During the 1990s, the Middle East has experienced an explosion of growth in new media services, especially those delivered by satellite. The Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), Orbit, Arab Radio and Television (ART), Emirates Dubai TV, and Egypt's Spacenet have all become well-known entities in the region (Bulloch 1995). Most …

The Middle East has no fewer than four competing digital television platforms fighting for viewer loyalty: ART/1st NET, Orbit, Star Select, and Gulf DTH/Showtime. Four years ago there was no subscription TV. The few direct-to-home (DTH) satellite channels were all free-to-air and offered little threat to the monopoly state-run national …

The Arab League's headquarters in Cairo lie just a few hundred meters away from the city's statue of Simon Bolivar. The two represent monuments to desires for regional autonomy and unity—desires that time has proved easier to conceptualize than to implement. Yet a half century after the founding of the …

By TBS Senior Editor S. Abdallah Schleifer It's so easy to be overwhelmed by the impact of television, particularly in this decade of digital multichannel satellite platforms and particularly in an Arab world, where reading as a serious engagement beyond the newspaper and the weeklies seems to be approaching some …

London, July 1998 TBS: MBC has acknowledged that it is preparing to lay off or buy back contracts of more than one hundred redundant employees. What is the reason for this move and will this reduce the effectiveness of MBC news and public affairs programming, which is acknowledged as an MBC …

Rome, July 1998 TBS: There's been a lot of talk that Orbit is moving out of Rome. Is this true? Alexander Zilo: We are not moving out of Rome, we are focusing on decentralizing portions of our business, what we're calling the Arabization of Orbit. Over the last five years we've encountered …

Extract from a thesis submitted to the Journalism and Mass Communication Department, The American University in Cairo, June 1998 Introduction When Marshall McLuhan spoke of the global village, he clearly had the web of electronic networks that encircle the world in mind. Certainly, instant communication on a world- wide basis …

TBS: If you were able to start all over again, after your ventures into radio and television as a partner in the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), and your opening of specialty channels on Arab Radio and Television (ART), and seeking a satellite code for the region, and broadcasting a variety …