Viewpoint: Al Arabiya as new favorite satellite TV
By Alvin Snyder
Middle East Times
Published April 18, 2006
The latest monthly television ratings in Saudi Arabia by the
independent pollster IPSOS-STAT show Al Arabiya dramatically widening its
lead over Al Jazeera as the number one satellite television news outlet
for the Middle East.
The United States government's choice to give
Al Arabiya an exclusive interview with US Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld could be an effect of the lead increase. At one time, Al Jazeera
was the go-to news outlet for Middle Eastern viewers and the US used the
popular network as a public diplomacy tool. However, it looks as if both
viewers and US officials have found a new favorite.
Audience figures
for March 2006 for Saudi Arabia, the Middle East's largest commercial
market where approximately 70 percent of its advertising dollars are
spent, show Al Arabiya with a 27.3 rating, opening a gap almost double the
audience for Al Jazeera, which has a 16.7 rating. Only a year ago, in
March 2005, Al Jazeera held an almost 10 point audience rating lead over
Al Arabiya (29.5 percent to 20 percent), which went on the air only three
years ago.
The
audience shift began in November 2005, when Al Arabiya bested Al Jazeera
by only a fraction of a percentage point in the ratings for the first time
ever. But by January this year, Al Arabiya had widened the gap to a more
than four-point lead over Al Jazeera, and last month, it more than doubled
that lead.
Jihad
Ali Ballout, Al Arabiya's director of corporate communications, said that
the channel's increased popularity has been enhanced by its morning
family-oriented show, a run of exclusive interviews and controversial
interview topics, such as the role of women.
Some technical information is necessary in
understanding the efficacy of the recent television audience polling.
IPSOS-STAT's
ratings reflect cumulative audience - the number of persons who actually
watched a channel for five minutes or more the day before. The poll,
person-to-person and not by telephone, reflects percentages of the entire
population who watch a channel, in this case Saudi Arabia's 18 million
persons.
Because
a viewer may have watched a channel more than once on the previous day,
and the ratings are cumulative, the percentages for all channels when
added together will exceed 100 percent. A poll reflecting actual viewing
will differ from other surveys, such as an earlier Zogby poll, which asked
respondents to name their favorite channel. And still other polls will
reflect viewing over a seven-day period, whose cumulative viewing would,
of course, be higher than those of a single day. Those polls do not
normally reflect competitive ratings and are often commissioned by a
channel itself.
Monthly polling, and thus trends, is available
in Saudi Arabia because of its interest to commercial sponsors. In other
Middle Eastern countries, viewer surveys are taken usually only once per
year. Even so, in Iraq, the most recent poll showed Al Arabiya leading Al
Jazeera in day-after viewing.
The competitive ranking for Al Jazeera,
especially in Saudi Arabia, is important to its planned English all-news
channel that may debut this summer, after several delays. The channel is
currently seeking commercial sponsorship and distribution from American
cable channels. There is a scarcity of available cable channel space in
the United States, and only those who can demonstrate that they will
attract cable subscribers and increased revenue for distributors will
succeed in getting carriage.
In the Middle East, some believe that the
novelty of Al Jazeera, which was the first to challenge state-run
television channel monopolies in the Middle East, is wearing thin. Others
believe that the channel is at a competitive disadvantage because its news
correspondents have been banned from reporting in Saudi Arabia by its
government, and cannot fairly compete for local viewers with Al Arabiya's
news correspondents who have free reign. Al Arabiya also has freer access
to viewers, who can pick up its signal free-of-charge with existing roof
antennas, whereas Al Jazeera's signal comes in via satellite dishes and
related equipment, which must be purchased.
But the reality is that the competing channels
in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East are but a fraction of the
competitive forces that Al Jazeera International would be subject to in
the United States, with its American idols, well-entrenched broadcast news
networks, cable channels, and more than 1,000-strong, local television
news broadcasts on stations throughout the country.
All this may be
why Al Jazeera International continues to delay its American debut month
after month.
CPD Fellow Alvin Snyder reports on issues
in international broadcasting for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. He
contributed this article to the Middle East Times