Tunis, January 28, 2009 – Only a few weeks in the new year, the Report on Arab Satellite Broadcasting 2009 has been launched thursday in Tunis.  Presenting the report to representatives of the Tunisian medias and correspondents of Arab and international press, Slaheddine Maaoui, Director General of the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), indicated that the Rreport is issued by the High Committee for Coordination among Arab Satellite Channels, for which ASBU ensures the Technical Secretariat.

He said that “the report aims at producing a clear and comprehensive picture on how Satellite Broadcasting is developing in the Arab region. It does so mostly through statistical data on the overall number of channels, their categories, broadcasting types, geographical coverage and the languages they use.”

The Report also compares such data with satellite broadcasting developments worldwide, as far as financing, advertising, deontology are concerned, ending up with a critical reading of the situation and suggesting some recommendations.

It shows that the satellite broadcasting sector has been going through major and rapid changes since the mid-nineties. By the end of 2009, there were 398 Arab corporations, either broadcasting their own signal or re-broadcasting programming from other sources. Twenty-six of them are government-owned, while 372 corporations are privately-owned.

All of those corporations broadcast or re-broadcast on their networks 696 channels, using 17 satellites, mostly Arabsat, Nilesat and Noorsat. Among those channels, 97 are owned by Arab governments (49 general content, 48 specialized), while private companies own 599 channels (161 general content, 438 specialized). Fields of specialty in the public ownership are mostly sports (15 channels) and culture and education (13).

In the private sector, the four “giant” owners are: ART (88 channels), SHOWTIME (48), ORBIT (33) and AL-MAJD Company (13).

While all public channels (general and specialized) are open to air, 144 out of 294 privately-owned, specialized ones chose pay TV. Music and entertainment top the list of specialized TV (115, or 23.4 %), drama comes second (75), followed by sports (56) and news (34).

Satellite broadcasting mainly covers the Arab region and extended parts of Europe. Geographical coverage is quickly expanding to include more and more area in America, Asia, Africa and even Oceania. To achieve such a goal, channels mostly resort to the Arab Unified Bouquet, initiated by ASBU and carried by OPTUS 3, Telestar, Asiasat, NSS and Hotbird.

As expected, most of the broadcasting uses the Arabic language, either fully or partly. Still, 20 % or 142 of all channels use English, distantly followed by French (14) and Hindu (14). Imazighen (4), Spanish (3), Hebrew (2), Farsi (2), Malay (1) and Urdu (1) are also used.

Several foreign broadcasters also target the Arab region. They use Arabic-language programming and include BBC Arabic, France 24, Germany’s DW, Italian RAI, to name a few.