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Schleifer: Why did you enter in to that alliance?Īl-Hedeithy: We haven't entered into it formally as yet, but we are still talking about how to implement it. Schleifer: Is there a connection between these Lebanese investors and the alliance you have recently formed with Future?Īl-Hedeithy: Yes, more or less there is a connection. Beyond the ARA group, which owns MBC, there are Lebanese and Kuwaiti business interests.
We have other partners who are not our partners in MBC. Schleifer: Why aren't you calling the all-news channel MBC 2 or even MBC 3?Īl-Hedeithy: Because Al-Arabiya is not owned exclusively by MBC. Schleifer: MBC 2 would seem to me to be an attempt to improve your competitive situation, positioning yourself as a platform alongside those channels offering serious Western entertainment programming, such as Showtime and Orbit. We will launch, in sha' allah, about the same time. Schleifer: When do you expect to launch MBC 2, which is, as I understand it, going to be an English-language movies-plus entertainment channel?Īl-Hedeithy: Correct. We are still considering various options in the US but I can assure you it will definitely be available to viewers in the States. It will be carried by Nilesat, Intersat, Arabsat, and Utelsat.
This is right now what we are working on. Now that we are in the middle of a great interview, what's the name of the new channel?Īl-Hedeithy: Its Al-Arabiya.
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Schleifer: I know from trying to get this out of all your colleagues, quite unsuccessfully, that I am about to touch upon a tightly kept secret, but on the odd chance that TBS's professional standing and my charm has won you over, I'll give it a shot. And I believe there is a need in the market for even more than two all-news Arab satellite channels. People should have a choice, options, like elsewhere in the world.
How is your channel going to different?Īl-Hedeithy: Right now there is only one all-news channel. Schleifer: There already is an all-news Arabic-language satellite channel-Al Jazeera. Schleifer: Lets talk about the new channel, the all-news channel.Īl-Hedeithy: The idea has been in our mind for a long time but after 9/11, and the war against terrorism, and the turmoil in Palestine-all of these regional crises have convinced us there is a need for an all-news channel in Arabic. And more residential facilities are going up in the area. Media City or the government is building middle-income housing nearby most of it is finished and some staff has already moved in.
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Media City is a free zone and everything that applies to a free zone applies here. There is no problem with residence permits, no customs on equipment. We have own facilities and Media City provides their uplink facilities as a fall back for our own facilities. Schleifer: You were promised various facilities like satellite links that weren't yet installed when I visited Media City more or less this same time last year.Īl-Hedeithy: Yes. In London, where they go home and watch BBC and have their home life in England, there was little or no interaction with the viewers and we found out it's healthy to have interaction between the people who produce the programs and the people who view the programs. Because the people who work in the station must get feed back from the viewers, and by that I mean being able to meet at least a significant segment of one's audience in restaurants, cafes, or at universities. And there is a third reason-we wanted to be closer to our audience. It is more economical being in Dubai than London. In Dubai we believe we can enjoy the same freedom and same technical provision that we enjoyed in London.Īl-Hedeithy: Of course, that's the second reason. Things have changed, from both points of view. First of all one reason we went to London in the first place was that there were no facilities in the Middle East back in 1991 to accommodate a pan-Arab channel And I am referring to an environment when I say facilities - both to a technical environment and a political environment. In strictly broadcasting terms, how has it panned out?Īl-Hedeithy: The move was worth it. Schleifer: It's less than a year since you moved to Media City and into this marvelous oasis setting of a facility. Abdallah Schleifer at the channel's Dubai headquarters.
The Director General of MBC spoke with TBS Publisher and Senior Editor S. Al-Hedeithy agreed to make that name available to us in time for this edition. Until we stepped into his office, the name of the new all-news channel that MBC and its investor-partners are about to launch was top secret. From TBS's point of view Ali Al-Hedeithy is not only the CEO who managed an incredible move from London to Dubai and, while still in England, brought down MBC's costs while signing off on "Who Wants to Win a Million," the most popular show in the Arab world.
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