Washington, Sept 14 (ANI): Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and American media mogul Rupert Murdoch would reportedly work together on launching a new Arabic-language 24-hour news channel called Alarab in 2012, which will feature five hours a day of Bloomberg-branded financial and economic programming.
The channel, like most other major ones in the region, will be aimed at Saudi Arabia - the largest and most lucrative advertising market. But it will not be based there.
"Saudi Arabian laws do not allow for independent news channels. So far, we have managed to secure licenses for radio, but not for television," Politico quoted Jamal Khashoggi, the well-known Saudi journalist tapped to lead the channel, as saying. nstead, the channel is weighing various nearby cities for its headquarters, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama and Beirut.
Alarab enters a cluttered Pan-Arab satellite television market, but one without much of a business news presence. The channel's main competitor would reportedly be Al Arabiya, the news channel owned by the Saudi-backed MBC Group, which has its headquarters in Dubai and has midday business coverage focused on the Saudi stock market.
he prince has been planning the channel for a while. Last summer, it was reported that he planned to launch a 24-hour news channel, led by Khashoggi, in partnership with Fox.hashoggi says this report was incorrect.
"Last year, we did not specify any partner. We just announced that we had plans to start a news channel. Many reporters assumed that it has to be Fox Arabia, considering that he [Prince Alwaleed]is a major shareholder in News Corp., but we immediately denied that. It's going to be totally independent, totally owned by Alwaleed bin Talal," he added. (ANI)
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