El Sokkari, who first joined BBC Arabic in 1994, about how the channel is doing as it approaches its first anniversary.
El Sokkari returned to the BBC only a few months after absconding to Al Jazeera and was appointed head of bbcarabic.com in 1999. He says that now that the channel is funded by a grant-in-aid from the British Foreign Office, it no longer faces the constraints it was under with its previous funding operation.

What kind of feedback have you received since BBC Arabic Television was launched in March 2008?
So far the feedback from the market seems really positive. BBC Arabic, since its launch, has covered issues and events in a way that I believe no other competitor has. For us, the coverage of the 2008 American elections was unique; we produced an elaborate explanation of how the election process takes place, we followed the results, and we explained to audiences the complexity of the election process. Also, our coverage of events in Lebanon in general, or key events in Egypt, has been very different and has gotten us quite a lot of favorable responses from our audience.

How does the channel distinguish itself from the competition?
We view ourselves as a news and information channel, and there are a limited number of television channels that offer the same. But we are distinct in many ways. We are not just a TV channel; we are a multimedia operation that includes radio, online and television. Audiences are served on a free platform, and we offer complementary services that you won’t find on one single platform.
One of our key differentiators is that we don’t consider ourselves as party to the events; we do not make the news. We do not have views, we report views. Our success lies in our ability to take a distance and make it possible for various parties to express themselves the way they want, and in our ability to bring detailed facts and comprehensive views.

How have you dealt with censorship after BBC Arabic Television was shut down in 1996?
I don’t know what you mean by censorship. We’ve had occasions – and allow me not to tell you any more specific details – when certain governments have not been comfortable with our coverage. If we feel that views have not been represented, we offer them another opportunity to express them the way they want to express them. If we feel we’ve made a mistake, we apologize.  But I don’t think there’s anything happening that we can qualify as censorship.

Why did it take so long to re-launch after the closure?
Money, of course. When BBC Arabic was launched in 1994, it was a commercial operation signed for by the commercial arm of the BBC and Orbit.
Money is always crucial to maintaining any media operation. After the closure in 1996, we faced a choice about whether to find another partner. But at the time the BBC decided not to repeat the experience. BBC Arabic was adamant about having a TV operation, and was trying to secure public funding. It took quite a long time before the BBC decided [the station] is crucial, and as part of a restructuring initiative, some services were closed down to secure funding for various projects, one of which was BBC Arabic TV. It is currently funded by a grant-in-aid from the Foreign Office.

What sort of audience does BBC Arabic attract?
With BBC Arabic, we are extending the legacy of the same operation that has been in place since 1938. We are currently working on a number of surveys and the initial responses indicate that that we are hitting our target in terms of the kind of audiences we have. The audiences that we see are audiences who are willing to learn what’s happening in the world and understand more about the news and the background, and also contribute.
One thing that sets us apart from our competitors is that we offer our audiences a unique position in our output. We have what is almost a Web site within our site to take people’s views and to allow them to express their views on various topics. We’ve extended that to radio and TV, and we have a multimedia operation in the form of a program called Nuktat Hiwar (Point of debate). There are a large number of people who respond to our call to express their views.
We are a pan-Arab operation, so I wouldn’t be able to say we are more popular in some countries than others.

What plans are in store for the channel?
For the time being, we are consolidating our offers. We are also working on partnerships for online, we are producing a one-minute news bulletin for mobiles, and we’ve signed a deal in Saudi Arabia and are looking for more deals across the Arab world.
Also, we are going to have a deal in the US with a cable company to offer BBC Arabic on cable there. BBC Arabic is not available on the current satellite provision there, although ART has started broadcasting a one-hour daily in the US, in anticipation of launching our 24-hour service on cable.

What are BBC Arabic’s biggest challenges?
I think that the biggest challenge is the changing landscape; the way audiences interact with information tools is challenging. Their expectations are changing because their ability to turn this whole experience into a two-way process is growing. They can now have their own channel if they need information. And access to information is different so no one can have a monopoly, as has been the case in the past. So one of the key challenges is to understand how audiences interact with the media and how audiences use information tools, how these information tools are changing and how much they’re offering our audiences.

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